Brendan M wrote:A Port reflection.
My father, who grew up a good (Bob Shearman comes to mind) drop kick from Thebarton oval, occasionally joked (we think) that his life would have been happier if he had grown up as a Port supporter.
When I, as a Woodville boy, read the sometime heated contributions in this stub, I reflect on the history and psychology of the PAFC. Port's stance of 'us v the world' served them well in the SANFL as it galvanised their players and supporters, yet in reality, Port sides were also well-coached and they had the players who knew what was necessary to win the big games, especially in the finals.
In the current world of AFL, this disposition ('the world is against us') seems to have morphed into delusion (the Port Bs are the 'Magpies'), infantilism (the fetish of the prison bars) and despotism (attacking, at whim, imagined enemies, including, treacherously, the SANFL and its clubs).
As someone who, when very young, had a reasonable amount of direct contact with the Williams, McLeans, Motleys, Boyds and Gallifords (the last one is for the old cockledivers), this new attitude is foreign to the Port I knew. It seems to me that the new Port (or is it the current egotistical leadership) has a new shade which could see it evolving into yet another clever corporation which is attempting to dazzle its shareholders by fabricating new foes while living on the fumes of the past.
As a west Torrens boy who grew up in the 1970s I learned early from Port fans how feral they were .
Marrying into a port family wasn’t easy out of us three guys who married the three daughters in this family ones father was a head trainer at port . One was a sturt and hawthorn fan and me being a Torrens fan . The family tried to convert me to follow port nope and my kids cousins couldn’t understand how they didn’t and don’t follow port seeing we lived in the port heartland. Believe me not everyone that lives there were port fans more weren’t .
Now reading your post I’ve met both Geoff Motley and his son Peter Motley before his accident great people .
But the way Port bosses carry on like they’ve been kicked in the balls because they don’t get everything their own way must be embarrassing especially when one threatened to sack the coach on national tv then changed his mind
For myself Port are a tiny fish in the big AFL pond trying to live on their glory days in the SANFL
