ADELAIDE - Part One: 1860 to 1992

Affiliated: AFL 1991-present

Club Address: P.O. Box 1, West Lakes 5021, South Australia

Home Ground: AAMI Stadium (formerly known as Football Park), West Lakes, Adelaide

Formed: 1990

Colours: Navy blue, gold and red

Emblem: Crows

AFL Premierships: 1997, 1998 (2 total)  OTHER PREMIERSHIPS - VFL/AFL Night Series 2003 (1 total); Dr. Wm. C. McClelland Trophy 2005 (1 total)

Brownlow Medallists: Mark Ricciuto 2003 (1 total)

Norm Smith Medallists: Andrew McLeod 1997 & 1998 (1 Medallist/2 Medals)

AFL All Australians: Nigel Smart 1991, 1993 & 1998; Ben Hart 1992, 1993, 1999 & 2002; Chris McDermott 1992; Tony McGuinness 1992 & 1993; Greg Anderson 1993; Andrew McLeod 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006 & 2007; Tony Modra 1993 & 1997; Shaun Rehn 1994 & 1998; Mark Ricciuto 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005; Darren Jarman 1996; Simon Goodwin 2000, 2001, 2005 & 2006; Ben Rutten 2005; Nathan Bassett 2006 (35 total)

AFL Top Goalkickers: A.Modra (129) 1993 & (84) 1997 (2 total)

Adelaide's Official 'Team of the Decade - 1991 to 2000': Click here

Highest Score: 30.8 (188) vs. Essendon 6.14 (50) at AAMI Stadium in round 10 2006

Most Games:  312 by Mark Ricciuto from 1993 to 2007 (correct to the start of the 2008 season)

Record Home Attendance: 51,140 at AAMI Stadium in round 5, 26 April 2003: Port Adelaide 12.6 (78); Adelaide 9.12 (66)

Record Finals Attendance: 99,045 for 1997 grand final at the MCG: Adelaide 19.11 (125); St Kilda 13.16 (94)

Overall Success Rate 1991- 2007: 52.5%

While the history of the Adelaide Crows is all too brief, the background to the club's formation is long and complex. South Australia was the first colony after Victoria to embrace Australian football (or 'Victorian Rules' as it was known initially), and this fact served to emphasise the close relationship which existed between the two colonies right from the outset. [see footnote 1]

As with many close relationships, however, intense rivalry lay just below the surface, and what better means than a sporting contest for bringing this out into the open?

It very soon emerged, however, that as far as the game of Australian football went, the rivalry between Victoria and South Australia was destined to be a pretty lop-sided affair. It could not, for instance, bear comparison with the great cricketing rivalries which existed (and still exist) between England and Australia, or Victoria and New South Wales. In spirit it was much closer to the legendary biblical conflict between David and Goliath - with a single, obvious and glaring difference: in the gospel according to Australian football it was almost always Goliath who emerged smiling.

Over the years, this substantial gulf in standards inevitably tended to produce a difference in perspective: interstate (or intercolonial) football, for instance, was viewed in South Australia as an essential barometer of the game's progress, and a player who was picked to represent his state could therefore be said to have reached the very pinnacle of footballing achievement.

In Victoria, the prevailing attitude was very different: interstate matches were viewed somewhat in the nature of a necessary nuisance; necessary insofar as Victoria, in its acknowledged position as Australian football's supreme power, had a self-evident duty to promote the game in as many parts of the country as possible; a nuisance in the sense that the playing of interstate fixtures either disrupted the schedule of VFA and later VFL club matches (when the interstate games took place in Melbourne) or deprived the clubs of the services of their most accomplished players (when the venues for these games were interstate). [see footnote 2] The notion that the results of interstate matches in some way represented a yardstick of the game's progress and status in different parts of the country was laughable. Victorian supremacy was in the nature of a 'given', and the occasional defeats suffered against South Australia or Western Australia in no way undermined this. For one thing, interstate football was obviously accorded much greater respect outside Victoria, and it was therefore only to be expected that players chosen to represent Western Australia or South Australia, not to mention the 'minor states', would tend to put in the games of their lives when confronted by the might of the 'Big V'. In such circumstances, the occasional upset was inevitable, but by the same token it was really nothing to make a fuss about.

