FOS WILLIAMS could divide and conquer. He also could unite and triumph.

As Port Adelaide's playing and non-playing coach (from 1950-58 and 1962-73), Williams built the most admired and respected - and also most hated - premiership machine at Alberton. Port Adelaide this weekend in Showdown XLVIII at Adelaide Oval will wear the symbolic black-and-white bars that perfectly highlight the contrast  in the "them and us" theme mastered by Williams.

Showdowns loyalties are definitely black and white.

As State coach (from 1955-1969), Williams could unite men from vastly different backgrounds to build the team for all South Australians. Monday, June 15, is the 57th anniversary of one of the greatest - if not the greatest - wins by any South Australian team on the MCG. And Williams crafted the seven-point win against the Big V with his legendary "Port Adelaide way".

"Fos Williams," recalled Merv Agars, his West Adelaide compatriot and 1947 premiership team-mate, "released South Australian football from the frustration built up over almost two generations."

South Australian had not beaten Victoria on the MCG for 37 years. There was the tie - at Princes Park at Carlton - in 1946 when Port Adelaide legend Bob Quinn carried the State team on his back while his legs ignored the pain from his recent war wounds.

Williams was finally in charge of the SA State program in 1963. At last as State coach, Williams could (as he did at Port Adelaide) pick and work his team - rather than chaperone the squad handed to him by the SANFL's State selectors. Before this, as Williams explained, "I had limited authority ... I wasn't really the coach; just the man chosen to keep the State team fit and skilful."

"I had to take full control of South Australia ... (I had to coach) in the same way I had at Port Adelaide," added Williams of his demand to work the "Port Adelaide way" for the team wearing red, gold and blue on the national stage.

At the same time, the Victorians were adopting the same philosophy. No longer was the "Big V" chosen with restrictions on the number of players taken from any club. It was open selection - and the first "Dream Team" that included legendary West Australian ruckman Graham "Polly" Farmer, who was with VFL club Geelong.

South Australia was simply not to come close to this superstar line-up, particularly on the MCG.

"As Jack Dyer said on the television the night before the game," recalled 1963 SA representative and 1961 Magarey Medallist John Halbert, "whoever coached this side 'could have stayed for the opening bounce and then gone to the races at Moonee Valley; when you get back, the team will have won - they don't need coaching'."

It turned out very differently.

But why was Williams - while so heavily invested in Port Adelaide and its premiership aspirations - so determined to succeed for South Australia? Some other SANFL coaches preferred to stay fully concentrated on the league premiership rather than interstate rivalries.

"That was Fos Williams," says Halbert, who knew Williams as a fierce rival in club football and as his dedicated master while on State duty.

"I cannot imagine Fos Williams being involved in any game of football without being fully passionate and determined to win. I remember Lindsay Head's testimonial match at Thebarton Oval - nothing on the line, but Fos was absolutely passionate in that game too. That was Fos.

"That's what he brought to State football every time. His passion to win was never in doubt.

"Fos could bring together a big group of players and unite them to play a State game as if it was a grand final. I'm sure to Fos, every State game was a grand final ..."

The 1963 clash on the G was Williams' 28th State game as coach. His record against the VFL (while the VFA also was playing interstate football) at that stage was - nine games for just one win.

"At Adelaide Oval in 1960, after the Victorians were coming back from playing WA in Perth," Halbert recalled of the 69-point win (14.15 to 3.12).

In the other nine games, the closest a Williams-coached State team had come to beating the Big V was 22 points in 1957 at Adelaide Oval when Williams was still roving for South Australia.

In 1963, with his word being law at selection, Williams picked a 20-man line-up that would prepare, train and play the "Port Adelaide way". He had a 17-point checklist by which to measure would-be State players in red, gold and blue. He demanded the State team be made up of players who could prove they were fit enough to play four quarters with the strength to work 32 minutes, not 16, in each term; show accuracy in long kicking; hit the body and the ball; hunt the ball rather than just receive it; be quick, aggressive and confident; be in form; always apply themselves to the task rather than 'drop the bundle' and "take on an opponent shoulder to shoulder"; be loyal to the cause; dedicated to the point of 'bleeding at any loss' and a fighter.

Immediately dismissed was any player who could be cast as a "prima donna" or who was erratic in form, avoided body contact and played for themselves rather than the team.

"By 1963," said Halbert, "we had a State team that had come through together at the same time. We knew each other well - and how each of us played. We were the underdogs ... but you know how Fos would have loved that."

Williams picked just four Port Adelaide players - Geof Motley, John Cahill, Ian Hannaford and Jeff Potter. West Adelaide had five representatives. Players were chosen from seven of the eight SANFL clubs - only South Adelaide was spared.

The VFL worked its line-up from 10 of the 12 league clubs - Geelong and Essendon supplying four players each; Carlton three; Melbourne and St Kilda two each; and one from Collingwood, Fitzroy, Hawthorn, North Melbourne and South Melbourne one each.

"They thought they had put together the greatest team of all time," Halbert said. Five players from the Big V line-up are Australian Football Hall of Fame legends and in the VFL-AFL Team of the Century - Ron Barassi, Farmer, John Nicholls, Bob Skilton and Kevin Murray. Four had Brownlow Medals - Skilton, Murray, Alistair Lord and Verdun Howell.

South Australia won by seven points - and the critics, such as Kevin Hogan at The Sun, noted the "Port Adelaide way" in the State team's performance writing: "Never (have we) seen a South Australian side play with such direct, business-like football. Melbourne football followers can thank Foster Williams for the best interstate game staged here."

The State team returned to Adelaide Airport to be mobbed. "The reception was the most fantastic thing I had seen," Williams commented. He had united South Australia.

