Adelaide AFL showdown: With 2240 it’s a full house, you bewdy!

At the Adelaide Oval on Saturday night, the AFL will record the smallest crowd figure in its history. And the sport’s hierarchy could not be happier.

Brenton Coad and daughter Alannah, 12, are off to Saturday night’s ‘Showdown’ between their team, Port Adelaide, and the Adelaide Crows. Picture: Roy Van Der Vegt

At the Adelaide Oval on Saturday night, the AFL will record the smallest crowd figure in its history. And the sport’s hierarchy could not be happier.

The match between the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide will be one of the first games of professional sport worldwide that has allowed spectators into a stadium since the onset of the pandemic.

Vietnam’s domestic football competition was the first to welcome back fans last weekend, but the AFL, and the local rugby competition in New Zealand, are the next cabs off the global rank, with both to enjoy the roar of live crowds on Saturday night.

The NRL is expected to partially reopen its grounds to fans from early next month, although a handful of people will be allowed to watch this weekend’s games from corporate boxes at some grounds.

There will be just 2240 souls dotted around the 55,000-­capacity Adelaide Oval to see the Crows and Port, but the experience will guarantee each of them an “I was there” story to tell for the rest of their lives.

In what will be a bizarre scene, the lucky fans will be seated in alternate rows and four seats apart to maintain social distancing after they won “golden tickets” in ballots organised by the clubs.

For the Coad family of Salisbury East, a northern suburb in Port Adelaide’s working-class heartland, following Port is not so much an interest as a religion. Brenton Coad says his entire family is footy-mad and Port-­obsessed, so much so that he, wife Amanda, their daughter Alannah, 12, and his brother-in-law all ­entered the ballot individually to win tickets to maximise their chances.

“My brother-in-law and I got our emails from the club saying bad luck, we had missed out and then I heard Alannah jumping for joy and shouting “Dad! Dad! I’ve got a ticket!” Mr Coad said. “She was so stoked and my brother-in-law and I figured that even if we couldn’t get in we could still take her … then find a quiet pub in North Adelaide and pick her up at the final siren. But my wife put her foot down and said, “Are you mad? She’s too young to sit through a game on her own”.

In a double stroke of luck, Mr Coad shared the story of his daughter’s win on an Adelaide radio station, which contacted Port and arranged for a special emergency ticket to be given to Mr Coad.

The decision to allow a sprink­ling of fans into the ground is an ­extraordinary triumph for the sport. At one stage, there were serious doubts as to whether the AFL season could be completed. But in the space of a few weeks, the AFL has breathed life into season 2020, and there is even talk of aiming for a near 100,000 full house at the MCG on grand final day in October. But for Saturday night, at least, the magic number is 2240.

As a Port home game, the club was allocated the majority of the tickets, with 18,000 of its members registering in the ballot to get their hands on one of 1475 tickets. The Crows were given 475 tickets, with more than 5000 members applying. The remainder of the crowd will be made up of 50 Adelaide Oval members and 240 corporate guests at the invitation of Port.