Lights, cameras, action .... the greatest game on Earth is back on television.

The players are being primed, after their second "pre-season".

The umpires - how could we ever forget the match officials? - are ready to process split-second decisions in a game that strangely brings the comment: "That (free kick) could have gone either way". 

The television and radio commentators, who make such statements, are going into "bunkers" to call games off the screen in a studio rather than through their binoculars in those elevated media boxes at AFL venues.

The playing fields from Perth to Brisbane have never looked so good in late May.

And then there are the fans ....

Footy's back, from Thursday, June 11 after a 81-day break from the end of round 1 in Perth where West Coast beat Melbourne to the restart with round 2 in Melbourne with Collingwood facing AFL premier Richmond in what once was defined as a "blockbuster" because it would fill most of the MCG's 100,000 seats.

However, once again the fans will be missing by the restrictions imposed on public gatherings to deal with the health threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The game lives in hope that at some stage in the next 144-game run to the AFL finals the gates might re-open.

But if the lock-outs - for public safety - remain, the game will be given another reminder of how just important the "true believers" are to every football club. At Port Adelaide, the power of the fans - in particular the membership base that is such a vital part of the club's soul - can never be under-estimated. It did not take a world crisis for the supporters to be truly appreciated at Alberton, particularly when the lessons from the dark hours of 2008-2010 remain vivid.

What does four-time Magarey Medallist Russell Ebert always say of the messages the devoted fans delivered week after week to the Port Adelaide players, particularly on weekends in the post-match at the social club in the RB Quinn MM Stand at Alberton?

"It was the greatest reality check," says Ebert, the club's record holder for games played at Port Adelaide (391, 1968-1985).

"Whether you played at home or away, you were expected to return to Alberton to face the fans. If you won, they would pat you on the back but also set a challenge to do better next week. It was their way to keep you in the real world by reminding you there was still more to be done.

"And if you lost ... well, didn't they tell you!

"The fans are incredibly important to Port Adelaide. That was made clear to you as a player, particularly with Fos Williams who used them as a weapon. At three quarter-time, Fos would be reminding us that we had to face our supporters after the match - and how they lived their lives through us; they wanted to go home as winners.

"As soon as you got upstairs to the social club at Alberton, the faces of the supporters were all shaped by the result of the game. So was what they told you. And we knew that their week also was determined by our results on the football field.

"You cannot get a stronger reminder of why winning is so important to the Port Adelaide supporters."

How does nine-time premiership winner Geof Motley recall the motivation he and his team-mates kept finding to achieve unrivalled success in the 1950s and 1960s when Port Adelaide became the team so many football followers wanted to see beaten?

"It was always a tribute to our people at Port Adelaide," Motley says. "A reward for our loyal fans who were there not just for the good times, but also when we were beaten ... encouraging us to win again.

"Their loyalty was never in question. As players we knew we only had those faithful Port Adelaide people in our corner - and we could not let them down because they were always there by our side.

"Game after game, grand final after grand final in the 1950s we knew football was clearly divided in South Australia. We would go to games to find on the terraces non-Port Adelaide people with no interest in the team we were playing; they were simply there wanting to see us lose.

"There was a clear divide. Those who were Port Adelaide - and those who hated Port Adelaide."

How did Fos Williams - the architect of turning that hatred towards Port Adelaide into a powerful positive force - remember the "them versus us" theme that played out on the terraces of South Australian football grounds during the club's "Golden Era" in the 1950s and 1960s?

"When we lost the 1964 (SANFL) grand final (to South Adelaide), our first loss in 10 grand finals, I left Adelaide Oval knowing how much people wanted to beat us and how much they enjoyed seeing us lose ... they enjoyed this more than their own (teams') victory," Williams said.

In more recent times, the winter of change in SA football in 1990 - when Port Adelaide signed to join the expanding VFL-AFL national competition - put the "them versus us" divide at its deepest. For 1990 premiership ruckman David Hynes, there is no doubting the power of the club's loyal fans to support the players while they were subject to seemingly endless barbs from rival supporter bases.

"We had a great culture (to stay strong) during that period - and it all was built from how the club stood up in earlier eras," Hynes said. "It really was 'us against them' while the whole of the State was up in arms because Port Adelaide wanted to be part of the AFL in 1990.

"That year highlighted so much about Port Adelaide, particularly for the club's fans. You are a Port Adelaide supporter - or far from it. Fortunately, we had a reasonable amount of people who supported the club.

"By the time the whole State had turned on us - and the other nine SANFL clubs, we weren't the biggest club in any fight any more. But when Port Adelaide is cast as the 'underdog', that is when we find our feet and find a way to win.

"We didn't become weaker under that pressure; we turned all that was against us into extra motivation to win that 1990 premiership."

