Adelaide Oval – and the city’s CBD – falls silent on a Showdown night that was supposed to celebrate Port Adelaide’s 150th year
Adelaide Oval, and the streets of the city’s CBD, are usually buzzing on Showdown night. But there was only eerie silence on Saturday, after coronavirus forced the football world into shutdown, writes Matt Turner.
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It is 7.10pm outside the Victor Richardson Gates at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night and there is no siren to start Showdown 48.
Nor is there the culmination of Port Adelaide fans singing the words to Never Tear Us Apart, the roar of the crowd, the umpire’s whistle, AFL Record spruikers, banter between Power and Crows supporters, or latecomers rushing through the turnstiles.
Instead, on what is meant to be one of the biggest occasions in SA sport in 2020 – Port wearing its traditional prison-bar guernsey for the opening home match of its 150th year and for the first time against Adelaide – there is silence.
No game, no people, barely any activity, save for the passing of a car or two.
That is until a family of four ascends steps nearby and walks towards the padlocked gates.
Fittingly, one of them, Ange Giuffreda, is donning a new black and white prison-bar guernsey, along with a Power cap.
The 51-year-old is a lifelong Port supporter and is devastated at the absence of footy, although recognises the need for the AFL to shut down during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I was watching a Showdown (on TV) last night and thought I might just go down to the oval and take a few photos and videos,” Giuffreda says.
“I’ve been hanging out for football for the last six months or so.
“I’m absolutely shattered, but totally understand the reasons behind it.
“I thought we had a big chance in knocking the Crows off and reckon we would’ve had a big win over them.
“I reckon we would’ve won by 50 points.”
Giuffreda’s brother-in-law, Mario Spagnuolo, peers through the oval’s black gates that resemble Port’s prison-bar guernsey design and talks about the extra significance the ground has for him.
He worked at there as a painter for almost 12 months during its redevelopment ahead of the 2014 AFL season.
“This place is …,” says Spagnuolo, who cuts his sentence short to tap his chest twice, pointing to where his heart is.
“I said to my boss ‘I want to do one day at Adelaide Oval, that’s all I want to do and after that you can throw me wherever’, but he kept me for nearly a year.
“I painted all the members (area), I watched this place get built from the ground up.
“I watched the cricket boys bowl their first ball on the Test pitch out there (after the redevelopment) – we were up in the stands watching it happen – and I watched every blade of grass get laid.
“(To watch Power games here now) it’s unbelievable.”
Spagnuolo currently works at Memorial Hospital in North Adelaide, but still parks underground at Adelaide Oval every workday.
“I live here more than home,” he jokes.
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That was not the case for Spagnuolo last season.
He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in October 2018, a few weeks after West Coast’s thrilling grand final win over Collingwood, leading him to miss all bar the last three Port home games in 2019.
“It was devastating, but I’m all good now,” he says.
Coming back this season was set to be even more special because his seven-year-old grandson, Alessio, was going to join him.
“We got him his ticket, he’s excited, we got him his guernsey, we got him everything and we couldn’t do it and he’s upset,” Spagnuolo says.
“Me, I’m missing out two years.”
With no game, that means there is also no “march” to the oval.
Usually hundreds of Power fans, decked out in black, white and teal, congregate at Gawler Place in Rundle Mall about 90 minutes before the first bounce then walk together to the ground, via North Tce and the River Torrens footbridge.
At 5.45pm on Saturday night in that same meeting spot, in Adelaide’s major shopping strip, it is deserted.
The mall has fewer than 20 people stroll past in five minutes and rather than them being Port fans with scarfs and caps, or Crows supporters, the most common clothing accessory of passers-by are blue face masks.
Heading to the oval via the same route as what Power fans would have taken was eerie.
The sun is setting soon, but it is about as busy as 5am.
For any spectator, usually it is a case of shuffling slowly, rather than walking across the footbridge, in the hour before a Showdown.
If you do not weave between throngs of supporters, you get stuck behind them and it can be like waiting to bypass a truck taking up multiple lanes with an oversized load.
On Saturday night, there are five people on the bridge – a couple in their mid-20s, wearing face masks, and a dad and his two sons on bikes, pedalling away from the ground.
After crossing the Torrens, the next sight tends to be Power and Crows fans either lining up to enter the gates or waiting outside to be joined by friends and family who are yet to arrive.
Barrie Robran’s statue is a common meeting spot.
Ken Martin’s sculpture of the North Adelaide champion still soared in the southern plaza on Saturday night, but on its own.
SA’s only other “legend” in the Australian Football Hall of Fame is two-time Crows premiership coach Malcolm Blight, who has a statue a drop punt away from Robran’s, towards the Victor Richardson Gates.
Wayne and Michelle Kisbee walked past both statues about 7.40pm, around quarter-time if the game had gone ahead, and had no idea who the past superstars were.
They headed to the South Gate’s glass doors, which were shut but from where you could look in and see the goals before the sun set.
The English couple, from Dudley near Birmingham, were eagerly anticipating the Showdown – it would have been their first game of Aussie rules.
They bought tickets in January and got married in the back garden of Michelle’s uncle’s place in Victor Harbor last Saturday.
“During last year, somebody mentioned it as a joke ‘why don’t you get married in Australia?’ and in the end we thought we’d look into it,” says Wayne, who has been in SA for three weeks.
The Kisbees had been trying to learn footy’s rules via a few Youtube clips but a day after the ceremony, the AFL postponed the season.
“I watched some of the (Port versus Gold Coast) game last weekend and thought it was all right, but I still didn’t have a clue what was going on,” Wayne says.
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“We knew this was a local derby, so that is why I wanted tickets and I was looking forward to it.
“I didn’t have a clue who to cheer for but I was expecting it to be quiet loud in there.
“It’s hard to imagine there was supposed to be 50-odd thousand people here.”
Ian Wilson and Peter Kauschke certainly know about Showdowns’ atmosphere – they are presidents of the Port cheer squad and Crows supporters group respectively.
They get let into the oval a few hours before the first bounce to set up the banners, then spend four quarters helping to lead chants and trying to urge their sides over the line.
Wilson and Kauschke were not at the ground on Saturday night but did the same thing – watched old Showdowns from home.
“It’s frustrating and devastating but there’s lots of other stuff going on in the world too,” says Wilson, who has been in Port’s cheer squad since 1966.
“You do miss beating the Crows.
“Wearing the prison-bar guernsey would’ve added to the intensity of the rivalry.
“Hopefully everyone looks after themselves and we can get past this.”
Port and Crows fans rarely agree on footy, but they do on this global health issue.
“It’s all hollow and you just don’t know what’s going to happen or when it’s going to start up again,” Kauschke says.
“People have lost their jobs and family members have lost their jobs … and to have a football fix, an out – everything’s been taken away.
“Last night I thought ‘what a nice night for footy’.
“We’ve got our banner packed away in storage ready for it to start up again.
“As long as it’s safe, everyone will be keen as mustard.”
Originally published as Adelaide Oval – and the city’s CBD – falls silent on a Showdown night that was supposed to celebrate Port Adelaide’s 150th year