THE team that won the 1977 SANFL premiership has been inducted into the Port Adelaide Football Club Hall of Fame. 

The drought-breaking group become just the fourth team to be elevated into Port Adelaide’s Hall of Fame, with the announcement made on Friday night at the club’s Season Launch and Hall of Fame event at Adelaide Oval. 

The honour was accepted on behalf of the side by then coach John Cahill, vice-captain Brian Cunningham and three-goal hero Ivan Eckermann.

For Cahill it was a significant personal achievement as the first of his ten premierships as coach.

“It meant a lot (especially after) 12 years without a premiership,” he remarked. “But I had a wonderful group of players – it’s the players that win it – and I had a wonderful team, very talented.

“If I look back, I enjoyed every minute. Every training session, it was just wonderful to be with the players.

“To be associated with a group of players like this is something you remember for the rest of your life.”

Cunningham spoke of the four players who had passed since 77 – captain Russell Ebert, David Granger, Bruce Light and Randall Gerlach, and said while it was a celebration those players would not be forgotten.

He recalled the brutality of the contest against Glenelg all those years ago.

“It was one of the toughest games we ever played. Glenelg were good. They kept coming back. It was a really brutal game – not just the injuries sustained but the way players committed to the body.

“We were flat out. I have never been as exhausted as I was at the end of that game.”

Port Adelaide had endured a 12-year premiership drought going into the 1977 season including a heartbreaking Grand Final loss a year earlier – one of six Grand Final losses in that period.

The club had been a firm favourite to claim the 1976 premiership after a dominant season, but fell badly to Sturt in the Grand Final. 

Things were different in 1977. After two years of playing home games at Adelaide Oval due to a dispute with the local council, Port Adelaide returned home to Alberton for the SANFL’s centenary season. 

Led by captain Russell Ebert, Port Adelaide would finish as minor premier for the second straight year and earn a berth in the Grand Final, this time against Glenelg. 

The Magpies had won three of the four meetings between the sides that season including in the Second Semi-Final two weeks earlier and things did not look promising when the Bays jumped to an early three goal lead. 

The bruising encounter saw Port wingman Bruce Light reported in the first quarter and an all-in brawl in the half-time break, while forward Tim Evans and wingman Kym Kinnear had head injuries to compound leg injuries to teammates Darrell Cahill and Ivan Eckermann. 

Evans and Eckermann battled on heroically to boot 10 goals between them – seven to Evans alone. 

Glenelg kicked three late goals to cut a 26-point lead to just eight at the final siren, but Port Adelaide would claim one its most significant victories ever. 

Former club captain Tim Ginever was at the game as an 11-year-old. 

“We'd all seen the horror of 1976 when we should have won,” he recalled, “and I think that's where the basis of 77 starts.  

“The minute that game finished, I reckon was the moment that Port Adelaide put a flag in the ground and said, ‘No, never again’. 

“When the final siren went, I've never experienced the joy in amongst so many people. And it was phenomenal.  

“It was so significant for the club. It broke a drought. But what it did was trigger almost a tsunami of premierships from that moment onwards. We win 11 from 77 through to 97 when we go into the AFL, it's a staggering number.  

“77 gave the confidence to that group to go on and win their premierships of 79, 80 and 81 (and) it inspired the next generation that won 88 to 99, so it was a really significant premiership that led to so many other premierships.” 

Former Port Adelaide player Greg Anderson, who later won a Magarey Medal playing for the club, was 11 at the time and as a die-hard supporter got to the ground at 5am to ensure he got a good viewing position on the fence. 

It was the first premiership he had witnessed, having endured the heartbreak of a year earlier, and he was among the huge crowd that swarmed around Ebert when he held the premiership trophy aloft in one of the most iconic images in Port Adelaide history. 

“I look at that 77 the premiership photo, and I reckon I can pick myself out. I know where I was, right in that top left-hand corner,” Anderson said. 

“That was one of the great memories of my sporting life. 

“It was just such a great moment in watching sport and being part of the Port Adelaide community. 

“77 put us back on the map. It ricocheted us really into the SANFL as one of the great, great clubs.” 

1977 SANFL Premiership Team 

Senior Coach  
John Cahill 

Captain  
Russell Ebert 

Port Adelaide 17.11 (113) defeated Glenelg 16.9 (105) 
Football Park, Sept 24. Crowd: 56,717 
Umpires: P Mead, R Bennett 
Best: B Cunningham, R Ebert, B Light, M James, T Evans 
Goals: T Evans 7, I Eckermann 3, D Granger, B Cunningham 2, G Blethyn, T Sorrell, M James 1 
 
Port Adelaide team 
FB: T Hannan, G Phillips, R Gerlach 
HB: L Warren, P Woite, I Eckermann 
C: B Light, R Ebert (C), K Kinnear 
HF: T Sorrell, D Granger, A Porplycia 
FF: P Belton, T Evans, D Cahill 
Ruck: J Spry, M James, B Cunningham 
Reserves: T Giles, G Blethyn