Tom14
Brownlow Medallist
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- Oct 13, 2015
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This is the most momentous preview of the season. Not because we’ve officially hit the run home to finals, or because we need to re-assert our Gabbatoir dominance.
No, it is a very special occasion for us to say farewell to a titan of the competition.
So this is not a preview thread – it is so much more. Frankly, I've spent way too much time on this, but it was worth it to pay tribute to a man who will be gone much too soon:
Ken, this is your life
Started from the bottom now we here
To appreciate the greatness of ken and why he is so beloved, you’ve got to go back to 2011.
While we were arguing about why Vossy hated Aaron Cornelius, Port were running through the worst season in their history, finishing above Gold Coast only on percentage.
This was the average crowd experience at Football park:
Optimus Primus got the sack, and Ken came in as the saviour to turn Port around. After a rebuilding year they then played finals in 2013, and then narrowly lost the prelim against the Hawks in 2014.
After two consecutive finals series (although no top 4 finish) and a heartbreaking prelim loss, the sky appeared the limit for Ken and his brave boys.
This is where the fun begins
Port then proceeded to step on rakes, have pies smushed in their face, etc etc.
They missed finals in 2015 by one game (and got thumped by us at the Gabba early in the season in what was probably the last good win under Leppa). In 2016 they missed the 8 again, losing 3 of the last 4 to miss out by two games.
2017 was a much better year. They hosted an elimination final!
Only to lose to a goal after the siren in extra time, lmao.
Shuey sucked in Polec and got taken high, and the Power went out straight away (and we ended up with pick 12 which we traded to Adelaide for Charlie).
The Wilderness years
Possible title for Ken's memoir???
As far as I can tell the port fanbase’s dissatisfaction with Ken must have started some time around 2016-18.
What definitely didn’t help is that in this period Ken kept playing contract footsie through the media. Just after the heartbreaking finals loss to West Coast in 2017 Ken's manager leaked that he was a chance to leave to go to the Gold Coast… just as they were doing contract negotiations to extend his tenure.
This became a repeat pattern for the rest of his tenure, and every time Ken’s job came under threat someone in the media (usually Kane) would suggest that he could go coach somewhere else, that the fans were just to mean to him.
In any event, with his job secure with a new three year deal to take him through to 2021, Ken’s brave boys promptly missed finals two years in a row.
One of Ken’s brilliant ideas in this period was to ‘terrorise’ Lachie by sending “Cam Sutcliffe” (surely not a real person?) to him, only for port to promptly concede the first seven goals of the game, including a goal from repeat 50m penalties (and at least one double goal from a free kick I think):
Sack Hinkley hits a setback
Having spent time reading up on this stuff I can kinda see how the port board is so ‘passionate’ about Ken.
From the prelim in 2014 to the end of 2019 Port missed finals four of five years, and lost an elimination final. Every few losses would prompt a Kochie statement or leak about how Ken was under threat, and then they’d win a few games and he’d survive.
It is about this time that the first ‘Sack Hinkley’ thread must have started. I spent more than a couple of hours this weekend trying to find it, but alas I could only find the second thread, which started mid 2019.
We are coming up on at least 7 full seasons of the Port Board running the Sack Ken thread, which frankly is worth a Nobel Prize nomination for services to literature. Although that probably sent the wrong message.
It got so bad that at the end of 2019 the Port CEO put out this ridiculous open letter at the end of the season:
https://www.portadelaidefc.com.au/n...bers-and-supporters-are-the-heart-of-our-club
I don't want to encourage Port fans but the fact that they got their own CEO to refer to himself as 'the Norwood flog' is pretty funny!
Going into 2020, Ken was definititvely coaching for his career: https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/af...s/news-story/b05d1c5071e89ff982f01058e96ee80f
How did Ken survive?
Kovid-Ken rules the roost
It’s hard to imagine any team that benefited more from covid than port (we did too obviously but I don’t care about hypocrisy). Port finished 1st and absolutely cleaned up in the hub and enjoyed having home games when most of the comp didn’t get them.
They then beat Geelong in the qualifying final, then just lost the prelim to Richmond.
This was without a doubt the high watermark for Ken – although I was never convinced by Port then. Still, they backed up 2020 with another top 4 finish, winning an qualifying final. Ollie Wines won a disgusting number of votes to win the bronwlow as well.
And then we saw a return of my personal favourite Ken trope: Finals Failure
Power-ranking the Ken Finals Failures
Ken’s put together a serious portfolio of finals chokes and embarrassing no-shows. Here is my personal list:
Synonymous with the embarrassing defeats for Ken in the last 5 years have been the “stirring” fightbacks when Ken’s job was threatened after an embarrassing defeat. These often have involved barely scraping over the line against a dreadful team by less than a kick (see Port v Saints last year), but there have been a heap of flat-track bully defeats of no-hope opponents.
Which brings us to last week – with poor Vossy’s blues providing a stirring win for Ken to stave off talk that he should hand over the coaching job to Josh Carr sooner.
In summary
The Kenny farewell tour turns up at the Gabba this week and following the Ken pattern we are due for a poor showing from Port, and then they will rally for Ken next week against the Eagles.
Lions by 45 points.
Next week Ken deals with someone spray painting the Adelaide oval telling him to quit. Caro and Kane spend an hour on the Agenda Setters whinging about Port fans.
Ken’s boys show up for him against the Eagles, and the cycle repeats.
Goodbye Kenny Boy. May you ever grow in our hearts:
No, it is a very special occasion for us to say farewell to a titan of the competition.
