JULY is a significant landmark in the Port Adelaide Football Club's 150-year timeline.
July 30, 1870: First competitive game (against the short-lived Young Australian city-based club; the match in the Adelaide north parklands ended in a 1-1 draw).
The consequence of endorsing Australia's newest - and only homegrown - sport just 12 years after Tom Wills lit the fuse for Australia's game is a grand story of pride, passion and unrivalled success with 37 premiership flags flying at Alberton (among other trophies).
July 4, 1990: On the well-known American "Independence Day", the Port Adelaide Football Club became the first non-Victorian team to sign a heads of agreement to join the expanding Victorian Football League.
The dramatic fall-out and saga of the 1990 bid to complete the game's national footprint - that already involved teams in the capital cities of every Australian mainland State, including the "non-traditional" NSW and Queensland - still creates debate and divides opinion today.
But not in question is the Port Adelaide Football Club's long-standing commitment to promoting Australian football "north of the Murray", starting with its 1907 tour of Sydney and Wagga Wagga.
By 1928, Port Adelaide - with traditional rival Norwood - became the first SANFL club to join the so-called "propaganda" run to Sydney to challenge rugby league's command of the Harbour City's sporting landscape.
More remarkable from the tale of this game at the Sydney Agricultural Showgrounds is the footnote that it clashed with the South Australian State team's encounter with Victoria at the MCG. Port Adelaide centre half-forward Leslie "Bro" Dayman opted to play for club rather than State - as did Norwood centreman Alick Lill, the 1925 Magarey Medallist who "excused" himself from the State squad to play in Sydney.
It was an era without talkback sports radio ....
For the record, SA lost the State game by 13 points (14.15 to 16.16). Talkback radio would have been fascinating had someone thought of this format in the 1920s.
It was no "Mickey Mouse game", as is often said of matches that carry no premiership points. Norwood's travelling squad included 15 of the 20 players who faced Port Adelaide in the grand final weeks later. Port Adelaide fielded 10 players in Sydney who became premiership heroes on October 6, 1928.
"Can you imagine," says football historian Nick Haines, "star players of the calibre of 'Bro' Dayman and Alick Lill choosing to play in an exhibition match rather than a State game, say in the 1980s? The timing of these matches is very curious."
And - to further highlight the extraordinary tale of this "exhibition" match - the week-long tour was on the eve of the SANFL top-four finals, in an era when a game in Sydney meant lengthy train travel through Melbourne rather than today's passage over the Blue Mountains with a two-and-a-half hour flight.
Port Adelaide was endorsed in April, just weeks before the season opener on April 28, as the SANFL's choice for the first game in Sydney involving two South Australian league teams. At Alberton, the expectation was for the opponent to be West Adelaide, the 1927 premier. The SANFL was more perceptive. It chose Norwood, perhaps in recognition of the appeal in the long-running rivalry between the two clubs more so than accurately forecasting the Sydney game would serve as a grand final preview.
A year earlier, the "propaganda effort to popularise the game", had involved VFL club's Geelong and Carlton. This game - won by Carlton by 16 points - clashed with the Australian national carnival matches at the MCG (where New South Wales caused an upset by beating Tasmania by three points and pushed Western Australia two days later for a 19-point loss).
The New South Wales league picked up the travel and hotel costs for the 1928 SANFL exhibition match - and handed a third of the gatetakings (totaling £536) to each of the Port Adelaide and Norwood football clubs. The Sydneysiders also insured the match against rain (for a £500 compensation return).
From the pleasantries at Osborne's Cafe in Pitt Street, downtown Sydney on Friday evening, Port Adelaide and Norwood drew as many as 16,000 (while the official count was surprisingly kept at 12,500) for the 3pm start to a Saturday afternoon game that left a powerful mark.
"Superior than anything seen locally," the critics wrote. Not surprising perhaps considering Australian football's progress in Sydney had been stalled by World War I after the city had hosted the 1914 national carnival.
"The code could seriously challenge rugby league for public patronage," the reviews added.
"Our local clubs will have to wake up to the fact that systematic coaching is required - and of the highest order. This aspect seems utterly ignored beyond the comprehension of local league officials."
Port Adelaide and Norwood certainly put on a meaningful show that led to a greater spark for Australian football than their VFL counterparts Geelong and Carlton had done a year earlier.
The difference in Victorian and South Australian football also was well noted by the Sydney scribes.
Not so vigorous as the Victorians, and after resorting to the wings instead of straight down the ground, the game was superior to anything seen locally.
Surprisingly, nothing was said of the umpire brought from Adelaide for the match: Mr R. T. R. Currie. He awarded 105 free kicks - 56 to Norwood, 49 to Port Adelaide.
Port Adelaide and Norwood were 1-1 in SANFL games in the lead-up to the Sydney challenge. Port Adelaide had won by six points at Alberton Oval in round two; Norwood made it by seven points at The Parade in round 10.
