Outgoing Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas reflects on nine-years in the job and when he knew the Power were on the right track again
He arrived at Port Adelaide when the club was on its knees. Now after nine-years Keith Thomas finishes as CEO and tells of the moment he knew the Power had turned things around.
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KEITH Thomas will never forget 4.39pm on March 29, 2014.
Thomas and the rest of the Port Adelaide administration had been thinking of ways to create “a moment” for the Power’s arrival at Adelaide Oval for at least two years prior to the first AFL match at the redeveloped venue.
After Liverpool’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” enthralled Power players and staff during a trip to Anfield in 2012, the goal was to find Port’s own “anthem”.
Songs with the word ‘power’ in the title were considered and thrown out, before senior events staffer Tara McLeod suggest INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart.
If it didn’t work in that first game at the redeveloped Adelaide Oval, a Power home Showdown, then Thomas was prepared to scrap it then and there.
But as he bows out as Port Adelaide chief executive following just over nine-years at the helm, Thomas told The Advertiser those 60 seconds prior to the first bounce showed him the club after 15-years of being divided was back on the right path.
“We had been thinking about creating ‘a moment’ for our arrival at Adelaide Oval for at least two years, but we knew that the song had to mean something to our members if it were to survive beyond the first week,” he said.
“The moment our people heard the words Never Tear Us Apart... they got it. And they have owned that moment ever since.
“It remains one of the great moments in Australian sport.”
If that was the moment that showed Thomas Port were on the right track again, in the first week after started as chief executive in September 2011 he got a big indication of the task at hand turning around a club consistently referred to as a “basket case” off the field and struggling on it.
When Thomas arrived at Alberton the “hard fought” decision to move to Adelaide Oval had already been made, but there were little other positives about Port’s situation.
“The financial position of the club was perilous, the resources available to the football program were diminishing, on field performance was poor at every level and the club was divided after 15 years of the enforced separation of the AFL and SANFL programs,” he said.
“I had been watching the team play that year, and it was clear that all was not well.
“When I commenced, I found that we were having to Skype some of our coaching sessions in from Melbourne, we had an SANFL representative attending every Board meeting as a form of financial control and in my first week we lost our two major partners (My ATM and Soaring Securities).
“Reality hit pretty quickly.”
A Norwood guy, or “flog” if you ask some more at the time blunt Port Adelaide supporters, despite being a fan of Port as a kid, Thomas - brought in as a “change agent” - knew a there was a significant challenge ahead for the Power to turn things around.
The club was losing up to $7 million a year with sustained losses financially, membership was just 29,092 and the 2011 season average for home crowds at Football Park was 21,678.
But despite the wishes of then licence holders the SANFL, Thomas was adamant there was “no way we could save our way out of this position”.
“We needed to invest in the performance of our football program, which we did,” he said.
“Proud footy clubs like Port Adelaide, don’t work unless you are playing good footy.
“(So) I spent most of season 2012 observing and reviewing. We had bolstered our football program a little, but were not convinced that without seismic change that we could create the sort of momentum that was going to be required to get to Adelaide Oval with a full head of steam.”
From August 2012 to the start of the 2013 season a flurry of changes came at Alberton.
Ken Hinkley was appointed as coach after club great Matthew Primus was sacked, David Koch became chairman when Brett Duncanson stepped down, Travis Boak was installed as captain and Darren Burgess was lured back to Port Adelaide from Liverpool as the Power started to plan how they would take advantage of the move to Adelaide Oval.
“Adelaide Oval was the beacon on the hill,” Thomas said.
“We knew at the start of 2014 that we had a once in a career opportunity to change the fortunes of the club.
“It inspired us all. Ken and Darren got the players really fit and playing an exciting brand of footy.
“We won the first five games of season 2013 and drove the message of change and the promise of a new era.
“The team lifted from well outside the top eight to win a final in 2013, which provided us with a fantastic platform to drive into the world class Adelaide Oval full of confidence.”
It wasn’t just the big move to Adelaide Oval that Thomas said helped change Port’s fortunes around.
Like the Power, the Port Adelaide Magpies had also been struggling with the fanbase divided between new and old.
The decision had been made in 2010 to merge the Power and the Magpies, after the success of the ‘ONE PAFC’ campaign, but Port’s AFL-listed players would still have to play for other SANFL sides.
Three-years later the two football programs were merged, but it came at the expense of Port Adelaide’s traditional junior recruiting zones.
“It was unpopular, but the reality was that the Magpies were battling to be competitive under the recruitment and playing restrictions they were enduring,” Thomas said.
“Our AFL players were playing for other SANFL teams, the football program was divided and it was creating division inside the club and with our members.
“Merging the football programs was in my view one of the most important decisions we have made in the past decade because it has enhanced the development of our AFL players, ensured that the Magpies could compete successfully again in the SANFL and it helped us to unify the club again after years of enforced separation and division.”
This, as well as getting the SANFL to give the Power its “independence” with its AFL licence, allowed Port Adelaide to cast its ambitious glances outside of its postcode, its state and even its country.
“I’m not sure that people quite understand how difficult it has been to get to play a game of Australian football, for premiership points, on mainland China,” Thomas said of Port’s ambitious China Strategy.
“We certainly had no idea how tough it would be when we first started out.
“Our embrace of China broadens our commercial appeal nationally and internationally…which I believe remains incredibly important.
“But more significantly, we proved that the Port Adelaide Football Club is capable of anything.”
COVID-19 has not only hit Port’s China Strategy hard but the club itself, in its 150th Anniversary year.
But Thomas said the response by Port Adelaide to the pandemic in 2020 showed just how far the club had came since he first walked through the doors in 2011.
“We’ve survived. That’s the good news,” he said.
