BY 1990 - that year that redefined South Australian football - the Port Adelaide Football Club had tired of being a nursery for VFL clubs. The Victorians were not even waiting for an emerging star at Alberton to get his name on a locker in recognition of his 100th league game.

And the theme that had Port Adelaide send them off nicely - with the reminder they were welcome to return to Alberton, as Mark Williams and Bruce Abernethy had done in 1990 and in 1987 respectively - was losing its gloss.

Port Adelaide's roll call of players moving to the "big league" is of Hall of Fame status. The greatest? The debate from the most-recent era would be between the game's longest-serving player Craig Bradley (who never returned from Carlton) and Brownlow Medallist Gavin Wanganeen (who did to lead Port Adelaide to the AFL as its inaugural national league captain in 1997). There is also Magarey Medallist and 1992 SANFL premiership winner Nathan Buckley.

Before World War II, the crown was with Tom Quinn, older brother of the legendary Bob Quinn. After his 59 SANFL league games with Port Adelaide from 1928-1930, Quinn moved to Geelong - to accept work at the Ford factory - and became one of the Geelong Football Club's greatest players during his 168 VFL matches from 1931-1940. These earned Quinn recognition in Geelong's Team of the Century in 2001. His 1937 grand final performance against Collingwood would have delivered him a Norm Smith Medal had such an honour existed at the time.

But who was the Port Adelaide Football Club's first great export to a Victorian-based club?

This title might belong to William "Bill" Bushby, a member of Port Adelaide's first premiership team in 1884.

Bushby's sudden disappearance from Port Adelaide late in the 1886 SAFA season - when top-level South Australian football was savaged by players needing to leave the economically depressed colony with Port Adelaide hit hardest - remains one of the greatest mysteries in Australian football.

It certainly started the debate on the need to stop teams cherry picking star recruits late in a season to seal a premiership (or championship, as they were in the pre-finals era).

Did Port Adelaide, as is recorded in some journals, "lease" Bushby to VFA club South Melbourne in 1886 to keep the club afloat?

Or did Bushby, one of the stars of South Australian pioneer football, simply get an offer he could not refuse to play for South Melbourne in an epic title-deciding clash with Geelong?

It was not the only inducement that came before Bushby at a time when SA football was noted for drawing Victorian recruits rather than sending its own heroes to the heartland of the new Australian game.

In 1892, the year Bushby left Port Adelaide to join South Adelaide in a bitter exit from Alberton, he was still commanding interest from Victorian top-flight clubs. Fitzroy, an eventual pioneer club for the new VFL at the end of 1896, was accused during a Victorian Football Association meeting in July 1892 of making an outrageous offer to Bushby.

The VFA heard claims of Fitzroy having using a third party to offer £25 to Bushby to start a business in the club's local area. Bushby also was offered £2 a week to be Fitzroy's trainer (coach) and "other advantages". For context, when the basic wage was introduced in Australia in 1907 it was £2 2s.

One Melbourne newspaper noted: "By the looks of things it evidently pays well to be a good footballer."

So who was Bill Bushby?

Jack Reedman, the Test cricketer and powerhouse figure of SA football at the turn of the 20th century, recalled (in 1923) that Bushby was one of the stars during the pioneer decades of organised football in Adelaide, in particular the 1880s decade.

"Bill Bushby, the big centreman for Port Adelaide, was without a peer, until finally his leg gave him considerable trouble," Reedman wrote. "He used to come through the half-forward lines, pushing his opponents over skittle fashion.

"Bill was a beautiful kick and he used to put the ball through the uprights at times. He was surely a match-winner for the magenta and blues."

Bill Bushby was born on January 25, 1864. He and his brother Alf, who also played for Port Adelaide and almost every other SAFA club in the 1880s and 1890s, grew up in Adelaide honing their football skills in the parks near the Queen's Head Hotel at Kermode Street, north of Adelaide Oval. "They would astound onlookers with their proficiency in long drop kicking," it was recorded.

Bushby started his senior career at the nearby Victorians Football Club, a SAFA foundation club that ultimately collapsed. He joined Port Adelaide in 1883, playing in the club's first two premierships (1884 and 1890) and winning the club's best-and-fairest crown in 1887. He was club captain for four seasons, 1886-1889.