Port Adelaide led by 24 points at three quarter-time. With three minutes to play, scores were level at 13.10 apiece. Norwood won by five points, despite Dayman dominating with seven goals.
Both teams returned from Sydney to play their last two home-and-away games and to lock away their top-four finals spots - Port Adelaide as minor premier (14-3) and Norwood in third position (10-7).
The events of September highlighted the folly of the "challenge system" that guaranteed the minor premier a grand final appearance.
Port Adelaide lost the second semi-final to Norwood by 41 points - and rested while Norwood dethroned 1927 champions West Adelaide by 22 points in what could be termed the "preliminary final".
Playing three games in three weeks - while building a telling injury list - wore down Norwood that was overwhelmed by the refreshed Port Adelaide side in the Challenge Final. Port Adelaide claimed its 10th SANFL premiership by 48 points - Port Adelaide 15.14 (104), Norwood 7.14 (56) - at Adelaide Oval, giving great merit to the cartoon that appeared in the Football Budget earlier in the season. Titled "The Master", it showed a Port Adelaide player lounging back smoking a cigar while surrounded by representatives from envious SANFL rivals.
Port Adelaide lived up to early-season expectations with premiership success.
Although the post-scripts to this grand final do make interesting reading. One critic noted Port Adelaide's flag was a "well-merited attainment. This is the outcome of being a happy family, combined play and good coaching ... Shine Hosking is to be heartily congratulated."
"What made all the difference to Ports was the fact of L. C. Dayman being as fit as a fiddle. He was the keynote of the Port team," wrote one scribe.
Another told a more amusing tale: "I asked a well-known football supporter last Saturday morning if he intended going down to the Oval to see Norwoods and Ports play off for the premiership. 'What's the good!' said he, 'I don't go in for one-sided games and that is what will be seen this afternoon, for the Ports won't even have Buckley's.'
"I haven't seen that chap since he threw that awfully hard tip off his chest, but when I do I won't forget to rub it in."
Again, never underestimate Port Adelaide when it is cast as the underdog in a grand final.
It would be intriguing if Dayman and 1925 (retrospective) Magarey Medallist Peter Bampton, another star of the 1928 exhibition match in Sydney, were here today to see an AFL round with all 18 national league teams playing north of the Murray - and on Sunday, Port Adelaide at "home" on the Gold Coast to a team from western Sydney.
They probably would find greater merit in the sacrifices they made for their 1928 side trip to Sydney for a propaganda event.
And what would they make of an AFL grand final in Sydney?
Port Adelaide's trip to Sydney in 1928 did spark more debate on the national agenda, as noted in the SANFL meetings at the end of the year when league delegates considered forfeiting hosting rights for the 1930 Australian carnival to Sydney. The SANFL minutes recorded "the present position of the game (of Australian football) called for staging high-class competitions (in Sydney) to create public interest".
The VFL was back in 1952 for its "propaganda round" from June 14-16. All 12 VFL teams were sent out of their Melbourne and Geelong home grounds - Collingwood and Richmond to the SCG; Geelong and Essendon to the Brisbane Exhibition Ground; Fitzroy and Melbourne to Hobart and South Melbourne and North Melbourne to Albury.
The next season, the SANFL put 1952 grand finalists North Adelaide and Norwood on the SCG to play for premiership points.
And there is that infamous SA-Victoria State game in 1974 at the SCG where Barrie Robran's extraordinary career was derailed by a knee injury after clashing with Leigh Matthews.
The VFL - after using Sydney as a television platform for Sunday football that was outlawed in Melbourne - ultimately put its mark on Australia's largest city in 1982 by moving South Melbourne to the New South Wales capital.
Since having its AFL licence, Port Adelaide has officially played for premiership points in Sydney 19 times (5-12 at the SCG and 1-1 at the Homebush Showgrounds).
But who would have imagined such was possible when Dayman was impressing the Sydneysiders in the Showgrounds next door to the SCG in 1928?
The strain on the AFL fixture this season with State government restrictions posed by the COVID pandemic already has had Port Adelaide playing "home" games against non-Victorian rivals north of the Murray - and now it is to feature in "away" clashes with traditional VFL clubs, as is the case this weekend with Carlton "hosting" Port Adelaide at the Gabba in Brisbane.
If only "Bro" was here to see it ....
SYDNEY
August 25, 1928
| Port Adelaide | 3.3 | 7.6 | 11.7 | 13.11 (89) |
| Norwood | 5.3 | 5.6 | 7.7 | 14.10 (94) |
GOALS - Port Adelaide: Dayman 7, Caldwell 2, J. Johnson, K. Johnson, McInnes, Quinn. Norwood: Johnson 6, Biddell, Potts 2, Krone, Plumstead, Symonds, Wadham.
Port Adelaide's rise from suburbia to the national stage - as the only non-Victorian club to be offered passage from a State league to the AFL - is recorded in the Port Adelaide Archive Collection.
Orders for the limited-edition book can be made here.