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“But our club is no different to any other in that we’ve taken a significant hit.
“Having said that, I believe our board and our staff performed brilliantly through the trauma to limit the damage as much as we did.
“The instant, collective response from the entire Port Adelaide family would not have been possible at the end of 2011…I think that’s as good an indication as any as to how far we have come.”
Thomas said the challenges posed by the pandemic has strangely energised him for his what’s next, having announced his departure last year and offered to the Port board to stay on past 2020.
And after nine-years at chief executive Thomas looks back on pride at the transformation of the club’s fortunes and the former Redleg is no longer that bloke from Norwood, or worst, among the Power faithful.
“The club is united again, proudly declaring that We Are Port Adelaide, brings us all great joy,” he said.
“I would like them (the fans) to know that I cared deeply, and gave it everything I had.”
Power’s pact to negotiate two COVID potholes
Outgoing Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas says the club will still push for an AFLW licence as he reveals the devastating impact COVID-19 has had on the Power off the field.
And Thomas says Port are hopeful the club will soon be able to secure the funding required to start its multi million dollar redevelopment of Alberton Oval and the precinct surrounding it.
Thomas, who will finish up as Port Adelaide chief executive after just over nine-years in the role this week, said most of the club’s staff who had kept their jobs during the pandemic would continue to work from home until next year as the Power continues to grapple with the financial fallout from the pandemic.
“The COVID impact has been severe,” he said.
“The football soft cap will reduce from $9.7 million to $6.2 million next year. We are still working on that.
“Close to 40 per cent of our administrative roles have been made redundant.
“A lot of good people have been lost to the industry and it will take several years to fully recover.”
The Power like every other AFL club is expecting to record significant debt as a result of the pandemic.
But Thomas said the club would still push on with trying to get entry into the AFLW — having instead pressed on with its China Strategy when the competition was formed — although there was no time frame on this.
“We’re still keen to be involved, when the opportunity presents itself,” he said. “I’m not sure when that will be.”
Closer to being realised looks to be Port Adelaide’s ambitious redevelopment of Alberton Oval.
Originally slated to be up and running this year, the redevelopment at Alberton included the expansion and redesign of the High Performance Centre, the creation of an Aboriginal Centre of Excellence and Boarding facility and an upgrade of the Port Club.
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When it was first announced chairman David Koch said Alberton Oval would be slightly realigned to allow vacant ground behind the oval to be incorporated into a secondary training and rehabilitation field.
A rehabilitation space would still form part of the plan, but it is still to be determined whether it is outdoors or indoors.
So far Port only has $4 million from the Federal Government allocated to the Aboriginal Leadership Centre component of the redevelopment and has been trying to get other government funding for the project.
The first stage of the Port Club redevelopment, a creation of a club museum, is underway and Thomas said the Power were hoping for the rest of the project to get underway shortly.
“Throughout 2020 we have continued to work on redevelopment plans for both the High Performance Centre and the Port Club,” he said.
“These are now well advanced and we’re hopeful that at some stage soon we’ll be able to secure the funding we need to get started.”
THANKS, POWER FANS, FOR LIFTING US HIGHER
By David ‘Kochie’ Koch
Port Adelaide chairman
To the Port Adelaide family,
You have been magnificent. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I never for one moment doubted your support and loyalty but, given the year we’ve all been through, you’ve gone above and beyond in so many ways.
The entire club is grateful.
The year 2020 will go down as one of the most challenging in our lives and the impact that the global pandemic has had on every AFL club has been devastating.
Most significantly, the impact COVID-19 has had on the lives of our members, supporters and corporate partners has been equally distressing.
And that is why the greatest thanks of all goes to the Port Adelaide family, which has supported our club through the most challenging of circumstances this year.
To our members who stuck by the club and continued to pledge your membership, despite the uncertainty of the season, thank you.
To our members and supporters who bought club merchandise this season in record numbers, thank you.
To our members and supporters who made Adelaide Oval a cauldron of inspiration for our players this season, thank you. The noise you all made during games was simply spine-tingling.
And to our corporate partners, led by GFG and MG, who stood by the club in the face of their own uncertainties and business challenges, thank you.
Without you all, we could not have survived and come out of the season in better shape than we feared.
To the players, coaches and staff, I am just so proud of you all.
No whingeing, no complaining, you approached this year as an adventure with the single focus of making our club a success on and off the field. Every one of you stayed committed to the cause throughout the uncertainty of shutdown in April and May.
Then we were dispatched to Queensland as one of the first clubs to stay in an AFL hub.
Then we returned to Adelaide for 5.30am fly-in, fly-out games in the Sunshine State.
And, despite the doubt that season 2020 presented, you did us proud by maintaining top position all year and claiming the minor premiership.
You then played your hearts out in a grinding win against Geelong in the qualifying final, only to go down by a kick to Richmond last Friday night in an epic preliminary final.
We started our 150th anniversary bursting with pride with the legacy our predecessors had set in stone.
As a club, we set ourselves to win the premiership in this historic year for our club.
In typical Port Adelaide fashion, Ken Hinkley declared this publicly in February.
We fell agonisingly short of this goal. We are gutted and completely devastated that we were unable to complete what we set out to do. As a club, we had worked so bloody hard to put ourselves in a position to challenge for the premiership.
But we will grow from this.
At Port Adelaide, you either win or learn.
I guarantee our group will learn from this. The pain of defeat will burn in their guts and act as a driver for years to come.
In 2021, we start the next 150 years of the Port Adelaide Football Club in a position of great strength and unity thanks to the extraordinary commitment of the entire Port Adelaide family.
Thank you,
Kochie
Port Adelaide chairman
Originally published as Outgoing Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas reflects on nine-years in the job and when he knew the Power were on the right track again