Right now, it feels like we’re just waiting for the inevitable. It feels like there is nothing to play for.
“Ken Hinkley will walk away from Port Adelaide if and when he believes the club is out of contention,” Tom Morris said on Footy Classified this week.
“Port and Ken are perfectly aligned on this, they’re very pragmatic about his future. Port isn’t going to walk in and sack Ken Hinkley halfway through the year. It could be a matter of weeks away.”
Weeks away.
Let that sink in. Not IF it happens, but WHEN. The message is clear: the club has quietly conceded. The tone isn’t about salvaging something from this season, it’s about bracing for the end, it is about minimising damage. That’s a dangerous message to send through the walls of Alberton, especially at a club built on never giving in.
Worse still, while the coach and the club float gently toward the end of an era, they’ve stripped away so many of the things players should be playing for. For over a decade, the current regime has spoken down the very identity that once drove Port Adelaide’s greatness.
The members, the lifeblood, have been dismissed as “outside noise,” “white noise,” even “bastards” and “idiots.” Some of those members have relatives with ashes scattered at Alberton Oval, some are probably planning to do the same. These aren’t just “outside noise”. They’re part of the soil. You don’t treat them like a problem to be managed. You embrace their passion and play for them.
The jumper, once a sacred symbol of who we are, has been diluted into a marketing carousel. While the club has rolled out “special edition” guernseys for all manner of minor causes and commercial tie-ins, the most sacred design of all, the prison bars, has been paid lip service. No serious fight for Anzac Day. No vision for how to reclaim it regularly. Just appeasement, compromise, and a couple of token appearances.
We’re not anti-progress. Our history isn’t a burden, it’s a weapon. And Port Adelaide, more than any club in Australia, has a history worth playing for.
Fos Williams, Russell Ebert, John Cahill, Bob McLean, they all honoured the members. They thanked them for their passion. They welcomed being held accountable. They didn’t shrink from the pressure. They thrived on it. Because they knew that at Port Adelaide, you don’t just play for yourself. You play for the guernsey, for the fans, for the oval where champions have bled, and for the badge that generations before you wore with pride (remember the badge we used to wear before it was changed for a “once off” 150th celebration year).
So what next?
Change is coming. Everyone knows it. If the club has the courage to act decisively, Josh Carr will take the reins sooner rather than later. And when he does, it must be the beginning of something far deeper than just a new voice in the coaches’ box. It has to be a cultural reset. A purposeful realignment. We can remind the players what they play for and the members why they support. We can get back to working with each other, not against each other, with respect and accountability. We got close to that with the One Club merger and the focus on The Creed but we drifted again. Now it is time to do it properly.
So where do we start?
1. Respect the Members
Invite them in, hear them out, not just the ones who agree with everything you say, but all of them, especially the ones with a different point of view. Fight to give them their club back, both in spirit and in the constitution. Stop the dismissive language. These people are the club. Their passion should be your fuel, not your fear.
2. Be Accountable
We exist to win premierships. Don’t just say it. Mean it. Live it. Don’t set a goal for “3 flags in 5 years” and then do nothing when it fails, or even worse say “it was just an aspiration”. Set lofty goals, mean it and if we don’t get there “weed out” the people and the problems that prevented it. Port Adelaide doesn’t aim for home and away wins, we don’t even aim for top four, we aim for the premiership.
3. Embrace the Legacy
Yes, new recruits are taught history, but now it’s time to make them feel it.
Take them through the museum, sure. But also sit them down with the real people who built this club, past players, volunteers, old administrators. Don’t be insecure about their opinions and feedback, be inspired by it. Let them hear the raw stories, the sacrifices, the pride. Let them absorb the high expectations and the uncomfortable truths. Let them soak in the winners’ mindset, not from a slide deck, but from the mouths of those who lived it.
The Port Adelaide way isn’t just a history lesson. It’s a living, breathing standard. And every new player should know what it really means to wear that jumper.
4. Turn Alberton and Adelaide Ovals into a Fortresses Again
Alberton and Adelaide Oval aren’t just venues, they’re sacred ground. Generations of players, coaches and administrators sacrificed everything for success on those ovals. Alberton forged our identity; Adelaide Oval was where countless SANFL premierships were won. Every session, every game should be about respecting that legacy and living up to the standard set by those who built this club with their blood, sweat and belief.
5. Make the Guernsey Sacred Again
Not just the prison bars, every guernsey. The home. The away. Even the occasional special edition. Make them all mean something. Let players feel the weight and pride of wearing anything that carries the Port logo. And yes, fight tooth and nail for the bars,especially for Anzac Day, and beyond. Don’t roll over. Stand up.
Josh Carr knows what this place is supposed to be. He lived it. He bled for it. He held the cup aloft back at Alberton in front of the adoring members. Under him, we’ve got the chance to rediscover the why. Because at Port Adelaide, we’ve always had something to play for.
Let’s remember what that is. Let’s not pay lip service to it, but let’s feel it in our bones, let’s mean it. Let’s ingrain it in our souls so that every time a player speaks they speak of the members, the club, the guernsey, the soil. Not because some PR guru has told them that’s what to say but because that is how they genuinely feel.
Let’s stop waiting for the end, and start building something worth fighting for.
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