So this is not a preview thread – it is so much more. Frankly, I've spent way too much time on this, but it was worth it to pay tribute to a man who will be gone much too soon:
Ken, this is your life
Started from the bottom now we here
To appreciate the greatness of ken and why he is so beloved, you’ve got to go back to 2011.
While we were arguing about why Vossy hated Aaron Cornelius, Port were running through the worst season in their history, finishing above Gold Coast only on percentage.
This was the average crowd experience at Football park:
Optimus Primus got the sack, and Ken came in as the saviour to turn Port around. After a rebuilding year they then played finals in 2013, and then narrowly lost the prelim against the Hawks in 2014.
After two consecutive finals series (although no top 4 finish) and a heartbreaking prelim loss, the sky appeared the limit for Ken and his brave boys.
This is where the fun begins
Port then proceeded to step on rakes, have pies smushed in their face, etc etc.
They missed finals in 2015 by one game (and got thumped by us at the Gabba early in the season in what was probably the last good win under Leppa). In 2016 they missed the 8 again, losing 3 of the last 4 to miss out by two games.
2017 was a much better year. They hosted an elimination final!
Only to lose to a goal after the siren in extra time, lmao.
Shuey sucked in Polec and got taken high, and the Power went out straight away (and we ended up with pick 12 which we traded to Adelaide for Charlie).
The Wilderness years
Possible title for Ken's memoir???
As far as I can tell the port fanbase’s dissatisfaction with Ken must have started some time around 2016-18.
What definitely didn’t help is that in this period Ken kept playing contract footsie through the media. Just after the heartbreaking finals loss to West Coast in 2017 Ken's manager leaked that he was a chance to leave to go to the Gold Coast… just as they were doing contract negotiations to extend his tenure.
This became a repeat pattern for the rest of his tenure, and every time Ken’s job came under threat someone in the media (usually Kane) would suggest that he could go coach somewhere else, that the fans were just to mean to him.
In any event, with his job secure with a new three year deal to take him through to 2021, Ken’s brave boys promptly missed finals two years in a row.
One of Ken’s brilliant ideas in this period was to ‘terrorise’ Lachie by sending “Cam Sutcliffe” (surely not a real person?) to him, only for port to promptly concede the first seven goals of the game, including a goal from repeat 50m penalties (and at least one double goal from a free kick I think):
Sack Hinkley hits a setback
Having spent time reading up on this stuff I can kinda see how the port board is so ‘passionate’ about Ken.
From the prelim in 2014 to the end of 2019 Port missed finals four of five years, and lost an elimination final. Every few losses would prompt a Kochie statement or leak about how Ken was under threat, and then they’d win a few games and he’d survive.
It is about this time that the first ‘Sack Hinkley’ thread must have started. I spent more than a couple of hours this weekend trying to find it, but alas I could only find the second thread, which started mid 2019.
We are coming up on at least 7 full seasons of the Port Board running the Sack Ken thread, which frankly is worth a Nobel Prize nomination for services to literature. Although that probably sent the wrong message.
It got so bad that at the end of 2019 the Port CEO put out this ridiculous open letter at the end of the season:
https://www.portadelaidefc.com.au/n...bers-and-supporters-are-the-heart-of-our-club
I don't want to encourage Port fans but the fact that they got their own CEO to refer to himself as 'the Norwood flog' is pretty funny!
Going into 2020, Ken was definititvely coaching for his career: https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/af...s/news-story/b05d1c5071e89ff982f01058e96ee80f
How did Ken survive?
Kovid-Ken rules the roost
It’s hard to imagine any team that benefited more from covid than port (we did too obviously but I don’t care about hypocrisy). Port finished 1st and absolutely cleaned up in the hub and enjoyed having home games when most of the comp didn’t get them.
They then beat Geelong in the qualifying final, then just lost the prelim to Richmond.
This was without a doubt the high watermark for Ken – although I was never convinced by Port then. Still, they backed up 2020 with another top 4 finish, winning an qualifying final. Ollie Wines won a disgusting number of votes to win the bronwlow as well.
And then we saw a return of my personal favourite Ken trope: Finals Failure
Power-ranking the Ken Finals Failures
Ken’s put together a serious portfolio of finals chokes and embarrassing no-shows. Here is my personal list:
- 2021 Prelim and it isn’t close. They lost by 71 points at home to a team that finished 5th.
- 2024 qualifying final. They had a fake record last year, winning basically every close game imaginable (against a lot of bad teams) to finish second. Mid-year we thumped them by 90+ and Ken got booed, and worse was to come with the Cats pulverising them by 84 points.
- 2023 Semi-final to go out in straight sets to GWS. It was only 23 points, but GWS got out to a massive lead and port kicked some junk goals to pull the margin back.
Synonymous with the embarrassing defeats for Ken in the last 5 years have been the “stirring” fightbacks when Ken’s job was threatened after an embarrassing defeat. These often have involved barely scraping over the line against a dreadful team by less than a kick (see Port v Saints last year), but there have been a heap of flat-track bully defeats of no-hope opponents.
Which brings us to last week – with poor Vossy’s blues providing a stirring win for Ken to stave off talk that he should hand over the coaching job to Josh Carr sooner.
In summary
The Kenny farewell tour turns up at the Gabba this week and following the Ken pattern we are due for a poor showing from Port, and then they will rally for Ken next week against the Eagles.
Lions by 45 points.
Next week Ken deals with someone spray painting the Adelaide oval telling him to quit. Caro and Kane spend an hour on the Agenda Setters whinging about Port fans.
Ken’s boys show up for him against the Eagles, and the cycle repeats.
Goodbye Kenny Boy. May you ever grow in our hearts:
