Port Adelaide Magpies great Tim Ginever shares memories of his second home, Alberton Oval
TIM Ginever has a special spot in his heart for Alberton Oval. This month the SANFL Hall of Famer, gave the Portside Messenger a tour of the oval, sharing his memories.
Local Footy
Don't miss out on the headlines from Local Footy. Followed categories will be added to My News.
TIM Ginever has a special spot in his heart for Alberton Oval.
The Queen St ground is where Ginever fell in love with Port Adelaide as a supporter, trained and played home games during his 15-year SANFL career, captained and coached the Magpies, and now works as a sales manager at his beloved club.
As the seventh of 10 children to an English father and South American mother, Ginever’s journey to the oval began via his older brother John.
“John was around the 10 mark and didn’t like being called a Pom so wanted to do everything Australian, and one of them was Aussie rules,” Ginever remembers.
“A mate at Woodville High said ‘you’re barracking for Port Adelaide’ and that was it – the rest of the family barracked for Port Adelaide.
“When I arrived here (as a player) it was pretty special. Working here now, it’s a bit surreal.”
Last month the SANFL Hall of Famer, who played 314 games and won seven flags for the Magpies, gave the Portside Messenger a tour of Alberton Oval, sharing his memories.
CLUBROOMS
Ginever had his 21st birthday party in Port’s clubrooms.
He also fondly recalls post-match presentations upstairs, where the players faced the supporters win, lose or draw.
“Upstairs, you’d go through everybody and they’d tell you how you went – and it was a brutal assessment.
“They could come up to you and say ‘you were pathetic today’.
“The very next week if you did play well ... they’d say ‘gee, you were good today’.
“They knew their footy and they were honest.”
Ginever remembers the ground floor of the clubrooms being “entertainment city” featuring a DJ and bingo nights.
“Jack (legendary Port coach John Cahill) was a big one for making sure you enjoy your wins but make sure you’re here for 9am for trainings.
“He didn’t actually care if you came in the clothes you had on the night before, so long as you weren’t late and you were prepared to train.
“(Former teammate) Rohan Smith was one of those characters who’d do that regularly – he’d be in the car.
“We’d knock on the window and say ‘Rohan, training mate, let’s go’.”
BOB QUINN PLAQUE IN THE CLUBROOMS
Ginever’s Port hero is Bob Quinn, the captain/coach who won the second of his two Magarey Medals after being wounded and decorated for bravery during service in the North African and Pacific theatres in World War II.
Despite hearing stories about Quinn, a three-time premiership player and all-Australian captain, for years, Ginever did not meet him until 1994.
It happened unexpectedly thanks to a longtime work colleague.
“I worked at Balfours for 10 years and worked with a lady called Pam Paul,” Ginever says.
“Every Monday during footy season, she barracked for Port, we had a chat and debriefed the game.
“We were in a bit of a slump midyear (in 1994) ... and she asked about a game and I said we didn’t do this, didn’t do that, and she said ‘yeah, dad said that’.
“I said ‘who’s your dad?’ She said Bob Quinn.
“We’d been doing this for 10 years and she’d never told me that was her father, but that was the humility of the family.
“We won the (1994) grand final and on about the Wednesday we were here (at Alberton) and I’d had enough of these blokes so snuck out the back way about 6pm and walked home.
“The landline went off straight away when I walked in and I thought ‘hello, they’re onto me’.
“A voice said it was Bob Quinn and I said ‘yeah, sure it is’. But it was Bob.
“We went to Pam’s house on a Sunday and I sat the whole day with Bobby, drinking little butchers and got all these fantastic stories.
“He was just a terrific bloke.
“We had a great friendship going (until Quinn died in 2008) and gee he was tough.
“If you talk to a lot of people of that era, they still say he’s the best player of the footy club.”
GYM
Ginever says the club began to put more emphasis on weight training after four-time Magarey Medallist Russell Ebert returned to Alberton from North Melbourne.
“Russell said one of the biggest differences he found was the strength of the Victorians.
“When he came back and especially when he took over as coach, we invested a lot more into the gym, buying weights.”
For a short time, Port players had a table tennis table just outside the gym.
“You’d come off the track, do the chins, dips, sit-ups and push-ups that were required ... then come here and play table tennis, mainly doubles until most of the lads left,” Ginever says.
“Eight to 10 of us, we’d play a round-robin, knockout comp to a grand final – serious stuff.
“We’d stand for the grand final with table tennis bats across our hearts and Rohan (Smith) and I would sing the national anthem.
