Absent ‘true believers’ threaten to tear Port Adelaide apart
Port Adelaide’s home crowds at Adelaide Oval are falling — in a repeat of the final days at Football Park. This should set off alarm bells while the AFL club’s financial position is still heavily linked to the fans showing up. Plus farewelling Sam Gallagher.
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Leigh Whicker was right. No stadium deal — not even one that returns 100 per cent to the Port Adelaide Football Club — will save the Power.
Only the Port Adelaide fans can spare their AFL club from financial peril — again.
When Whicker was the SANFL’s long-serving chief executive, he noted — during Port Adelaide’s darkest hours in 2008-2012 — that the real issues at Alberton were not from the Football Park stadium deal. Or from the high visual appearance of the Adelaide Football Club’s headquarters on Football Park’s eastern flank. Nor was it the SANFL’s perceived bias from having the bins at the West Lakes venue trimmed in the Crows’ tricolours.
Rather, it was the empty seats left by the Port Adelaide fans — the seats ultimately covered in tarps. They describe themselves as “loyal” and “devoted” and “true believers” who will never be torn apart, but they split when the going gets tough or not to their liking.
And history is repeating.
Adelaide Oval offers both the Port Adelaide and Adelaide football clubs a stadium deal that ranks as one of the best in the AFL. The clubs even get a catering kickback — $2.40 for every fan who comes through the turnstiles.
But if the turnstiles stop clicking …
Port Adelaide’s crowds at Adelaide Oval have steadily fallen year by year from the 44,364 peak average on entry to the redeveloped 50,000-seat stadium in 2014 to 34,595 on average this season. This drop off of 10,000 fans in six years is sharper than the collapse of Port Adelaide crowds at Football Park during the tarp era — 27,870 in 2007 (a grand final season for the Power) to a record low 19,911 in 2012.
Port Adelaide’s destiny — both on and off the field — is in the hands of the club’s fans (and on their collective consciences). They answered the call in 1994 by filling the terraces at the SANFL grand final at Football Park to show AFL boss Ross Oakley that Port Adelaide was a viable one-club supporter base option — ahead of a Crows Mark II composite model — for the second SA-based AFL licence.
But they have gone missing again.
They will say they have this right to make a protest, as they probably will on Sunday evening when Port Adelaide will close its 2019 home stand at Adelaide Oval with the twilight clash with Fremantle.
They will argue they are not being heard by the club’s leaders — so they will not be seen as well.
It is a damaging protest. Even if there was a total clean out of the Port Adelaide board, the executive team and football department — including under-fire senior coach Ken Hinkley — the new crew in the front office at Alberton would be lumbered with debt. Heavy debt created by Port Adelaide fans who have walked away from their club.
Stadium deals are about carving up money. If the Port Adelaide fans stay home there is less money to split — less money to invest in the football program at Alberton and less money for the Stadium Management Authority to devote to Adelaide Oval upgrades to stop the stadium falling into decay as Football Park did.
Leigh Whicker was right. And there is no running to a new “Adelaide Oval” to refloat the Port Adelaide business model … unless someone in Tasmania wants to make a pitch for the Power AFL licence?
And do the Port Adelaide fans think the AFL will sign a blank cheque to clear away the Power’s debt without strings attached?
Many miles from Alberton is another black-and-white traditional Magpies club — English Premier League football club Newcastle United. Since 2007 the NUFC fans grown to despise their club’s owner Mike Ashley.
But they turn up, making their protests with banners, placards and strategic walkouts while hoping a new owner will arrive. They fill St James’ Park to 99.9 per cent capacity.
They might be masochists, but they can’t have their loyalty questioned. And where do you take your love for a football club amid frustration? Are Port Adelaide fans suddenly converting to Crows supporters?
Hinkley today might not have his words resonating with the power that made Port Adelaide fans once say “In Ken We Trust”. But he has it right in saying : “If you support your club, you support your club. I’ve always believed you don’t pick and choose. I’m 52, I’ve been in incredibly good and dark times. When you get through to the good times, they are so worthwhile if you get through the pain of the dark times.”
Port Adelaide fans are losing that image of being the “faithful” — and with this fickleness are making their club vulnerable again.
Leigh Whicker was right.
VALE
Norwood and SA football is paying respect to one of the great gentlemen of the game — and life: Sam Gallagher.
Kevin James “Sam” Gallagher died on August 16 aged 93.
Gallagher played 131 SANFL league games for the Redlegs from 1945 to 1955, starting against North Adelaide at Norwood Oval and finishing against Port Adelaide in the 1955 grand final. He played in three premiership teams, 1946, 1948 and 1950.
Gallagher joined the Norwood colts in 1942, playing as a centreman and half-forward before joining the Royal Australian Air Force. He returned to The Parade in 1945 finding his spot in the Norwood league line-up as a wingman as a 19-year-old.
Quietly spoken, Gallagher was known as a big-occasion player. He also was an A-grade district cricketer at East Torrens in the 1950-51 season.
Gallagher’s legacy at Norwood was carried by his sons Phil (1973-86, 292 games), Martin (1989, six games) and John (1981-83, 10 games) along with grandson James (1999-2012, 228 games).