Club History Before the Crows, there was the Redlegs

[Coobk001]

you may have answered your own question. now go back to your cook books while you try to work out whether this post of mine is a better joke or not than that of the pain in the arse you are for some uninformed reason defending.

Haha wtf. You've lost it. The personal attacks are not warranted full stop. Be it on him or me, regardless of your frustrations.

 

[Established1870]

Being a millennial means I'm not familiar with pre-AFL SNAFL but I will say that yeah Norwood were massive flogs in the 90's when we tried getting in from all info available, but like Abba said in his book about us joining the AFL (A Port to a Power), footy here would've been better with the two biggest clubs joining a national comp (the planned NFL had us two pegged to join from the SANFL ffs), not having some plastic shit truck franchise gobble up all the support. I get canned here a bit for sticking up for the Redlegs but they're a historic club and name me another club outside the AFL that gets just under 40k for a state league GF.

Also can't stop laughing out people thinking WA3 would ever happen.

 

[Lockhart Road]

Haha wtf. You've lost it.

under no circumstances have I lost it. you however have never grasped it. too much cooking going on mate.

 

[simmo_bc]

Casting my tiny mind back to the fifties, the era when Port Adelaide established a justifiable dominance in the SANFL ....
Now, this is period when buzzwords like gerimander were unheard-of outside of political Playford World. This is before there came a redrawing of boundaries to make room for Woodville and Central Districts (Playford World) .... ( I can only assume that the name 'Central Districts' was hit upon because the SANFL brains tripe had visions of Alice Springs and NT coming into the competition) .
In the fifties, when Port won seven flags, lost one, half the working class football population (hey, didn't Ken use 'working class' last week?) ... I would say was split 35% Port, 25% Norwood, 15% West Torrens, 15% West Adelaide, 10% pretenders.

Torrens were pretty strong in the 50s weren't they? I cannot ever recall meeting a Torrens supporter!

 

[Coobk001]

under no circumstances have I lost it. you however have never grasped it. too much cooking going on mate.

I remember my first beer

 

[Lockhart Road]

Torrens were pretty strong in the 50s weren't they? I cannot ever recall meeting a Torrens supporter!

they were huge, and rightly so. Bob Hank, Lindsay Head, Alf Roberts, Mick Clingly, Nipper Bradford, Jimmy Slaven, et al...
I can remember when they changed their jumper circa 1955 and put the gold eagle on the chest.
Don't forget the West Torrens and Port Districts were interconnected post war, that during the war we played in a four-team competition as Port-Torrens, and the supporter group had the same ruthless attitude.
Especially the women.

 

[Lockhart Road]

I remember my first beer

I remember it, too. You threw up.

 

[simmo_bc]

they were huge, and rightly so. Bob Hank, Lindsay Head, Alf Roberts, Mick Clingly, Nipper Bradford, Jimmy Slaven, et al...
I can remember when they changed their jumper circa 1955 and put the gold eagle on the chest.
Don't forget the West Torrens and Port Districts were interconnected post war, that during the war we played in a four-team competition as Port-Torrens, and the supporter group had the same ruthless attitude.
Especially the women.

In my first job after uni I worked with a guy called Don Roberts, I remember him telling me he played in that era.

 

[Lockhart Road]

In my first job after uni I worked with a guy called Don Roberts, I remember him telling me he played in that era.

No Don Roberts, definitely Alf Roberts at full back. He was the equal of John Abley, Ian McKay so on and so forth.

 

[pastmyprimus]

Norwood had the wrong people in charge when that crucial decision was made. They needed vision and guts but it was all Adelaide-centric small minded thinking and fear. The club took the easy option, and ever since have been on a long road to insignificance. A bet a lot of supporters are pissed with the administration back then.

Norwood will always be AFL wannabes that will never be.

 

[Ray Nolan]

Sad but very true.

I count myself privileged to have seen the pre crows SANFL (albeit late 80s) and have taken it upon myself to ensure that my son knows what the SANFL is, most kids don't these days.

I'm the same, my son is raised to know the importance of the Magpies and our SANFL history. He actually likes going to watch the Maggies more than the Power. He kicked his first Auskick goal last week wearing a Maggies strip and the coach (who actually was a long time player for Norwood and a few for the Crows as well) when he lobbed up said how great it was to see a Maggies guernsey. The kids were all like "why have you got Collingwood on, don't you go for Port?". The Dad's had to do a little bit of education for the kids on Port's history!