Who will forget the power of the Port Adelaide fans who marched to Football Park for the 1994 SANFL grand final to leave no doubt with AFL chief executive Ross Oakley as to how the second SA-based AFL licence was to be assigned to a traditional club with a strongly established supporter base? The "strength in numbers" case with Port Adelaide was clearly made that afternoon when John Cahill delivered the club's 32nd SANFL league premiership - and fifth in seven seasons.

The Port Adelaide faithful who made up the bulk of the 40,598 at Football Park on October 2, 1994 justified all Oakley had told the SANFL community in a critical meeting in Adelaide months earlier.

“In front of a rather hostile meeting of the SANFL clubs (at the Stamford Hotel on North Tce), I explained that a ‘traditional' club with an established supporter base had to be the second club as it would be too hard to build support for another composite club,” Oakley recalled.

This was Port Adelaide.

So much of Port Adelaide's 150-year story is built on the passion and commitment of the fans. The club had the biggest membership base in South Australia's first year of organised football (1877).

Football's biggest crowd at Adelaide Oval remains from the 1965 SANFL grand final - Port Adelaide v Sturt - with 62,543 watching the three-point thriller that gave the Port Adelaide Football Club more league premierships than any rival club.

Football's biggest gathering at any venue remains from the rematch between Port Adelaide and Sturt for the 1976 SANFL grand final at Football Park - officially, 66,897; unofficially, 80,000 while the SANFL kept opening gates after police shut them and the overflow spilled onto the boundary at West Lakes.

In the grand era of SANFL football from the 1950s-early 1980s, Port Adelaide repeatedly had the largest supporter group, strongest membership count and the best averages for weekly attendances in suburbia.

Since entering the national AFL competition in 1997, Port Adelaide has had 8,315,232 fans file through the turnstiles at Adelaide Oval and Football Park for the club's 253 home games and 12 finals (for an average of 31,378 during heady and testing days, as always remembered with the tarps at West Lakes).

And this year - for the first time in the club's history - there might be none; certainly zero in the SANFL.

When the fans have played such an integral part of the Australian football experience - let alone the Port Adelaide culture - the test for the players in empty stadiums adds to the challenge of winning week after week.

Port Adelaide vice-captain Hamish Hartlett described the empty Metricon Stadium from the club's opening AFL game on March 21 as "a bizarre feeling".

"It felt like playing a trial game,"  Hartlett said. "As players, our motivation was to win - and we embrace that challenge week after week whether there is one person at the game or 50,000."

One of life's well-worn pieces of philosophy is to note "you never know what you have until it is gone". A culture shock awaits in the return to Adelaide Oval without the fans. For the first time since 2014, the true believers will not be there to stand in harmony during the "Never Tear Us Apart" ritual before the first bounce.

In Port Adelaide's 150-year story, particularly in the Williams era, the theme was always to appreciate the power of the club's fans. In their forced absence in 2020, there will be only greater appreciation of the faithful.

Footy's back ... but the greatest joy awaits with the fans coming back. 

TAKE IT TO THE BANK

(Five things we learned this week)

1) AFL executive Travis Auld has the toughest - and most-frustrating - job in Australian football. His task of delivering a new fixture would compare to: Being handed a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle - but not the box cover showing the full image to the puzzle. And when Auld has this mystery package all complete and ready to show, someone bumps the table to send it all to pieces again. This week should end this torment.

2) Yes, we do need umpires to put on a game of football - at least three of them in the AFL. Although, a return to the game's original way - with captain's call on free kicks - might make for a novel sideshow.

3) As much as the AFL game has become "underwritten" by television money (particularly from the record six-year $2.5 billion deal that began in 2017), the true lifeblood of the Australian game remains the fans who sign up as paying members. To understand just what these members contribute to the bottom line at the 18 AFL clubs, the general figure is - about a third of annual revenue (that can range from $60-$100 million). A $20 million hole in any budget is not easily filled in.

And perhaps this difficult chapter in Australian football might finally end the game of counting non-paying, digital members in the clubs' membership tallies.

4) Wearing many hats can create quite a headache in the AFL. The weekend's hit from Geelong president Colin Carter to his Collingwood counterpart, television and radio personality Eddie McGuire, will echo well beyond Melbourne. For those who missed it, Carter noted in a newspaper interview that McGuire was “hopelessly conflicted” as both a media personality and a club president.

5) It is 50 years today since Port Adelaide celebrated its centenary with an anniversary match at Alberton Oval (at a time when the club was under the impression May 24 marked the 100th anniversary of its first competitive match against Young Australian. That game was actually played on Saturday, July 28, 1870 at the north parklands).

NEXT

Under the original rewrite of 2020 AFL fixture, Port Adelaide was to have had the bye this week before resuming against St Kilda at the Docklands on Sunday, June 7. Of course, the original version of the fixture had that game as the club's fourth game in Shanghai, China.

Now, it is a resumption - after a 12-week "bye" - with a "home" Showdown at Adelaide Oval in mid-June.