Bushby also was a leading player in Port Adelaide's triumph against his former South Melbourne team-mates in the Champions of Australia play-off at Adelaide Oval in October 1890. The 7.10 to 6.13 win marks the first of four Champions of Australia titles won by Port Adelaide before World War I.

Bushby was part of Richard Turpenny's groundbreaking crew who won Port Adelaide's first SAFA premiership in 1884 that, according to the critics, was secured "by hard training and unanimous working." Or as would be said today, professionalism and team work. That "professional edge" was noted with Port Adelaide "recognising the importance of training, the club had engaged vehicles to convey the players from Port Adelaide to Alberton Oval where regular practice had been indulged in ... (captain) Turpenny (led) in a manner creditable alike to himself and to the club".

Bushby commanded such love from the Port Adelaide fans that on Tuesday, August 28, 1888 at the Commercial Hotel at Port Adelaide, the district mayor John Cleave presented a "handsome marble clock" to Bushby on the eve of his wedding. This was a sign "of the very high esteem in which Mr Bushby was held not only in his own club but with every team in the colony". He played the game in the manner of a "gentleman".

Bushby's 1886 season ended at Alberton in August with the mysterious move to South Melbourne. He was unbeaten South Melbourne's surprise recruit for the season-defining game with the league-leading Geelong in their only encounter that year - on September 4 at the South Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Such was the anticipation for this playoff - dubbed the "test match for the premiership" - that 10,000 tickets were sold before 1pm at the Melbourne Sports Depot. At 2pm, it seemed every cab in Melbourne was commissioned to go to the South Melbourne ground and the trains were crammed. More than £700 was taken it ticket sales at the gate and the fans who took to the grandstand roof made it "bend inwards so that it is no longer waterproof". 

This play-off for the 1886 VFA premiership drew the biggest crowd of the era, at least 25,000 at a venue that was built for just half as many fans.

Geelong was stunned when it saw Bushby's name on the team sheets. It first reacted by having its captain, David Hickinbotham, play on the Port Adelaide import. Geelong won the game and premiership, 4.19 to 1.5.

Despite the victory, Geelong went to the regular fortnightly meeting of the VFA in mid-September "protesting against the action of the South Melbourne club ... (stating) that Bushby had since the 15th July (the date fixed by the association as a rule after which no permits could be issued) played with the Port Adelaide club, which was not a (VFA) team".

South Melbourne sent a letter to the meeting declaring its delegate could not attend and asking for the protest to be heard later. The VFA took notice that it needed to rewrite its rules to block late imports from Adelaide, Sydney and Tasmania.

Bushby kept playing for South Melbourne, however. He had at least another four VFA games. Against Hotham, Bushby kicked a goal from more than 50 yards - and was in South Melbourne's best. Against Fitzroy, he was described as having "a phenomenally long kick and (was) an excellent worker."

Bushby was back at Alberton in 1887, perhaps his best in magenta. In this season, the critiques marvel at Bushby's "famous drop kicks". 

Bill Bushby's Port Adelaide story ended in 1892 when he - and Alf Bushby - were lured to South Adelaide. It took appeals to the SA Football Association to score the clearances after Port Adelaide steadfastly blocked the Bushbys' move to a fierce rival.

Bill Bushby appealed on three grounds - he argued he could not attend Port Adelaide training sessions, an "inability to get on with certain players" at Alberton and difficulties with club secretary John Sweeney. On May 2, Bill Bushby was cleared but his brother Alf was initially denied his transfer after putting up his grounds for change a difficultly in getting to Port Adelaide training.

Bill Bushby became the 242nd player to represent South Adelaide in the 1892 SAFA season-opener and on May 14 faced his former Port Adelaide team-mates from a wing at Alberton Oval where he copped the "hooting" of his former fans. The game ended in a 4-4 draw.

Bushby played two seasons at South Adelaide and then dedicated himself to swimming. He was the first man to swim the River Torrens from the Albert Bridge near the zoo to the weir, revealing his strength with the breaststroke.

Bushby died on April 14, 1936 at the age of 76 at Nailsworth.

Port Adelaide's premiership heroes - the men who built the reputation of South Australia's most-successful football club - are honoured in the Archives Collection. The limited-edition book can be ordered online here.