“In 1991, we lost four games in a row in the middle of the year and they took the table tennis table away.
“We were shattered.”
The next season Magpies players wanted to find another way of bonding after trainings so Paul Rizonico and Richard Foster put up a dartboard.
“All of a sudden we’re into darts, having tournaments and doing Shanghais (a dart game),” Ginever says.
“Nathan Buckley was playing in 1992 and one time, he looked at the thing and asked ‘what’s that?’
“He saw our scoreboard and it was his competitive brain.
“We said ‘that’s Shanghais, you wouldn’t even know, don’t bother’.
“He asked to have a go and, of course, he sprays them everywhere.
“Rizzo (Rizonico) said he was like the sprinkler, spraying them everywhere and stirred him up, saying ‘you’re only good at footy Bucks’.
“Over the weeks, slowly and surely he got better and better.
“Come August, Bucks is smashing everybody and we are thinking ‘he’s just a freak’.
“But I came in here one day for a bit of extra treatment around about 2.30pm and Bucks was throwing darts.
“I said ‘you’ve been coming in early – you’re hustling us’.
“But he said ‘no Timmy, it’s my first time, I’ve just finished uni early’.
“I went in, got treatment and said to our head trainer, ‘how long’s he been doing this thing, coming in early?’
“He said ‘he’s been doing it since the day you took the piss out of him’.
“Bucks was obsessed with being the best.”
CHANGEROOMS
Ginever gets nostalgic when he walks into the changerooms.
“You look at the walls, look at the doors and it brings back memories.
“You’d get the rev up in here, get dressed, changed and have your short meeting about the day’s play.”
Ginever’s locker was next to club greats Ebert and Tim Evans in his early playing days.
“You’d get caught staring. It was amazing.”
Port would not sing its club song after every victory.
“If we had a win which was ugly, we wouldn’t sing the song and it wasn’t compulsory,” Ginever says.
“And it was never the arm in arm thing that happens now, we’d just sit in front of our locker, maybe with a West End can, a pie or pasty – we were the height of dietary expertise.”
Ginever chuckles when he remembers some of the changeroom banter between teammates.
“(Stephen) ‘Bomber’ Clifford was going a bit bald on the top of his head and Dwayne (Russell) had a couple of pimples on his back.
“Dwayne took his jumper off and Bomber looked at him and said ‘have a look at that. You’re the only bloke I know with a map of the Flinders Ranges on his back’.
“And I burst out laughing.
“Then Dwayne said to Bomber ‘you’re the only bloke I know with a map of the Simpson Desert on his head’ and I started laughing again.
“Bomber then looked at me and said ‘what are you laughing at piano mouth?’
“That sort of banter used to go on a fair bit.”
FOS WILLIAMS FAMILY STAND
Ginever reckons “you knew everybody” in the Fos Williams Family Stand during his playing days.
“You’d see a lot of faces you’d know because they’d be here every week.
“It was great.”
But as a supporter, Ginever always watched matches from the outer side.
“One of the first games I remember coming to, we rode our bikes and went over to the old time clock.
“It was Port-Norwood (in 1977) and there was a record crowd here, about 22,000 at Alberton.
“I was pretty young and small, would you believe, so me and my brother climbed the clock tower to get a good view.”
BOB QUINN STAND
One of Ginever’s favourite memories of the Bob Quinn Stand is its use for premiership celebrations on grand final nights.
Players would be presented to Magpies fans and eight-time premiership defender Paul Northeast became part of the entertainment.
“They’d build scaffolding and it would come out to the corner so we were basically on a platform on the edge there,” Ginever says.
“They’d introduce us one by one and we always thought Norther (Northeast) would launch himself into the crowd.
“It was part of the excitement.”
OVAL
Ginever says the oval itself has always held an aura.
He also says it can be an unforgiving place for Magpies and opposition players alike.
“The great thing about home was you knew the opposition were intimidated before they got here and the crowd made sure they were once they were here.
“They were welcomed in the fashion that we like.
“My mum started coming to watch in the late ‘80s and my brothers would be over there and once the ball went over the boundary line I could hear one of my brothers saying ‘get a kick boxhead’ – that was constant.”
Ranked: Local SA footy’s top 30 coaches of 2024
From former AFL and SANFL stars to local legends, we’ve ranked local SA footy’s top 30 coaches of season 2024. See who made the cut.
Dad shares update as details about teen local footballer’s coma revealed
The father of a Adelaide Plains Football teen player placed in an induced coma has shared a positive update on his son.