At club level, intercolonial contact began during the 1870s when clubs like St Kilda and Melbourne visited Adelaide. From the Victorian point of view such visits provided excellent opportunities to 'spread the word', relax, and, during the matches, to experiment by 'blooding' youngsters or trying players in unaccustomed positions; the actual results of the games tended to be perceived as being of negligible importance, however.

By contrast to this, South Australian clubs would see the games as providing firm and incontestable evidence as to which of the two colonies currently reigned supreme on the football field.

An excellent illustration of this divergence in viewpoint is afforded by the so-called 'Championship of Australia'. From as early as 1888 challenge matches were sporadically held between the premier clubs of South Australia and Victoria with a view to determining Australia's champion team. At any rate, that was the interpretation placed on these contests by most South Australians. Victorians on the other hand, with occasional exceptions, tended to view them as exhibition matches, and no more. After all, had not the de facto champions of Australia already been decided, via the VFA premiership ladder (and later the VFL grand final)?

Not surprisingly, the repeated victories in these affairs by South Australian clubs were greeted somewhat differently on opposite sides of the border. In Adelaide, they were a cause of great rejoicing, with the members of the victorious team feted as conquering heroes. In Melbourne, however, the defeat would be philosophically accepted but then quickly forgotten. After all, the loss of what to all intents and purposes was merely a practice match could hardly be said to have any long term consequences; Victoria's football supremacy was, as has been noted above, in the nature of a 'given', and no conceivable set of circumstances could ever undermine it.

To the objective observer a number of conclusions are possible. First, the Victorians' belief in the essential superiority of their own brand of football was based on fairly strong evidence, and, as the years went by, such evidence became so strong as to be irrefutable; by the 1970s an overwhelmingly large proportion of the finest players in Australia, irrespective of their state or territory of origin, were plying their trade in Melbourne. The second conclusion to be drawn is that the arrogant manner with which the Victorians took their superiority for granted had the inevitable side effect of increasing the resentment with which football supporters from other states viewed the VFL; when the VFL began increasingly to attract the cream of the talent from these states, those feelings of resentment could not help but be reinforced.

In some ways, South Australia was something of a poor relation when it came to providing Victorian clubs with players of demonstrably high quality. Compared to Western Australia and Tasmania, for example, South Australia tended to send a lot fewer of its champions over the border to sample the big time, and those who did make the journey were almost invariably less successful. For every Bernie Smith (Geelong's 1951 Brownlow Medallist from West Adelaide), Western Australia were apparently able to come up with a Farmer, a Cable, a Moss and a Richardson. Even tiny Tasmania yielded Baldock, Stewart, Hudson and Hart within the space of just five or six years in the 1960s and it is doubtful whether South Australian football has ever provided the VFL with a quartet of such imposing pedigree.

A Gallery of Greats  (Click on the individual images to see enlarged versions)
Jack Broadstock (West Adelaide, Richmond & West Torrens)	Ian McKay (North Adelaide & St George)	Neil Kerley (West Adelaide, South Adelaide & Glenelg)	Bernie Smith (West Adelaide & Geelong)	Jim Deane (South Adelaide & Richmond)

In fairness, over the years there have been proportionately many more elite South Australians than Western Australians or Tasmanians who have elected to remain at home. [see footnote 3] The likes of Barrie Robran, Neil Kerley, Lindsay Head, Geof Motley, Bob Hank, Peter Darley, Ken Eustice, Paul Bagshaw, Bob Quinn, Bill Wedding and Ken Farmer might all have been expected to perform creditably in Victorian football, but for one reason or another they preferred to remain in South Australia. Moreover, South Australian clubs occasionally proved capable of attracting high calibre Victorian recruits, [see footnote 4] thereby ensuring that the standard of club football in the state remained tolerably high.

