ON 31 August 1995, Port Adelaide started - at least in looks - a new chapter of its long and storied history.
In front of a packed Adelaide Entertainment Centre, club president Greg Boulton launched the new brand for the Port Adelaide Football Club in the AFL.
The background
- In 1990, Port Adelaide had bid to enter the AFL, but was thwarted by court action brought about by the other SANFL clubs. Instead, it was replaced by a franchise known as the Adelaide Crows.
- Port Adelaide set itself for a second bid to enter the national competition, which was confirmed in 1994.
- Since 1902, Port Adelaide had been nicknamed the Magpies and worn a guernsey which bore black and white stripes in what was known informally as a 'wharf pylon', 'picket fence' or 'prison bar' design. Because the Collingwood also shared the same nickname and colours, Port Adelaide was required to alter its brand so as to avoid a clash with the Victorian Magpies.
No animals, and reflect the heritage of Port Adelaide
The new AFL brand for Port Adelaide needed to feel familiar enough to show where the club had come from - some 125 years of unmatched success in the SANFL - and provide a distinctive and exciting future.
Replacement animals were considered, as had been done in 1990 when the potential need to change its nickname to avoid the Collingwood clash was also floated; ultimately, they were seen as no fair or genuine replacement for the Magpie.
As for colours, they needed to be striking and unique.
So it was decided that Port Adelaide would adopt the nickname 'Power' and as an extension of that the alliterative 'Port Power'.
"Our name will always be Port Adelaide Football Club, but we'll have a new nickname," Mr Boulton explained on the night.
"We wanted to be sure that we couldn't duplicate the Magpie, we didn't want some animal or some bird to take its place.
"So, a lot of thought [went into the brand], we wanted it to reflect our on-field, hard-hitting desire."
The new look
And there it was. As Midnight Oil's 'Power and the Passion' blared through the speakers at the Ent Centre and on televisions tuned to Channel 7 that night, supporters were treated to a spectacular (for the time) laser show displaying the club's new AFL logo.
The new colours? Well, of course there was black and white, but now there was also silver and teal.
And fans didn't need to wait too long for the 1995 playing group - including names like eventual Freo full forward Clive Waterhouse - to burst through in the club's three, distinctive guernseys.
You know them - the first 'away' strip with white and teal lighting flashes, the 'home' jumper first worn against Essendon at football park, and the pre-season guernsey featuring a big white lightning bolt through the middle.
Keeping in mind, these were just mockups done for the launch, and it wasn't until 1997 that we would see them in action.
Originally, the famous white number panel was only preserved on the 'home' jumper
The 'away' jumper - first worn at the MCG against Collingwood in 1997 - had an all-black back similar to the Power's home guernsey today.
And as for the pre-season guernsey? Well we've never seen anything like the back of that one...
How times have changed...
