The Monday Moment: How Rupert McCall’s poem at Port Adelaide’s 150th gala dinner was as prophetic as it was powerful
Saturday was exactly one month since poet Rupert McCall captivated 1600 people at Port Adelaide’s 150th gala dinner and closed with a line that was as prophetic as it was powerful. It leads this week’s Monday Moment column.
Reece Homfray
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Saturday was exactly one month since poet Rupert McCall captivated 1600 people with his every word at Port Adelaide’s 150th gala dinner and closed with a line that was as prophetic as it was powerful.
“It will not rest in idleness where dreams are kicked and caught,” McCall said.
“It will fight the fight forever, it is passion, it is Port.”
Like the rest of the competition and much of the entire country, Port Adelaide Football Club is right now sitting idle as the world deals with the coronavirus pandemic.
Perhaps even more than any other club, with its squad midway through a two-week home quarantine.
But the club’s fight, for survival, for people’s jobs, for a season and for a celebration, goes on.
As chief executive Keith Thomas stated on Saturday “it is in a life-threatening situation, but it will not go under.”
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There is never a good time for a global health pandemic and for an AFL season to be suspended indefinitely.
But the timing could not have been worse for Port Adelaide on and off the field.
It had pinned so much hope on its 150th anniversary and the feeling among the faithful appeared to be reciprocal.
Merchandise sales last December were the highest since September 2014, on the back of a new logo and a prison bar jumper that had to be reordered several times to meet demand.
The jumper was supposed to be worn in Saturday night’s Showdown, but the Power will instead seek AFL permission to wear it later this year or next season if 2020 is a write-off.
Corporate support was strong.
The club had just signed MG as a joint major sponsor and was deep in talks with Red Bull on a partnership that was announced in the midst of the crisis last week.
All of that remains steadfast.
Thomas got a letter from MG’s managing director just over a week ago reiterating its support. The printers are about to be fired up on a limited edition book – a keepsake for diehard fans which includes replica premiership and Magarey Medals.
As of the weekend, membership was at 51,759 which is just below year-on-year figures but the last fortnight would tell a crippling story for most clubs in the competition.
On the field they had some momentum having won both pre-season games against quality opposition and beat Gold Coast by eight goals in Round 1.
That result hardly declared them premiership contenders but the kids who sell hope like Connor Rozee on the ball and Mitch Georgiades in front of goal would have triggered a membership surge leading into Showdown 48.
If not in 11-game memberships then in three-game passes so people could get into the ground to see the Power try to even the ledger at 24-24.
Instead, like everyone else in the competition, they are in a holding pattern without football but more than anyone else they are left to rue what could have been in their 150th year.
As all clubs fight for survival, their members have never been more important and the way McCall also opened his poem at the gala dinner seems so very apt.
“The first ship dropped its anchor and tied a rope to something strong, and the crew that sailed that journey sang a winning kind of song,” he said.
“Because they’d tamed the toughest ocean and endured the wildest weather, but they never would have made it if they didn’t sail together.”
McCall went on to mention names like Bob Quinn, who knows exactly what a life and death situation looks like having won Magarey Medals either side of being shot in the leg in World War II.
“It is fierce and it’s relentless, when the centre bounce takes flight, a comrade on the left of you, a comrade on the right,” McCall continued.
“When the siren ends that battle, it’s above and it’s beyond, it’s a special kind of mateship that becomes a lifelong bond.
“And pretty soon you realise it’s beating in your heart, and nothing stands between, no, it will not be torn apart.”
If McCall was writing his poem again then the story of what confronted Port in its 150th year would be more than just one verse.
Or maybe that’s what he already meant when he said: “Ever since that game, it’s powered every battle sought, it was courage under fire, it was passion, it was Port.”
GAME NOTES
THE players wore an unfair amount of criticism in their very public negotiations with the AFL over their wage this past week.
Are they overpaid compared to the majority of working class Australians doing 40-hour weeks to get by? Most would say yes.
However that’s a product of the game’s extraordinary growth over the past 20 years.
The players have always been there, but what hasn’t is the ever-growing number of staff at footy clubs which, again, is a reflection of the health of the competition.
But when the game suddenly falls ill, through no one’s fault, then surely the players who have been there since day dot and have a very short lifespan are entitled to a reasonable level of protection?
Because without them there is no show at all.
ISOLATION is not ideal for anyone in football who would much rather have spent the past week at training or a game.
But GWS coach Leon Cameron put such a beautiful perspective on it when he told SEN’s coaches’ forum the enforced break had made him take stock of what he’s fortunate to have at home.
“One of the real positive things is you do get to see your kids and to see the situation they confront and to spend more time with your family. Just before I came on the phone, I was playing basketball on a Thursday morning with my eight-year-old,” Cameron said.
CREDIT to all clubs for the way they’ve tried to keep members and supporters ‘engaged’, which seems to have been the buzz word around the industry this week. They’ve all put their own spin on their social media accounts including handing them over to the players and coaches to put themselves out there on camera.
But this week’s winner would have to be Sydney coach John Longmire who was recorded delivering a stirring pre-game rev up for his players in his loungeroom, before the camera panned to his disinterested daughter in her hoodie on the couch. Well played, Horse.