From about the mid 1970s, however, the situation began to change, and the exodus of star South Australians across the border accelerated. This helped contribute to a general decline in the standard of South Australian League football, and a corresponding drop off in spectator interest. (Although clearly there were also other factors at work undermining the game's appeal, such as the emergence of a wider range of alternative attractions.)

In 1972 the average attendance at SANFL minor round matches was 9,390 per game, or 5.4% of the Adelaide population; ten years on the population of Adelaide had increased, but the proportion of that population who watched SANFL football had fallen away sharply, to just 3.8%, at an average of 7,344 per game. Meanwhile VFL attendances over the same period had held steady.

As the 1980s continued, so did the departure of prominent players across the border. Whereas a decade or two earlier the majority of top South Australian players had been content to remain at home, it was becoming increasingly rare for individuals with the ability to represent the state, say, or figure prominently in the voting for the Magarey Medal to resist the lure of the VFL limelight. Of the South Australian team which lost by 30 points to Victoria at the MCG in 1971 only half a dozen went on to participate in the VFL, and of these only rover Ray Huppatz (67 games with Footscray and 19 games with North Melbourne) could be described as having more than a fleeting acquaintance.  Huppatz's co-rover Mick Nunan and full forward Malcolm Greenslade played just 1 and 2 VFL games respectively for Richmond while stationed in Victoria on National Service, ruck-rover Graham Cornes played just 5 games for North Melbourne, gargantuan ruckman Dean Farnham managed a mere 17 games with Footscray, and centreman Russell Ebert spent a single season with North Melbourne late in his illustrious career. By contrast, no fewer than a dozen of the South Australian 21 which trounced Western Australia by 87 points at Subiaco in 1985 went on to play VFL football, with Craig Bradley, John Platten, Greg Anderson, Stephen Kernahan and Andrew Jarman all achieving at least a fair measure of notoriety.

The SANFL's administrators were by no means remiss in attempting to stanch the flow of talent. As early as 1981 a bid was tabled to enter a composite South Australian team in the VFL, but this was rejected. [see footnote 5] Twelve months later, SANFL General Manager Don Roach remained convinced that South Australian football's long term interests would be best served by involvement in an expanded VFL competition:

Success and planning by the VFL in marketing and refining Australian football has led the SANFL to the conclusion that the VFL's plan to expand its competition has considerable merit. The SANFL wishes to become part of that expanded competition. [see footnote 6]

However, despite South Melbourne's sanctioned (some would say enforced) relocation to Sydney, the VFL's enthusiasm for 'the national concept' was somewhat less than full blown. Indeed, even the admission to the League in 1987 of Brisbane and West Coast could just as easily be attributed to economic reasons (the VFL was heavily in debt and required the clubs' $4 million license fees to assist in its recovery) as to any genuine desire to see the game broadening its appeal and influence beyond the borders of Victoria. However, it rapidly became clear that "the future of Australian football (was) in presenting the top level competition in as many capital cities as the game and its marketing can support". [see footnote 7] In this context the inclusion of a team from South Australia - traditionally one of the three major football states - became both crucial and inevitable. The only real uncertainty was over time scale.

Ironically, the admission of a Western Australian club, and the teething problems it faced in coming to terms with the enhanced demands of a national competition, contributed in no small way to the SANFL administration's uncertainty over their own participation. Complicating the picture was the fact that, in the short term, the standard of football on display in the SANFL actually improved slightly, due in part to an influx of high quality Western Australian players who, having failed to achieve selection in the West Coast Eagles' inaugural squad, were keen to continue their careers in what was, by popular consent, 'the second best competition'. In the 1987 interstate clash between Western Australia and South Australia in Perth the visiting South Australians won with beguiling ease, providing deceptive reassurance "that South Australia's decision not to enter the extended VFL competition (was) justified, at least for the time being". [see footnote 8]

A year later, West Perth director John Clinch claimed that the formation of the West Coast Eagles had 'ruined' Western Australian club football, and he advised the SANFL to refrain from entering a team in the expanded VFL at all costs.