 

[Lockhart Road]

Norwood had the wrong people in charge when that crucial decision was made. They needed vision and guts but it was all Adelaide-centric small minded thinking and fear. The club took the easy option, and ever since have been on a long road to insignificance. A bet a lot of supporters are pissed with the administration back then.

Norwood will always be AFL wannabes that will never be.

Norwood played like men but negotiated like gurls.

 

[SgtSchulz]

Port v Norwood would be the oldest rivalry in Australian football.

The four oldest Victorian clubs don't really have a rivalry between them.

Not saying the Showdown isn't great but **** me it would've been epic.

Next showdown I might make a sign that says "Shoulda been Norwood" and hoist it up once we've won.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

GremioPower if you want to read about how South Australian football traveled between 1986 and 1990 in the lead up to Port's AFL bid and the Victorian Football Leagu expanding to become the AFL then this is a good paper by sports historian Bernard Whimpress. Its about 99% facts and very little opinion click on the link and you will see on the linked page that the below title is on a blue ink. If you click on that you will download a 14 page Word document.

Endangered Species And ‘National Football’, 1986-1990

 

[Contested Marx]

LR killing it in this thread

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Port v Norwood would be the oldest rivalry in Australian football.

The four oldest Victorian clubs don't really have a rivalry between them.

Not saying the Showdown isn't great but **** me it would've been epic.

Next showdown I might make a sign that says "Shoulda been Norwood" and hoist it up once we've won.

Not quiet. Melbourne v Geelong goes back to 1859. it might not be as deep these days as Port v Norwood but over the years its been big. You have clubs playing each other in less organised comps than before the formation of the VFA. Norwood were formed 1878

The VFA (now VFL) was formed the same year as the SAFA (now SANFL) in 1877 but the SAFA won by a few weeks. 8 clubs from the VFA broke away at the end of 1896 season to form the VFL and then Richmond left at end of 1907 and North Melbourne Footscray (now Western Bulldogs) and Hawthorn left in 1924.

If you study the first 20 seasons of the VFA (1877-1896) some clubs had rivalries there that they took into the VFL that are still their today. Carlton v Essendon was there long before Collingwood entered the VFA in 1892.

 

[GremioPower]

WHEREFORE ART THOU, OUR ONCE WORTHY OPPOSITION....?

It has been a massive conspiracy plotted well in advance, beginning from the Japanese surrender to MacArthur in Tokyo Bay in 1945.
Released from his military duties a superhero appeared by the name of Big Bob McLean, who came from Norwood district, had been lead ruckman for the Redlegs before switching to Port Adelaide and when the SANFL resumed hostilities post-war became the General MacArthur of Alberton district.
Big Bob got his own business going, became secretary then general manager of PAFC, and poached a black-mopped crazy ball-getting rover called Foster N. Williams from West Adelaide, made him captain coach and oversaw Fos Williams' rise to greatness in the fifties with an invisible sawn-off shotgun tucked under his (McLean's) arm.
Fos led Port Adelaide to premiership victories in 1951 and 1954 to 1958 inclusive (these six flags were taken from Norwood twice, West Adelaide thrice and North Adelaide once). Fos's protege Geof Motley led the club to six-in-a-row in 1959 (vs West), then Fos took the role of non-playing coach and won flags in 1962 (vs North), 1963 (vs West) and 1965 (vs Sturt). This totals ten flags in fifteen years, punctuated by two losing grand finals in 1953 and 1964.
At this point talent scouts from the VFL were making undercover approaches to Alberton to poach our best players. They all left with a plug of invisible buckshot up their arse care of Big Bob's invisible shotgun.
From this era has grown - on top of the more intermittent successes of the Bob Quinn, Bull Reval, Shine Hosking, Harold Oliver era between the wars - the Armoured Aura of Invincibility with which PAFC, as the Magpies, juggernauted thru the SANFL up to Big Bob's death in 1989 ... when SA football bureaucrats, leading inferior clubs and dreaming of cobbling together an SA Superclub with not a skerrick of its own history that would displace PAFC from the face of the earth, suddenly discovered enough vacant space for an undeserving few years in the sun.

