To play or not to play ...

Never before has Port Adelaide been stopped during a football season. It has played on - and won three flags while playing in all six grand finals - during the war years. It endured the lynch mob - and won the premiership - during the stormy winter of 1990 when the club was threatened with explusion from the SANFL.

But Season 2020 - the 150th anniversary of the Port Adelaide Football Club - poses a challenge never before encountered. The COVID-19 "enemy" is silent and invisible, a predator that has taken far more than football away from us.

The Australian Football League's commitment - "find a way" - to have the premiership won from a 17-round home-and-away season (with the 18 teams playing each of their rivals once) creates a debate with compelling arguments on each side of the floor.

To play or not to play ...

The AFL's decision to start the 2020 premiership season three weeks ago was not short of conflicting views, particularly at a time when the Australian public was being urged to take up "social distancing". The fact the first nine of 153 games were played across Australia - from Gold Coast (with Port Adelaide) to Perth - without any player or official developing symptoms nor returning a positive test for the coronavirus - is a tribute to the planning and professionalism of the clubs' medical units.

More good management than just good luck, some would note.

Again, there is no right or wrong case in this "unprecedented" debate. However, there is a need for every decision made - even the prospect of AFL squads returning to training in early May - needing to come with the approval of the medical experts.

And then there is the concept of isolation hubs, splitting the 18-teams into groups - perhaps three of six - to cram in AFL games, still behind locked gates. The consequences of such an ambitious plan going wrong make the fall-out to a medical crew that a player returns "early" from a hamstring strain so irrelevant. No wonder opinions are so divided.

It is not as simple as saying, "We need football to have some 'normalcy' in these times ..."

Australian Football Hall of Famer Terry Wallace made this thoughtful note on social media last week: "I'm so sad that footy is gone at the moment and disappointed I cannot do my job commentating on the game. Honestly, I'm equally happy that I don't have to discuss it.

"How can ex-footballers actually comment on what is okay with bringing footy back. Safety is beyond their knowledge."

Footballers always have been known for sensing they are "indestructible". The game they play, the toughest in the world, demands they care little for risk. Showing fear is a sign of weakness.

So, to play or not to play?

More than a century ago (114 years to be precise), South Australian football was caught in a similar debate. In Perth, the West Australian Football League continued through World War I. In Melbourne, so did the VFL - albeit with just four clubs (rather than nine) in 1916: Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond and Fitzroy.

The SA Football League put a halt to football, accepting the theme that young men were to devote themselves to the war effort not games.

Port Adelaide, not for the first nor last time, put itself at odds with the game's rulers. The club argued Australian football could serve as a morale booster during the anxious times of war - and games would raise funds for the war effort and to aid the soldiers, particularly the wounded.

Port Adelaide Football Club secretary C. V. Tyler emerged as one of the strongest advocates for the "SA Patriotic Football Association". At the Globe Hotel at Port Adelaide on Monday, March 27, 1916, Tyler declared he was taking up the case for a "large number of A and B grade players (who) wished to play" during the war years.

And there was the public to consider as well, the meeting was told by fellow club administrator F. F. Ward: "They had a right to be considered ... and if they had been consulted by the (SAFL) they would certainly have declared in favour of continuing football (that) was undoubtedly their favourite past-time and was preferable to picture shows and horse racing."

Port Adelaide was in the rebel league, as the "Port Adelaide United Patriotic Football Club".

"Considering the abandonment of football for the coming season by the SA Football League, a new team (will) be formed in Port Adelaide to represent that district - and we (will) get into communication with other districts to also form new teams (for) a new league and that we favour all profits being devoted to the patriotic fund."

Fellow SAFL clubs North Adelaide, Norwood, West Adelaide and West Torrens joined Port Adelaide. The South Adelaide and Sturt football clubs declined, but had many of their players walk to other teams (in particular West Adelaide). SA Railways started the season in mid-May, but did not make it beyond mid-June (allowing Port Adelaide to regain some of its players, including the much-heralded Harold Oliver who had captained the Railways line-up).

Finding venues for the matches was challenging, forcing many matches back to SA football's cradle in the city parklands. Norwood Oval was off limits by council order - as was Alberton Oval, forcing Port Adelaide to play at Swansea Oval at Largs Bay until the Port Adelaide council changed its mind in June. Four matches ultimately were played at Alberton Oval in 1916, including a semi-final.

Adelaide Oval was released by the SA Cricket Association just once, as part of the Australia Day celebrations in late July 1916. The SACA declined to have the final hosted in the city, after the semi-finals had been played at Hindmarsh Oval (Port Adelaide beating West Adelaide) and Alberton Oval (West Torrens defeating North Adelaide while it carried the name of "Prospect").