Clinch's advice was very much a case of preaching to the converted. In a bid to maintain playing standards the SANFL in 1988 introduced a Player Retention Scheme, funded by a combination of League gate receipts, TAB Footypunt proceeds, sponsorship, and a lottery. The purpose of the scheme was to provide financial incentives to top players to remain in South Australia. These incentives consisted of scaled payments related to a player's achievements which the player would receive in a lump sum on retirement. Needless to say, any member of the scheme who elected to transfer to an interstate club automatically forfeited his right to receive the payment.

The introduction of the scheme attracted controversy, both in South Australia, where, perhaps predictably, it provoked arguments over the relative merits of those players included and excluded, and, more damagingly, in Victoria, where it was felt that, by playing regular State of Origin matches at Football Park, the VFL was providing the SANFL with a substantial proportion of the funds needed to keep the scheme viable. Certainly the refusal of the AFL [see footnote 9] to sanction a State of Origin match between South Australia and Victoria in Adelaide in 1990 bears many of the hallmarks of an act of retribution for the SANFL's reluctance to participate in the developing national competition; it may also have reflected the AFL's growing suspicion that the SANFL was using the funds raised via these matches to subsidise its isolationist position.

The 1990 SANFL season saw attendances continuing to decline. In July, Western Australia came to Football Park and were considered by some to be unfortunate to lose to the home state by 21 points, providing further evidence that the WAFL competition was recovering from the debilitating early impact of the establishment of the West Coast Eagles. Indeed, most WAFL clubs were now operating profitably, a situation in marked contrast to that prevailing in South Australia where clubs like West Torrens, Woodville, and, most particularly at the time, South Adelaide, hovered near or even just below the breadline.

Despite all this, the SANFL administration remained firm in its refusal to consider entering a team in the AFL. According to League President Max Basheer there were two fundamental obstacles in the way of South Australia's involvement in the national league. The primary concern remained protection of the local competition, but there was also a feeling of resentment over the proposed $4 million joining levy. "We've been involved with football here for more than 100 years and developed the game and a market in South Australia," maintained Basheer. "Why should we have to pay to be part of the AFL?"

Matters came abruptly to a head on 31 July when perennially successful Port Adelaide, concerned that it was effectively being forced to subsidise several of the other SANFL clubs, made an independent and unilateral application to join the AFL. The move was totally unexpected and precipitated South Australian football into a period of quite unprecedented turmoil, controversy and confusion. Port Adelaide, already far and away the most loathed (as well as the best supported) SANFL club, became Public Enemy Number One in South Australia, whilst simultaneously - and paradoxically - earning the respect and admiration of many football aficionados in Victoria. The SANFL was left with little option but to table a counter submission of its own and, once this had happened, it soon became clear that Port Adelaide's bid was doomed. For a start, the marketing potential of a composite side clearly outstripped that of an established club, however well supported. Equally importantly, the SANFL could guarantee the availability of Football Park, a ground with few equals anywhere in Australia.

In November 1990 the new Adelaide Football Club, to be known as the Crows, was officially born. Admission to the AFL was earmarked for the following season. In just three short months the SANFL had, albeit without wanting to, come almost full circle in its attitude to the national league. Against this backdrop, the quiet dismantling of the SANFL's Player Retention Scheme went almost unnoticed.

The man chosen to pilot the Crows through what he would later refer to as "the uncharted waters" of their debut season in the AFL was Graham Cornes. His selection was somewhat ironic given his renowned and frequently stated antipathy toward the AFL. Cornes indeed later admitted that he had thought long and hard before applying for the post given that "I've been such an outspoken critic of the AFL and the VFL's attempts to subjugate football in this country and in a sense I felt in one way we were capitulating to them". [see footnote 10]

Considerable media hype attended the Adelaide Crows' preparations for their inaugural season, providing football in South Australia with much needed impetus. A crowd of over 40,000 turned up to Football Park for a pre-season practice match against Essendon which the Crows won, and when the side reached the semi finals of the Fosters Cup and began the season proper with an 86 point annihilation of flag favourites Hawthorn 'Crow Mania' burgeoned. Thereafter, however, the team's on field fortunes settled into a predictable pattern: competitive and winning more often than losing at home, brittle and occasionally dire away. The side won 10 and lost 12 matches in 1991 to finish 9th - a respectable performance which, on balance, was slightly better than expected. Interest in Australian football in South Australia was arguably at its highest level since the early 1970s and the repercussions of the Crows' arrival permeated most levels of the game. Thanks largely to dividends received from the Adelaide Football Club all SANFL clubs bar one recorded profits in 1991.

