Which was the greatest season in the SANFL’s greatest decade of the 1970s?
SANFL football savoured a golden era in the 1970s. But which season was the best? Sports Editor At Large Michelangelo Rucci reflects on the decade of grand football moments in Adelaide
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IF you could turn back time where would you go in SA football history? When the SANFL recently played its “retro round” it was a throwback to the old jumpers, tight shorts and goal umpires in white coats with the State league wanting to celebrate the 1980s - the decade before the AFL evolution in Adelaide.
But if you had to choose a decade in SA football history to relive which would it be? And if you had to boil it down to just one season in that 10-year period?
The 1970s were extraordinary. As Central District 308-game wingman Peter Vivian became the latest hero from the SANFL’s 1970s era to be inducted to the SA Football Hall of Fame last week he told The Advertiser: “If you speak to (former) players my age, we will say the game has changed too much (in the past five decades). Yes, today’s players are fitter, they are stronger, they are more skilful ... and they still miss set shots.
“But the 1970s and 1980s had fantastic football - it was a better spectacle, particularly for the spectators.”
And the 1970s regularly had 50,000 fans at five league games each Saturday at 2.20pm and chased more with the SANFL being innovative with Sunday league football at Football Park starting in the mid-1970s. But which season in the 1970s is the one to live again?
1970 - Sturt completing a run of five consecutive premierships ... and the power of Barrie Robran in a league gaining fellow Magarey Medallists Malcolm Blight and Russell Ebert as superstars was immense.
1971 - North Adelaide ended Sturt’s dynasty ... and the SANFL breaking ground on the reclaimed swamp at West Lakes to start its exit from the SA Cricket Association-controlled Adelaide Oval.
1972 - North Adelaide not only successfully defended its SANFL title, but won the Champions of Australia title by beating VFL premiers Carlton at Adelaide Oval (73-72) with Blues great Alex Jesaulenko standing (and applauding) in appreciation of Robran.
1973 - That remarkable “last” grand final at Adelaide Oval with Glenelg ending a 39-year premiership drought - and Graham Cornes rising to the heavens for the mark that delivered the goal that put the Tigers in front against North Adelaide. It also was the season - the only season - with a diamond dictating how many players could stand around the centre circle for the bounce at the start of each quarter and after each goal.
1974 - Football finally had its own home ... Football Park at West Lakes, free of Sir Donald Bradman and the power of the cricket masters at Adelaide Oval. Sturt ruled again. And the diamond made way for the centre square.
1975 - Norwood ended its 25-year premiership drought with North Adelaide premiership defender Bob Hammond as coach.
1976 - Sturt won the premiership that Alan Shiell famously declared in his grand final preview in The News would be an “injustice” if not won by Port Adelaide. Sturt coach Jack Oatey found immense motivation to prove Shiell wrong as he collected his 10th premiership as a coach - and a record crowd of more than 80,000 (but recorded as 66,897) spilled onto the field on the day Football Park was finally accepted by the fans.
1977 - The “Centenary Season” as the SANFL recognised the 100th anniversary of Australia’s oldest football league being founded. The league found a commercial edge, promoting the competition (with a fantastic centenary logo) and its stars with the vibrancy generated with the growth of colour television. Port Adelaide ended a 12-year premiership drought with John Cahill winning his first premiership as a coach.
1978 - If Oatey thought there was no injustice in football, what did he make of Norwood’s one-point win against Sturt after the Double Blues had lost just one of 22 home-and-away games ... and kicked 14.26 in the grand final? Norwood won the flag in its centenary season. Football moved away from the 19th and 20th men as reserves to introduce the interchange system - and the grand final had drama with John “2-8” Wynne roughing up Oatey on the boundary and Phil Gallagher’s mark/free kick for the winning goal.
1979 - SANFL “expansion clubs” Woodville and Central District both made the top-five finals together for the first time. The Bulldogs won their first minor premiership. South Adelaide reached its first grand final since the Neil Kerley (bottom-to-top) miracle of 1964 ... and Port Adelaide defied the Panthers on a rain-soaked, gale-struck Football Park when the footy gods turned their backs on Haydn Bunton.
Pick a year from this decade that ended three significant premiership droughts for Port Adelaide, Norwood and Glenelg and also had the Tigers rewrite the record books with 49 goals against Central District at the Bay in 1975?
Season 1979 is fascinating for how the premiership table appeared at the end of the home-and-away season. And not just because it had the Bulldogs and Woodpeckers in the final while North Adelaide and Glenelg missed and powerhouse Sturt finished ninth (after being sixth before the penultimate round of the home-and-away series).
From Norwood in fourth spot to West Adelaide with the wooden spoon, the table was true to that modern theme of an “even competition” as just two wins separated the Redlegs and Sturt. Norwood claimed fourth position with a 50-50 record (11-11); Woodville qualified for its first SANFL final series at 10-12 collecting fifth spot on percentage (51.05 to 47.49) against North Adelaide. Glenelg (9-12-1), West Torrens (9-12-1) and Sturt (9-13) took seventh to ninth while West Torrens collected the wooden spoon with a 7-14-1 record.
But Season 1977 was phenomenal - and perhaps because more than just one grand season unfolding, there was all the reflection on how far the game had come in 100 years. It was a season of long celebration that culminated in a superb grand final, decided by just eight points (and with both teams, Port Adelaide and Glenelg scoring more than 100 points, 113-105).
The “poster boy” of SANFL football in the 1970s - as Robran was cruelly cut down by a knee injury with his collision with Leigh Matthews in the State game at the SCG in 1974 and Blight went to VFL club North Melbourne - was Ebert who won three of his four Magarey Medals in the 1970s (1971, 1974 and 1976).
Ebert regards the 1970s as the decade in which Australian football “was played as it was designed to be played”.
“And in the SANFL we had a lot of players at each (of the 10 clubs) who were at their prime,” Ebert told the Roast. “Terrific, fantastic players. There were genuine battles between those players everywhere - from back pocket at one end of the field to the forward pocket at the other end. And the key position duels!
“Players from that era still talk about the pre-season games against VFL clubs where we could take it up to those Victorian teams. It made players want to come to the SANFL - as (Magarey Medallist) John Duckworth from Perth to Central District.
“From the moment Barrie Robran made everyone in Victoria take notice in that Championship of Australia match in 1972 (against Carlton at Adelaide Oval), the VFL clubs woke up to the talent we had in the SANFL.
“I’d go back to 1977. Yeah, I’d do that again ... But I would take any time in the 1970s. That was the decade that had everything.”
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au