Port Adelaide claimed the first "patriotic premiership" in 1916 by beating West Torrens by 34 points in the final at Hindmarsh Oval (now Hindmarsh Stadium) on August 19 - 7.11 (53) to 1.13 (19).

Port Adelaide successfully defended the title in 1917, beating West Torrens again in the final - this time by 16 points at Alberton Oval, 10.12 (72) to 8.8 (56).

West Torrens finally claimed the crown in the final patriotic season in 1918 - and then partnered Port Adelaide through three seasons during World War II when attitudes on football during war years changed considerably. By the second world conflict, the Commonwealth government was insisting on sport be played to maintain public morale.

By 1919, with the world at peace, Port Adelaide's off-field leaders had made their point to the SA Football League - and with a bitter exit salvo from at Alberton spoken by Patriotic Association chairman F F Ward, who was appropriately honoured with life membership at the Port Adelaide Football Club in 1927.

"The Patriotic Association has been bitterly attacked by some of the league delegates for not disbanding at the end of the war as indicated. The reason of this is obviously that they were afraid they would lose their positions, as they deserved to do. They ceased playing on account of their financial position and for that reason only.

"The men who ran the Patriotic Association were equally patriotic and not a single individual was prevented from enlisting; as a matter of fact, many joined the colours while the games were in progress."

Some themes do seem to find a new life in the Port Adelaide Football Club's story.

To read more of Port Adelaide's defining moments off the field - in particular during the 1990s with the battle to win an AFL licence - order the Archives Collection.

The limited-edition Archives Collection gives members and supporters rare insight into the club's storied history, as the Port Adelaide Football Club history committee, along with key staff, have worked tirelessly to capture the club's rich history.

The collection gives never before seen access to the moments in time that made Port Adelaide Australia's most-decorated football club. It includes rare photographs, profiles of star players from the club’s 150-year history, and unseen lift out memorabilia including replica player medals, premiership cards, Fos Williams’ coaching notes and so much more.

All of Port Adelaide's True Believers can also be a part of this incredible piece of the club's history, with a special section within the book dedicated to the passionate supporters that have shared the club's journey from the wharves of Port Adelaide to the national stage.

For a limited time upload a photo to be featured in this special section, making the collection the perfect gift to commemorate the club's special place in your life.

Click here to secure your piece of Port Adelaide history.

 

TAKE IT TO THE BANK

Five things we have learned in the past week

1.

Nostalgia is king. With the game of Australian football at a standstill until at least June 1 during the COVID pandemic, there is just the past to visit and revisit - quite an appropriate theme in the Port Adelaide Football Club's 150th anniversary year.

Port Adelaide fans have certainly shown their eagerness to be immersed in the club's history with their extraordinary backing of the Archives Collection. Pre-sales of the limited-edition book are beyond 1000, surpassing the orders taken for similar commemorative books produced by English Premier League giants Liverpool and Arsenal and AFL counterparts Collingwood, Essendon, Carlton, Melbourne and Richmond.

As we rediscover so many of the simple pleasures during these difficult times, reading is clearly in vogue.

2.

At a time when the "do we play, don't we play" debate is being challenged as to whether games of Australian football would send the "right message" to the community, the Easter weekend's "Stay Home" campaign by the AFL and all 18 league clubs certainly answered how the big league takes its social responsibilities. #flattenthecurve

3.

Isolation hubs were in the news with NT football leaders eagerly offering Darwin as a safe haven. The prospect of the 18 AFL teams being split up into three groups presents the image of the league setting up a "World Cup" competition with quick-fire round-robin matches. Now which rival would you most want - and least want - in Port Adelaide's group?

4.

Second-year Port Adelaide wingman Xavier Duursma is learning he needs 2.2 pounds to make a kilogram while working with old, rusty imperial weights borrowed from a local school near his Victorian hideaway to maintain his fitness while away from the Allan Scott Power Headquarters at Alberton.

5.

Premiership defender Darryl Wakelin has Brian Cunningham, who was the club's chief executive during the 2004 AFL flag triumph, to thank for clearing away a $5000 fine collected from the AFL tribunal for attempting to strike Brisbane full forward Alastair Lynch in the 2004 grand final. The question remains, did Lynch - who retired after his tribunal hearings - ever pay his $15,000 of fines for his hits on Wakelin?

NEXT

It was to have been Saturday afternoon at the MCG - against Collingwood. That is how the Port Adelaide AFL story began in 1997 ... a Saturday afternoon at the G against Collingwood.