Port Adelaide to honour two of its greatest servants - Russell Ebert and Alf Trebilcock - 50 years on
PORT Adelaide great Russell Ebert will share the 50th anniversary of his first season at Alberton with long-serving club boot studder Alf Trebilcock on Sunday.
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TWO Port Adelaide Football Club stalwarts - four-time Magarey Medallist Russell Ebert and AFL-honoured boot studder Alf Trebilcock - will be honoured on Sunday in recognition of their 50th anniversary at Alberton.
And for the ever-modest Ebert, the occasion means more as the ultimate team man gets to celebrate with the ultimate club man at Port Adelaide.
“We’re sharing each other’s weekend in the limelight,” said Ebert, the former player, captain and coach and now front-office man at Alberton as the leader of the Power’s community projects. “And I’m proud to stand alongside a man who has made an incredible contribution to Port Adelaide - as a volunteer.”
Both men moved from the country to Alberton in 1968 - Ebert from the Riverland to become a 392-game Magpie; Trebilcock from Broken Hill to become the club’s boot studder. Both have had significant influence at Port Adelaide, as the AFL recognised with Trebilcock in 2013 with the prestigious Jack Titus Award for high service to the game.
“It is difficult to find words that do justice to Alf’s work at Port Adelaide,” said Ebert, who was an immediate success in 1968 by topping the Magpies’ SANFL goalkicking list.
“People attach themselves to football clubs as supporters and barrackers. But when you volunteer to serve a football club for 50 years, well that is amazing - it is an incredible contribution. More so when Alfie at the same time ran a butcher’s business and cared for his family.
“Whenever people talk of a football club’s hierarchy as ‘from the president to the boot studder’, I think we should look at the order of importance the other way around.”
Trebilcock will toss the coin for the choice of ends at the start of Sunday’s traditional Magpies-Norwood game at Alberton. Ebert will have the first kick for goal - a theme Port Adelaide has reserved for its AFL matches at Adelaide Oval but will concede to the SANFL routine to honour its greatest player.
And what kick will Ebert use? “Have to be the drop kick, won’t it?” Ebert said.