In 1994, but, the sun rose again over Alberton, as it invariably had done since 1870. Our inevitable national licence was won - the first and only fully pre-existing club to do so on its own merits.
The AFL version of Port Adelaide Football Club, the Power, ran on the West Lakes turf in round 4, 1997 to thump the imaginary superpower club called the Crows created by magic wands dripping with bitter venom of failure-crafted SANFL officialdom.
Big Bob McLean looked down from the Footy Ground in the Sky above Alberton Oval and gave a gigantic belly laugh. The Crows mob thought a thunderstorm was breaking, and ran for cover like losers do.
But it was just Big Bob farting gloriously into the future.

Now this grand conspiracy that rose from Tokyo Bay in 1945 was not completed. Eventually, another Redleg was directed to enter the portals of the Port Club by malevolent SANFL string-pullers and wreak some more imported (black) magic. His name was and still is Casual Keith Thomas, and the magic he decided to wreak was black, white, teal blue and silver.
Sir Casual, shortly after arrival heard a clap of thunder emanating from somewhere above Alberton Oval and a god-like growl that he was sure kept repeating the same word over and over .... CHINA !

Over the next couple of years, two disciples appeared at Alberton, their journeys originating from the direction of Norwood. The second disciple's name is Sir Andrew Hunter. He played volleyball for Norwood, led volleyball tours abroad, and played pro volleyball in Europe for several years. He is multilingual and is today the bright-eyed face of the PAFC China Strategy. Don't forget ... he originated from Norwood where he had been spotted by Sir Casual who himself emanated from Norwood.

By then had also cometh the first, older, more weather-beaten disciple.
This disciple appeared, though, from the north. From China, in fact. This disciple had been born in North Adelaide, had grown up in East Adelaide and had matriculated from Norwood High School. That's right: NORWOOD High School. Some how or other this disciple had taken the high road, had ended up in China where he had been awaiting his calling from the Port Adelaide Football Club.
That happened in 2013, via the thunder and lightning of Big Bob McLean and the winners' era example he had set until the day he died. That may have been how it happened, I think.

This second disciple now sits on the top of his mountain in China, looking down, spotting friends and foes alike, giving the former a wave and directions to the Pro Drinkers' Corner in Happy Valley; giving the latter a blast from the invisible sawn-off shotgun he inherited from Big Bob McLean with orders not to be shy to pull the trigger.

So GremioPower here you have the answer to your question. What happened to that opposition team called the Redlegs, to the opposition SA club called Norwood?
Well, as this fable tells you - and it's a fable based on fact as I sit here on my China mountain and remember those facts one by one and connect the dots - the Norwood Redlegs disappeared. They simply, virtually, disappeared.

Essential Spirits, one after the other, left them in favour of the opposition club and district on the other side of town, where they all prospered together. A vision, had these ex-Norwood spirits. A long-range view of the future, had these ex-Norwood spirits.
Now look back, towards the Norwood Parade, towards Norwood Oval, towards the shabby grandstands and club rooms of the Norwood Football Club. Wouldn't you agree it all looks the same as it did back in 1947 when Bob Quinn played there for the last time, and when Big Bob McLean quit the locale to do Bigger Bob stuff in the land of the Port, in the land of the future.
Thanks for your keen interest in our great Club's history, and its destiny, GremioPower
You see, we have a history, and it's one that is richer in fables, superheroes and magic than any other.

By the way, there is a fifth spirit, as yet unmentioned, still to be located in Norwood, just off the Parade, in a sreet next to Norwood Oval. This spirit is using legal means, just like those desperate inventors of the Crows in 1990, to block the rebuilding of the Norwood Football Club Rooms etc.
Methinks, if you check this fifth spirit out, you will sense the strings rising above him into the clouds of black white and silver and the gaps of teal blue, and you will hear the rumbling laughter of Big Bob McLean, laughing his longest, last belly laugh.

I couldn't catch much, but enough to realize that it is gold! Thanks!

 

[Contested Marx]

Haha I just remembered

While we were preparing our entry into the AFL, Norwood were entering the groundbreaking realm of lycra guernseys

 

[SgtSchulz]

Not quiet. Melbourne v Geelong goes back to 1859. it might not be as deep these days as Port v Norwood but over the years its been big. You have clubs playing each other in less organised comps than before the formation of the VFA. Norwood were formed 1878

The VFA (now VFL) was formed the same year as the SAFA (now SANFL) in 1877 but the SAFA won by a few weeks. 8 clubs from the VFA broke away at the end of 1896 season to form the VFL and then Richmond left at end of 1907 and North Melbourne Footscray (now Western Bulldogs) and Hawthorn left in 1924.

