What an exciting time to be part of the Port Adelaide Football Club family.
New coach … new playing strip … on the road to Adelaide Oval … on the road to very exciting times.
There are - and there will always be - plenty of challenges along the way … but the building blocks are rapidly being laid one by one. And that is critical.
Too often, amid the day-to-day challenges of a football season, it’s easy to take your eye off the big picture.
But the big picture is what the board of this football club is responsible for and what the board of this football club should always be about.
We should always be thinking about what this club will look like in five years, 10 years, 20 years time; thinking about the club we must leave to the next generation.
So … what does your board’s vision look like for this football club?
Let’s fast forward 5 years, to 2015…
> In 2015 we are One Club, with the Power and Magpies reunified under the one Port Adelaide Football Club banner
> In 2015 we have just finished playing our second season at the magnificent, world-class, newly redeveloped Adelaide Oval … with millions of dollars in financial benefits flowing our way, and all of football in this state better off. We are at the centre of a very vibrant precinct
> In 2015 we are a successful ‘expansion club’, having established a relationship with the Northern Territory like Hawthorn has with Tasmania
> In 2015 we have further transformed the Alberton Oval precinct, with the Port Club side of the ground redeveloped as a genuine Community Hub
> In 2015 we have a gaming facility in Adelaide’s north which is returning the club millions of dollars every year
> In 2015 we are financially vibrant and independent … while still contributing millions of dollars back to South Australian football, as we have always done
> In 2015 we are consistently top four and having a crack at the premiership, with the players of today 100+ game players with bodies and minds reflecting those of Geelong of recent years.
In summary … in 2015 the building blocks we are putting in place today will see us Back in Black … both on-field and off-field.
It is exciting. That vision of 2015 is what we are all … together … working towards right now - today.
So - how are we progressing towards those things? It’s not a dream … it is quickly becoming reality.
ADELAIDE OVAL
Adelaide Oval is here … it is real … it WILL happen.
Do not listen to the wreckers and the wingers and the knockers.
Football is united on this - it is compelling financially for football and compelling culturally for this city and this state.
ALBERTON
The transformation of Alberton is already underway, with the new government-funded $5 million Indoor Training Facility and Community Rooms in the Allan Scott Power Headquarters completed on time and under-budget in 2010.
As I have said before, there will of course be a great benefit for our players from this, but we are equally if not more excited about what the redevelopment as a whole is already allowing us to do on the community front.
Our vision is for Alberton to be a community facility for all South Australians.
The concept of the Community Hub on the other side of the Oval is now on the table, with discussions in the very early stages with the Port Adelaide-Enfield Council - I welcome their representatives here tonight, and thank them for their ongoing support.
LICENSED OPERATIONS
Part of our concept for the community hub is the relocation of our gaming machines.
Relocation of those machines of course also has very major financial upside for this club.
The relocation of our gaming machines to a new, more profitable greenfields location in Adelaide’s north is in the advanced planning stages … much of that currently remains commercial-in-confidence, but stand-by for exciting news over the coming months.
NORTHERN TERRITORY
Our push into the Northern Territory has begun.
This year we played two away games in Darwin, which returned the club $150,000.
That is just the beginning, because we see potential major commercial benefits from pursuing that opportunity further as we integrate ourselves into the Top End community hand-in-hand with the AFL Northern Territory.
ONE CLUB
Finally … One Club.
We have to put Port Adelaide back together, for the benefit of South Australian football, before it’s too late.
We must reunify our community.
The artificial split of the Port Adelaide Football community into two clubs must end; it did not work and will not work.
In recent weeks we have been working again with the Magpies to re-present the case for unification.
We have put a detailed paper to the South Australian Football Commission for their consideration this week.
The economic benefits of reunification are now better understood and supported by a broader range of people - key football people across the country and key business people in this state.
One Club is a Port Adelaide solution to Port Adelaide challenges … and it is worth close to a million dollars a year to the reunified club from Year One, with no subsidy or re-investment required from elsewhere.
In our view there is no reason it should not be supported … and our club is ready to go.
CONCLUSION
All of that in less than five years.
What a very exciting time to be part of the PAFC family.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my pleasure to introduce our senior coach.
This week the board appointed the senior coach for at least the next three years.
The board required a coach who was:
A first class football coach - someone with technical knowhow and teaching ability to shape a game plan and a group who will play premiership-style football;
Someone with a club-first attitude who would create a no-excuses, constructive culture, but who would not hesitate to make the hard calls;
A natural leader who would inspire others;
A born leader, who could pick up people and take them on the journey with him.
He is:
A very humble man
He is a leader of men
He is your senior coach in 2011 - Matthew Primus.
