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I am a Port Adelaide fan. I have been since 2007 when I moved to Australia. The first game I ever attended was Melbourne against Port at the MCG.
There were 9,000 people in attendance at that mid-season game, and from that moment on I was hooked. I followed the fortunes of The Power for the rest of that fateful year.
I watched with bemused wonder as Geelong destroyed a shell shocked Port side by a simply mind boggling 119 points in the grand final.
As a fresh import into Australia I could have jumped off the Alberton wagon and nailed my colours to the Geelong flagpole, just underneath the 2007 premiership flag, but I didn’t. I had fallen for a team that has history and tradition in spades.
Over the last couple of years I have kept an eye on the fortunes of Port Adelaide Football Club. Much like the current Labor government, the Australian public wants to portray it as a club in turmoil.
A rudderless, captain-less ship, adrift on a sea of effluent and broken dreams. In truth, one of the oldest and most successful football clubs in the world are just rebuilding.
The defeat in the grand final of 2007 was devastating for this proud club. The tall-poppy brigade rubbed their hands together and gleefully let fly with a barrage of satire and, quite frankly, warranted abuse.
Port Adelaide had always announced itself as deserving of a place in the upper echelons of Australian football.
It is a club that can and does rival Collingwood in history and tradition. It may have lost some identity after the sanctions placed on it when it entered the AFL; having to change the Magpies nickname to The Power, adding teal to the classic black and white colours of the club and changing the club song.
The issues and divisions surrounding the club still rumble on despite the recent moves towards becoming unified. In my very humble opinion this will not be resolved until the prison bars are worn proudly at the MCG and ‘cheer, cheer’ is belted out after a win.
That aside, I am very proud to call myself a Port Adelaide fan. I recently repeated my first date with football and returned to The G to watch The Power take on Melbourne.
This was round one. This time there were 29,000 people there. The expectations of the Alberton faithful are high for this year; we are an underdog again.
The performance against the Demons shows that we are an underdog that will bite you and probably hump your favourite teddy if left unattended. With seven debutantes, Port demoralised a team that was, before the bounce, very optimistic regarding their chances for the 2013 season.
The win is not the reason I am writing this. I am filled with pride for reasons beyond football. I was already scheduled to be in Melbourne for the Comedy Festival, so there was a good chance I was going to go to this game. I hopped on Facebook and joined up with the travelling Port Adelaide supporters. About 500 of the Port faithful met up in Federation Square.
The group consisted of the official Port Adelaide cheer squad, The Victorian supporters club and the Outer Army. Men women and children then marched on the MCG, waving flags and banners and singing songs.
I have witnessed walks like this in the UK and it would have been surrounded by police officers and dogs, probably horses too. On occasion there was a fan wearing a Melbourne guernsey pushing their way through our ranks.
No violence was offered and no abuse thrown or received. On arrival at the stadium the police finally made an appearance – all three of them. We made our way into unsegregated seating and sat behind the Punt Road goals.
This is where the true colours of the cheer squads shone through.
Football by its nature will lead to disagreement and banter. This usually will become heated, but there are a few examples from the day that made me feel privileged to be a part of a wonderful group of people.
Firstly, David Rodin was traded from Port Adelaide to Melbourne and unsurprisingly his first touch of the ball lead to boos from the black and white army.
This was met with responses from some of the group that Rodin didn’t want to leave and therefore didn’t deserve that treatment. He still received cow noises from some areas, but nowhere near the same amount.
In the third quarter Mitch Clarke rolled his ankle after a tackle and lay very still on the turf. A couple of Port supporters started yelling abuse at him only to be shut down very quickly. Port fans don’t want to see anybody get hurt.
When Clarke was helped from the field it was accompanied by a warm round of applause from the travelling faithful.
However, the moment that truly stood out for me was when two people tried to start a chant of ”red and blue f****ts”. There is no place for that kind of abusive chant at a football game and the fans around the pair very quickly pointed out that it was unacceptable.
Special mention must go to the Bay 118 Boys who were in fine form all day and at one point tried to start a Poznan celebration.
I have checked Wikipedia and as of today, no AFL supporters do it. We should spread the word and start the party.
Port Adelaide gets labeled as a bogan and uncouth club with toothless, moronic supporters. After sitting with them for two hours I can say that is unfair.
They regulated themselves and each other to make sure that even in the cauldron of the cheer squad it was a suitable environment for children.
Eddie McGuire famously said that he hated going to AAMI Stadium and that he and his wife have been the victim of some very anti-social behaviour.
I suggest that on 29th June 2013, Eddie should go and sit behind the northern goals at Footy Park and see just how cultured and intelligent the Port Army is.
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