If you study the first 20 seasons of the VFA (1877-1896) some clubs had rivalries there that they took into the VFL that are still their today. Carlton v Essendon was there long before Collingwood entered the VFA in 1892.

I acknowledge that but Port v Norwood would've been a 140+ year old derby.

Nothing in Australian football would compare. Biased yes but it would've been epic in the truest sense of the word. I have been doing records for the club and reports from every game are there, goal kickers, games played, suspensions, fights, finals, grand finals, player movements.

Topsy Waldron, SA's first super star attended Harry Phillips funeral, our first star. The two clubs were intwinded. Traded It in for a Camry.

 

[GremioPower]

It's weird, the SANFL's decision to go balls deep on South Australiana - city name, state colours, derivative of the state team moniker - was a direct symptom of the WA public's tepid response to the rather more generic West Coast Eagles, whose crowds in the early years were comparatively rubbish.

Now, it's exactly that genericism that gave Freo a serious toehold amongst their football-mad population and, depending on feasibility, could potentially see a third franchise over there. You're not just expected to naturally support West Coast because you're a Western Australian.

Here, the defacto state team attracted instant default support along those partisan lines and by the time it was Port's turn - shorn of its mascot, guernsey and even some of its own supporters - it was always pushing shit uphill from that standpoint.

The SANFL eh? Visionless as ever.

I actually went to check whether Freo had a previous History like we do. I was disappointed...

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I acknowledge that but Port v Norwood would've been a 140+ year old derby.

Nothing in Australian football would compare. Biased yes but it would've been epic in the truest sense of the word. I have been doing records for the club and reports from every game are there, goal kickers, games played, suspensions, fights, finals, grand finals, player movements.

Topsy Waldron, SA's first super star attended Harry Phillips funeral, our first star. The two clubs were intwinded. Traded It in for a Camry.

Isn't Carlton v Essendon a form of derby with a rivalry going back to 1872 in a lose form and since 1878 from VFA days just like Port first played Norwood in the SAFA in 1878?

 

[GremioPower]

What the hell is this. What an uncalled for post. LR you drunk? Guy makes a joke about Norwood and you go mental at him.

It is called FAMILY!

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I actually went to check weather Freo had a previous History like we do. I was disappointed...

In the Western Australian Football League East Fremantle and South Fremantle had a great rivalry and derby. Those games at times were known as blood baths. Fremantle is the port of Perth and 20km from Perth very similar to Port Adelaide and Adelaide being 15km apart. You have Perth, East Perth and West Perth and their rivalry wasn't as big and the neither was any involving the other 3 clubs Claremont, Subiaco and Swan Districts. Peel came into the competition in 1997.

When the AFL gave Fremantle the sub licence in 1993 for the 1995 season, they and the Western Australian Football Commission (WAFC) asked both Fremantles if they wanted to make a bid for for the licence and the other clubs as well but they both said no as they knew they couldn't compete with the already established West Coast Eagles (WCE). Plus the biggest supporter base of a WAFL club was about 16% of the footy supporters when they did surveys. I think South Freo had the biggest following. The WAFC were given the licence and so they set up a generic Fremantle team to compete with the WCE and whilst they based the club at Fremantle and tried to get a few people from the 2 Fremantle local clubs, the rivalry was so great that they didnt put a lot of people from the 2 clubs together.

They tried to say they were the Fremantle people's team but Fremantle supporters were somewhat ostracized. In 2001 a supporter group called the Freo mob agitated and demonstrated for change for the WAFC to stop treating them as second class citizens, give power to the members and set up more Freo type people on the board and not just a generic WAFC representative types and a WCE-lite type club. Also an attempt was made to involve more South and East Freo people and ex players more into the structure of the club.

The Freo supporter base has evolved partly due to those changes and partly due to WCE selling out a relatively small stadium each game to its members, so if you wanted to watch AFL and weren't a WCE member, you had to go watch an initially poorly attended Fremantle game. Here is a bit of footage about the rivalry.

 

[tribey]

I actually went to check weather Freo had a previous History like we do. I was disappointed...

Yeah, they're actually exactly what we get accused of being by nuffies.

A brand new entity with an existing club shtick, trading off the historical ties to the region. They tend to get perceived differently from the outside due to this, but really, they're no different to the WCE or Adelaide as a brand new broadbased composite.

 

[Powerade 08]

Cook book lol. Savage af

No option but to change username after that level of burn