BRIAN LUKE knows his coach Fos Williams took every game at Port Adelaide to heart. It was an attitude that rebuilt the soul of the Port Adelaide Football Club in the SANFL from 1950.

In the VFL, the mirror image was Norm Smith at Melbourne. He too was not taking any game at any time as a gimmick.

So when the oldest club in Australian football came to Adelaide in 1955 to play the longest-competing club in SA league football, neither Williams nor Smith would have it as anything other than a play-off for national glory.

"It won't be an exhibition game," declared Melbourne Football Club secretary Jim Cardwell. "We are proud of our club record and we want to be able to go back to Victoria unbeaten."

The Age newspaper in Melbourne dubbed the Wednesday night contest between VFL and SANFL premiers as the "unofficial Champions of Australia" final - an event not known since the days before World War I when Port Adelaide was unbeaten in four finals against Victorian champions.

"Fos," recalls 87-year-old Luke, a four-time SANFL premiership hero from the Golden Era of the 1950s and 1960s, "saw these games as a statement on the strength and quality of South Australian football.

"He always thought Port Adelaide could play in the VFL. And we repeatedly stood up against VFL teams in that era. 

"As players, we saw nothing out of the normal in playing the VFL teams. They did not hold fear over us.

"I am sure our supporters wanted to say it, but it was a different time to today ... there was more decorum ..."

That was the social media-free 1950s, four decades before club president Bruce Weber - exactly 35 years ago - stood before the faithful at Alberton to declare Williams' vision would be lived with the Port Adelaide Football Club holding a licence to play in the expanded VFL in 1991.

The convoluted path to a national Australian football competition was most probably cast 70 years ago during that week across two nights at Norwood Oval. The framework for a national competition was starting to take shape. There was quick air travel rather than long train journeys between major cities. Four Melbourne premiership players opted to fly to Adelaide on the day of that battle for national bragging rights.

Football could be now played under reliable lights. "It was a novelty; I think we were at the start of seeing if we could indeed play football under electric light," recalls Luke, then a member of the senior colts team awaiting his SANFL league debut at Port Adelaide in 1958.

That week in 1955, a collective of 200 VFL players in Melbourne applied for trade union status of their association, the forerunner of today's AFL Players' Association.
Television - the final part of the puzzle to put football on a national path - was a year away with the Melbourne Olympic Games driving the technological change to a game stuck within state borders.

The big debate was - as famed Adelaide football journalist Lawrie Jervis noted - "the long-standing question on the goal difference between the top football teams in the VFL and SANFL".

Port Adelaide had overwhelmed its traditional rival Norwood - with Williams being unquestionably best-afield in the grand final - by 63 points at Adelaide Oval to claim the SANFL title for the second consecutive year in a run that went for six flags.

In a similar script, Melbourne had beaten the nemesis Collingwood at the MCG for the VFL title and Smith took note of the Port Adelaide jumper on arriving in Adelaide by saying: "You know the black-and-white guernsey back home is a red rag to a bull where we are concerned."

Port Adelaide was playing a VFL champion for the second time in four years with Williams wanting to prove a point. In 1951, amid jibes his team would not come within 10 goals of Geelong, Port Adelaide pushed the VFL titleholders to the limit at Adelaide Oval - losing 6.18 (54) to 8.14 (62).

The same theme - or insult, as it was at Alberton - was revived for this game with a senior Port Adelaide official telling The Advertiser: "This is typical of the smugness of Victorian football. Geelong, when premier a few years ago, thought it would do much the same to us at Adelaide Oval and came very close to being beaten. We will see just how good this Melbourne side is when we meet."

There was no "exhibition" theme at selection table at either club.

At Port Adelaide, Williams had debated before the SANFL grand final between Roger Clift and Alan Greer. This time he chose Greer and kept the other premiership 19 after testing centre half-back Marx Kretschmer (ankle).

Smith held 16 of his grand final line-up, including wingman Frank "Bluey" Adams who was concussed seven seconds after taking the field from the reserves bench at the G. He kicked the winning behind with 15 seconds to play.

The public had declared its want for more than suburban battles in the SANFL. The fences and turnstiles at Norwood Oval were pulled down or jumped by as many as 5000 fans while the four policemen assigned to the game waited for reinforcements. The official crowd was listed at 16,400 (with £2760 in gatetakings with 45 per cent handed to Melbourne) but 23,000 were at the ground seeing Williams inspire a Port Adelaide comeback after Melbourne had taken a 21-point lead in the second term.

(Only 8000 went to Norwood Oval for the SA-Collingwood game).

Port Adelaide had, according to Jervis, "largely resolved" the measure between the best of the VFL and SANFL. It took 42 years for Port Adelaide do such on a weekly basis.

Smith left The Parade noting "Port Adelaide is a really good side and the standard of football over here is a lot higher than I was led to believe. Tonight's game was far better than the average home-and-away game in Melbourne. The pace was terrific. It was a wonderful match to watch and we are a bit lucky to get a win."

The seed for a national competition was germinating.

Port Adelaide proved an SANFL club could stand up to VFL rivals; and six days later an SANFL composite team thrashed Collingwood by 47 points. The VFL was on notice.

In 1982, when Port Adelaide chief Bob McLean was part of the SANFL delegation seeking an SANFL entry to the VFL, these results echoed. The VFL clubs could accept an SANFL club but not a pseudo South Australian State team.

Seventy years on from that defining night game at Norwood Oval - and 35 years after Weber picked up the baton left by Williams for Port Adelaide to be on a bigger stage - Port Adelaide and Melbourne will meet for the 42nd time in AFL company. Port Adelaide leads 24-17.