Port Adelaide SANFL captain Steve Summerton — the last of the ‘true Magpies’ retires from league football
PORT Adelaide SANFL captain Steve Summerton is to retire from league football at season’s end. He will be the last player outside the Power list to wear the black-and-white prison-bar jumper for 200 SANFL games.
PORT Adelaide SANFL captain Steve Summerton — the last of the “true Magpies” — is to retire as a league footballer at season’s end.
Summerton, 30, will close his SANFL career at 226 senior games, playing at Alberton Oval for the last time on Sunday against Central and for the last time in the State league on Saturday week against North Adelaide at Prospect.
And the 13-season journey — that has coincided with the massive transformation of the Port Adelaide Football Club — ends without a premiership, a supposed birthright for any Magpie from the LeFevre Peninsula.
“It has been a roller-coaster ride,” Summerton told The Advertiser.
“I leave not having won a premiership … and with no regret. It definitely hurts that I finish without won a flag with my mates.
“It hurts a little more to remember we lost two grand finals (2014 to Norwood and last year to Sturt) by less than a kick in total.
“But that’s the game … and it can be brutal.”
Summerton, also a State team midfielder, will leave the SANFL — and play out his football in the community leagues for the next two or three years to “have some fun”.
“I could not go to another SANFL club that I don’t care for,” Summerton said.
“I’m not leaving now because of my body or for money … it is because the time is right.
“All my close mates are gone now. And they are the reason I played — to enjoy footy with my mates.”
Summerton is expected to be the last Port Adelaide player outside the Power list to wear the black-and-white prison-bar jumper for 200 SANFL games.
The new SANFL rules — that have denied Port Adelaide the LeFevre Peninsula as a recruiting zone — and the prospect of a national AFL reserves competition will have Summeron remembered as the “last of the true Magpies”.
Summerton was outspoken — particularly on social media — at the time of the grand transition to the “One Port Adelaide” model in 2010 that reunited the club and paved the way to the transformation of the Magpies to the Power reserves.
“At that time, all I knew was the Port Adelaide Magpies — I was a Magpie through and through,” Summerton said.
“It has been a tough transition with so many changes, some I have enjoy; some I have not.
“But at the end, this is the football club I care for. It was easy to stay with Port Adelaide because this is the club I love.”
Summerton’s SANFL journey began in 2006.
He still recalls his first game — a win against Sturt at Adelaide Oval — as if it was his only match as a Magpie.
He kicked his first goal taking a handpass from Corey Ah Chee to finish the play with a left-foot snap.
“It is a moment I will never forget,” Summerton said.
“And I will never forget the friendships — and the great people, particularly the volunteers — I have met along the way. There are people who will do anything for you … and their friendship will last forever.”