On the field the Crows, most of whom were AFL 'rookies', played a typically South Australian brand of football in which handball and high rates of (not necessarily damaging to the opposition) possession featured prominently. If not inordinately successful, it was nevertheless a highly attractive mix and an average of more than 40,000 fans attended each of the team's home matches during the year.

Adelaide showed marginal overall improvement in 1992, winning 11 out of 22 matches, but, perhaps most encouragingly of all, rounding the season off with 5 wins out of the last 6 games. Significantly, however, wins away from home, other than in Sydney and Brisbane, continued to prove elusive.

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Footnotes

1. The two colonies were in fact established within two years of one another, Victoria in 1834 and South Australia in 1836. Return to Main Text

2. This is perhaps something of an over simplification. It would probably be more wholly accurate to suggest that representative football has traditionally been an object of scorn among Victorian administrators, journalists and supporters, but among the actual participants - the players - it has usually tended to be viewed more favourably. Return to Main Text

3. The reasons for this are difficult to unravel, but may include both the fact that SANFL clubs have historically been able and/or willing to pay their players more than their WAFL and TFL counterparts, and that the nature of the relationship between SA and Victoria - alluded to earlier - has essentially been one of resentment-fuelled rivalry, a state of affairs which proximity has tended to reinforce. Return to Main Text

4. Among the top Victorians to transfer to South Australia whilst still at their peak as players have been: triple Magarey Medallist Len Fitzgerald, who joined Sturt in 1951 after 96 games with Collingwood; Geelong premiership rover Colin Rice who played for Glenelg during the 1960s; Collingwood goalsneak Ian Brewer, who joined Norwood (via Claremont) in the mid 1960s and became one of only two players to top the season's goalkicking list on both sides of the border; South Melbourne defender Bob Kingston who gave Norwood and then Port Adelaide sterling service during the late 1960s and early 1970s; Melbourne and All Australian centre half back Gary Hardeman who played for Sturt between 1978 and 1980 before returning to Melbourne; and St Kilda ruckman Jeff Sarau who moved to West Torrens in 1984 after being stripped of the St Kilda vice captaincy. Return to Main Text

5. Indeed, it remains unclear to this day as to whether the VFL ever actually made a formal response. Return to Main Text

6. Cited in The Football Times 1987 Yearbook, page 8.  Intermittently throughout the 1980s there were also rumours of individual SANFL (and WAFL) clubs lining up bids for admission to the VFL.  On 3/4/86, for example, it was reported in 'Inside Football' that "the influential Norwood club" was planning a unilateral defection to the 'big time' after becoming increasingly concerned that its development was being stymied in South Australia.  Several weeks later, on 29/5/86, under the front page headline 'Interstate Clubs' VFL Bid!' the same publication reported that Claremont was ready to 'jump ship' should negotiations between the VFL and WAFL for the admission to the VFL of a composite Western Australian side break down.  Meanwhile, Port Adelaide's General Manager, Ian McKenzie was quoted as saying "We advised the VFL in writing about three years ago that we would be interested in joining such a competition.  We've done a fair amount of work on it and if ever we were invited to join, we'd be ready."  (In light of future developments, McKenzie's final sentence takes on heightened significance.)  Return to Main Text

7. Cited in Camry Crows Official Yearbook 1991, page 4. Return to Main Text

8. Ashley Hornsey in The Football Times Yearbook 1988, page 3. Return to Main Text

9. The Victorian Football League (VFL) changed its name to the Australian Football League (AFL) in 1990. Return to Main Text

10. Cited in The Football Times 1991 Yearbook, page 4. Return to Main Text