Glenelg will play in 2019 SANFL Grand Final just three years after almost closing its doors over debt
Glenelg was broke and facing extinction just three years ago — now the Tigers are knocking on the door of ending a 33-year title drought.
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Three years after being at the verge of extinction, the Glenelg Football Club will play a fairytale SANFL grand final against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
Gripped by multimillion-dollar debts and burdened with a $571,000 loss for the year, the iconic club established the Save the Tigers campaign and rattled the money tin amid serious threats of closing its Brighton Rd doors.
Suppliers refused to deliver goods unless paid in cash upfront.
“The last thing I wanted to be was the president of the football club who shut the doors,” Tigers president Nick Chigwidden said.
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“It wasn’t a myth, it was certainly very, very serious.
“If the Holdfast Bay Council did not give us relief with interest on the debt, we would have had to shut the doors.
“We also got people like Graham Cornes, Peter Carey, Stephen Kernahan, all those blokes, to get involved and save the Tigers.
“We also had a couple of good supporters who threw in some money and without that the club would not be here today.
“You can lose money for only so long.
“We had to keep chipping away to stabilise the ship financially and make the club sustainable going forward before we could look at what we could do on the field.”
Tigers chief executive Glenn Elliott, pivotal in the financial resurrection of North Adelaide, was his typical ruthless self as he set about replacing red figures with black.
He had the committed backing of Chigwidden and a resilient board.
Elliott described the situation as extremely dire.
He claimed there were times when he felt he was climbing Mt Everest on rollerskates.
The slow grind to financial stability is now matched on the field as the Tigers, under second-year coach Mark Stone, emerge as a genuine competition force, allowing long-suffering fans to dare to dream.
Its been 33 years since the Tigers tasted premiership success, going back-to-back under coach Cornes in the glory days of club greats Carey, Ross Gibbs, Chris McDermott and Kernahan.
The Tigers haven’t been in the finals since 2011.
Now the Tigers are just a win away from replicating the unwavering commitment off the field on the state league’s biggest stage.
“It is unbelievable and has probably come a little quicker than expected given where we were three, four years ago,” said Chigwidden, club president since 2012.
“The job is not done yet, we are really happy to be there, but there is one more game to win.
“As for our long-suffering fans, to think of the club’s proud history and not win a flag for 33 years is amazing … not to be a serious finals contender for so long is amazing” he told The Advertiser.