Port Adelaide’s 150th celebrations plans to honour “prison bar” jumper still hinge on Collingwood peace deal

Port Adelaide celebrates its 150th anniversary next year — and no party could be complete without the Power wearing the club’s traditional black-and-white jumper.

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Port Adelaide in the next month will need to present to the AFL its full jumper ensemble for the club’s 150th anniversary season next year — and again negotiate a long-term peace deal with Collingwood.

With the AFL — and the Power’s merchandise suppliers — needing designs to approve in the next month, the fan-driven demand to honour Port Adelaide’s traditional black-and-white “prison bar” jumper in 2020 will force a final compromise with reticent Collingwood president Eddie McGuire.

As the Power and Magpies this week prepare for a hot top-of-the-table clash on the national stage of Friday Night Football, Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas is wanting to avoid the same spotlight on his club’s impending negotiations with McGuire — more so when the AFL is reluctant to overrule Collingwood.

Collingwood Magpies President Eddie McGuire and Port Adelaide President David Koch. Picture: Michael Dodge/Getty Images

“There are many sensitivities,” Thomas told The Advertiser. “And not just at Collingwood.

“First of all, we have to decide how we want to present the club in its 150th anniversary.

“The ‘prison bar’ guernsey has to be part of that — an absolutely important part of the celebrations. But how that plays out is still unknown.

“There is a right time — and right manner — to making these decisions.”

McGuire told The Advertiser he does not want a public brawl with the Power in the week leading up to a critical on-field battle at the Melbourne Docklands.

“I’ll say what Port Adelaide wants to do in 2020 is their business,” McGuire said.

“When they work it out, we’ll have a chat … we’ll gladly listen to them.”

The Advertiser understands Port Adelaide wants to wear its traditional black-and-white jumper — designed in 1902 — in Showdowns with the Crows, not just in 2020 but every AFL season.

Thomas has dismissed the 150th anniversary would spark a campaign to wear the black-and-white jumper every week, a right denied to Port Adelaide by Collingwood’s protests when the SA club was granted its AFL licence in December 1994.

“We love our current guernsey (designed in 2009 with a black base and white-teal V) — we are wedded to that,” Thomas said.

“But we also believe the ‘prison bar’ guernsey is enormously significant in Australian football history.

“In our 150th year, we will be honouring that guernsey. How? That is still to be worked out.”

Port Adelaide’s fan base — with a core group of 10 supporters running a social media campaign — has delivered 7500 signatures to a petition calling for the club to wear the “prison bars” every year in Showdowns and the Anzac Round.

The leader of the “Bring Back The Bars” campaign, Nathan McGrath, is adamant the black-and-white guernsey belongs with Port Adelaide in the AFL — and should not need Collingwood’s approval.

Port Adelaide Football Club CEO Keith Thomas at Alberton Oval. Picture: Matt Turner

“We understand the hurdles; we understand how the club is moving forward with a new set of colours and a new jumper,” McGrath told The Advertiser.

“But we will never give up on bringing the bars back. And we certainly believe it is up to us — not Collingwood — to decide where and when we wear the bars.”

Port Adelaide last wore the “prison bars” in the AFL for the 2014 elimination final against Richmond at Adelaide Oval. Thomas denies the Power signed an agreement to have this game mark the last time the black-and-white jumper was worn on the national stage.

“That was a deal between (AFL chief executive) Gillon (McLachlan) and Eddie to solve a problem of the moment (the clash of two black-based jumpers),” Thomas said. “It was done on the spur of the moment — without our involvement.”