Alberton Oval Purchase

[Muh Village]

Hello

(This might sound really stupid, so please don't abuse me if it does.)

Why has Port Adelaide FC never wholly purchased Alberton Oval from the local council? Is it because it would be far too expensive, or more-so because it is unnecessary? I've always liked the idea of owning the ground.

Thank You

 

[Doctor Feel]

Hello

(This might sound really stupid, so please don't abuse me if it does.)

Why has Port Adelaide FC never wholly purchased Alberton Oval from the local council? Is it because it would be far too expensive, or more-so because it is unnecessary? I've always liked the idea of owning the ground.

Thank You

Because the council wouldn't allow it.

/thread

 

[Muh Village]

Because the council wouldn't allow it.

/thread

So we did try, but they blocked it?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Hello

(This might sound really stupid, so please don't abuse me if it does.)

Why has Port Adelaide FC never wholly purchased Alberton Oval from the local council? Is it because it would be far too expensive, or more-so because it is unnecessary? I've always liked the idea of owning the ground.

Thank You

If you had 100% total control and use of the land for the term of your natural life for a peppercorn rent, why would you buy it when you can use your money for other things?? Ie pay to build new facilities on the land.

 

[Muh Village]

If you had 100% total control and use of the land for the term of your natural life for a peppercorn rent, why would you buy it when you can use your money for other things?? Ie pay to build new facilities on the land.

Well I didnt know the lease agreement they had in place. If that is the case, purchasing seems somewhat frivolous.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Well I didnt know the lease agreement they had in place. If that is the case, purchasing seems somewhat frivolous.

I don't know exactly what the full deal is but we pay a maintenance fee to the council to maintain the oval, but we pay a peppercorn rent to actually use the oval rather than a commercial hiring fee.

If we didn't pay that fee to the council for maintenance we would have to pay it to an independent contractor or have to employ staff and buy machinery to cut the grass, water it, mark it out etc.

I think we pay a car parking fee for what is the staff car park over by the Allan Scott Centre and that is basically to reimburse the council for the capital cost of paving the carpak and a bit of maintenance on the grass car park area, which fees are charged for when Magpies play home games.

So monies we pay to the council are really cost recovery charges rather than a true commercial rent, costs that we would have to pay for if we owned the land.

This Advertiser article from 2017 by Liz Walsh explains why we left Alberton for 2 years in 1975-76 seasons. As always, it was about money.

No Cookies | The Advertiser

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www.adelaidenow.com.au

THE cabbies, for two whole footy seasons, stopped queuing outside the Alberton Hotel. “So Saturdays in those two years, they were a bit of a desert,” the pub’s long-time owner Peter Brien says. “We used to have massive crowds before and after Port Adelaide games – we even used to run cabs at half-time to pick people up from the ground, bring them here and then race them back again. “We probably got 100 blokes here, had a barman on every tap. The old man (Peter senior) used to pray for rain so they wouldn’t go back. “But, yeah, that took the cream off the milk, when Port got kicked out of Alberton.”
.....
That’s right – Port got kicked out of Alberton. And while this historic flare-up might come as a shock to new-age fans who only know the Power era, for vintage Magpies fans the memories of this 1975 and 1976 outrage are indelible.
..........
As the culmination of a bitter dispute between Port Adelaide City Council and the Port Adelaide Football Club, the Magpies in 1975 were evicted from their home of 104 years, Alberton Oval. They would not return to their heartland until the 1977 season, when a team loaded with stars including Magarey Medal winners Russell Ebert and Peter Woite, as well as Greg Phillips and Tim Evans, ended a frustrating run of six grand final losses in the previous 12 years with a breakthrough premiership.
........
Yet the happy homecoming was a far cry from two years earlier when, on the eve of the 1975 season, a group of 2000 angry supporters marched on Port Adelaide City Council’s Town Hall, in Nile St, in vocal protest to their club’s Alberton exile. The crowd – carrying banners and flags – marched from Port Adelaide railway station and gathered at the town hall, forcing police to control the traffic flow.
.............
The clash between the council, as Alberton Oval landowner, and the club, as leaseholder, centred on a feud over seating arrangements in the Bob Quinn stand. It was underpinned by a personality clash between longstanding mayor Roy Marten and Port’s legendary secretary and former player Bob McLean.

The SANFL held a standing arrangement with other suburban venues and their councils that half of each ground’s reserved grandstand seats were allocated to the league and the other half to the home club. Reports in The Advertiser hinted at Port Adelaide’s looming war in 1970, as much as five years earlier, highlighting demands from the council to control half the Alberton Oval seats on game day and leaving only the remainder to be shared between the SANFL and the Magpies.

Tensions bubbled at the end of the 1973 season, with a newspaper report that Port Adelaide “is unlikely to play another game on the famous ground”. In 1975, the conflict finally reached an impasse when the SANFL refused to accept the council’s offer and Port’s lease was suspended. The council allowed Port Adelaide to train on Alberton Oval during the 1975 season but the Magpies’ eight “home” games were staged at Adelaide Oval. Port – sharing the city venue with South Adelaide – won six games and lost two.

By 1976, the council had banished Port from Alberton all together, forcing the Magpies under third-year coach John Cahill to train and play at Adelaide Oval. Ever the businessman, McLean leveraged Port’s pulling power and sold home games to Football Park to help flame the viability of the league’s new West Lakes headquarters.

Peace – and the Magpies – returned for the 1977 season, leaving the non-Alberton period of 1975-76 a quirk of Port Adelaide’s rich history. “As players, we always thought it would be resolved,” Cunningham says.
......
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news...s/news-story/90c15a87f6d304c07fd322136061f376

So Port Adelaide and stadium deal issues go back a long way. And given Football Park only opened in 1974 and Foundation Members of Football Park were asked to make the then unheard requirement of advanced payments, 6 months before the season started, then taking big drawing home games to Football Park in 1975 and 1976, helped make the stadium more viable, always gets overlooked by Port's detractors.