No South Australian State team won again at the MCG for another 30 years.

By the end of the 1969 Australian national carnival, Williams had coached South Australia 44 times for a 23-21 win-loss record - 3-14 against the Big V. The SANFL has since 1981 recognised Williams' contribution to State football by awarding a medal in his name to the best South Australian player in interstate matches.

WHEN LEGEND BECOMES MYTH

Ian Hannaford, one of the youngest members of SA's glorious 1963 state football team, has heard so many differing stories of THAT win against the Big V he could almost question if he played that day at the MCG.

"Two years ago," says Hannaford, who was aged 23 when he lined up at centre half-forward to rewrite history against the best of the VFL, "I was in Melbourne and one of the Vic players says to me, 'We were told to throw that game'.

"I've heard so much fantasy and many tales of that day."

More than 50 years later, there is - sadly - even unease among the victorious SA team that beat Victoria for the first time in 37 years on the MCG. Or more to the point, disagreement between two of SA's greatest football names, the "King" Neil Kerley and 1964 Magarey Medallist Geof Motley.

And who would want to take sides?

"'Kerls' is a great mate of mine; and 'Mots' was my hero as a boy," says Hannaford. "Everyone has their version of the day ..."

Since 2014, when Kerley gave his version of the day in an "Open Mike" session with Mike Sheahan, Motley has bristled - and now, after seeing a repeat of the show on Fox Footy during the summer, he feels offended.

It all relates to the what Kerley claims to have said to his SA team-mates hours before the game - and the opening bounce.

Motley says he has been asked to appear on "Open Mike" but arrangements fall flat when he digs on the need to address his version of the 1963 interstate game.

"My memories are in a scrapbook; 'Kerls' has his in a crapbook," says Motley, who in the past has taken issue with how Kerley recalls the end of the 1958 SANFL grand final - the one that finished with a Port Adelaide victory and Kerley and some of his West Adelaide team-mates chopping down a goalpost from Adelaide Oval.

Kerley said this week: "We were at the George Hotel at St Kilda and the night before the game, (Richmond great) Jack Dyer said on television that if he was coaching Victoria, he would go to the races.

"When we had the team photo the next morning, at the old St Kilda ground, I had a few words to the guys. I told them, something would happen at the opening bounce and they should not get involved; leave it all to me."

As Kerley told Sheahan, while the distracted and vengeful Victorians chased him around the G, his SA team-mates remained focussed on the game to work up an early three-goal lead.

Motley, who was named by the Victorian selectors as SA's best player and still has the Remington shaver they gave him as a trophy, remembers it all very differently - and insists the SA team jumped the Victorians with assertive football rather than Kerley's sideshow.

History does record Kerley, the SA vice-captain, clashed with the reigning Brownlow Medallist, great Geelong centreman Alistair Lord, at the opening bounce. He certainly bumped into Lord, but did not "clean up" the Victorian champion who was recognised as one of the Big V's best players.

The scoreboard tells SA jumped the Big V with a four-goal opening quarter, led by 29 points at half-time and rebounded from a two-goal deficit late in the dramatic last quarter that ended with the MCG scoreboard reading: SA 12.8 (80) to Victoria 10.13 (73).

As Hannaford notes, many have rewritten history with this game. Lou Richards, who hosted the SA team for celebratory drinks at his hotel near the G after the game, did not wait for the ink to hit the Saturday night newspapers before declaring the umpire had robbed the Victorians.

"But," says Motley, "he did say the best team on the day did win.

"And for the sake of people who love the game of football, the truth should be known about that day. It is not the way 'Kerls' tells it."

Kerley is a showman, one of the great promoters of South Australian football, just as the late Lou Richards and Ted Whitten were for the Big V.

Magarey Medallist John Halbert, who played against Lord in the centre at the G in 1963, has his own version of the state game.

"Everyone will remember that day in their own way," Halbert said. "And this is not the first time the recollections of a football game have been embossed. We should just remember it was a great game - and a great success for SA."

SANFL vs VFL - June 15, 1963 at the MCG
SANFL	4.1	8.3	9.4	12.8 (80)
VFL	2.1	3.4	7.9	10.13 (73)

BEST - SANFL: Wedding, Barbary, Eustice, Bray, Kerley, Motley. VFL: Murray, Dixon, Nicholls, Wade, Skilton, Baldock.

GOALS - SANFL: Lindner 3, Head, Potter, Sawley 2, Hawke, Kernahan, Oatey. VFL: Wade 4, Skilton 3, Capuano, Farmer, Fraser.

Umpire: R. Montgomery (WA)

Crowd: 59,260

TEAMS

SANFL

F: Harry Kernahan, Neil Hawke, Robert Oatey

HF: Lindsay Head, Ian Hannaford, Brian Sawley

C: Barrie Barbary, John Halbert, John Cahill

HB: Ken Eustice, Jeff Bray, Geof Motley

B: Fred Bills, Bob Hammond, Bob Shearman (C)

1R: Bill Wedding, Neil Kerley, Jeff Potter

Reserves: Robert Day, Don Lindner; 21st: Ron Benton.

Coach: Fos Williams

VFL

F: Ian Law, Doug Wade, Graham Farmer

HF: Ron Barassi, Ken Fraser, Darrel Baldock

C: Brian Dixon, Alistair Lord, Barry Capuano

HB: Kevin Murray, Wes Lofts, Alex Eppis

B: Alan Morrow, Roy West, John Benetti

1R: John Nicholls, Sergio Silvagni, Bob Skilton (C)

Reserves: John Henderson, John Birt. 21st: Noel Teasdale.

Coach: Bob Davis