Magpies doomed

i've got this second handed but a high ranking Port Power official told a friend of mine that the magpies are doomed in the SANFL & will go to a lower league (presumably the amateur league) & the Power will have the reserves team similar to what the Crows are getting

very sad month in South Australian football    

Got told the same thing 2nd hand from a disappointed Magpie player

Back to Ethelton for the Magpies then? Surely they wouldn't stay at Alberton?

If they are to join the saafl, do you think it feasible if they merged / amalgamated in some fashion with Port Districts?

Quite a few of the Magpies underrage players come from Districts and many ex-Magpie players end up going there at the end of their careers or taking on officials positions or coaching. So there is a reasonable connection between the two.

With Districts fairing so well in Div 2 this year and could be promoted to Div 1, there seems some logic.

But maybe the Magpies want to stay autonomous on their own. However, that would break the connection between the clubs and I can see the underrage kids having to make a decision whether to stay at Districts or go to the Magpies. It seems to me that having both clubs participate in saafl separately would cause some difficulties.

In a way it is disappointing in even discussing these options.

Merge, fold or rebrand seem the most likely options IMO.

Port Districts are a proud club in their own right. I doubt a merger with Port Adelaide Magpies would be successful for either party.

In the Port area alone, you already have North Haven, Port Districts, Portland Thunder, SMOSH, Rosewater, with Seaton Ramblers debatably within that zone.

Does Port Adelaide still own the clubrooms at Ethelton?

Very sad news if true and I really feel for the true Magpie supporters.
Don't know what I would do if it was my team.

Who are the "true" Magpie supporters mate. I'm assuming you mean the ones who didnt choose to follow the Port Adelaide AFL venture?

Booney wrote:Who are the "true" Magpie supporters mate. I'm assuming you mean the ones who didnt choose to follow the Port Adelaide AFL venture?

Yes I do.
Those who follow the SANFL Magpies and an AFL side I guess have an easier choice being able to continue with their AFL team but the one's only interested in an SANFL side have a much harder decision to make.

If it was Norwood folding I'm pretty sure I would give Aussie Rules away and just be grateful for the fantastic memories.

So that would, according to your summation, mean I'm not a "true" Magpies supporter and to that I would retort, how the hell would you know?

As a fourth generation Port Adelaide supporter I dont think anyone,not anyone would be able to understand or appreciate the complexity of being a Port Adelaide supporter. No other club in SA football history has been through the changes we have over the last 30 years.

I am and will be completely gutted when it seems, not if, the Magpies are no longer.

I suppose we have been concentrating on the Crows a bit with this afl reserves thing, because Port it appeared had opted out for next year.

It is hard to keep up with the twists and turns and I haven't really analysed completely what this new move means.

Is it certain Port will elect to send the Magpies to the amateurs?

I haven't read a full account of who is putting what up with the Port side of the ledger.

If I have to see a Power jumper at the expense of a Magpie one in the sanfl, that will make me very unhappy (even more unhappy than I already am - and that is extremely unhappy).

There may actually be a model whereby Port could keep the sanfl reserves & U18s if the balance were correctly weighted in respect to their zone allocation amongst other concessions. I don't think Port's original submission provided that balance. But has the sanfl commission (& clubs) or Port further explored where that balance may lie that each can live with? I haven't heard of it if they have been discussing this.

It almost seems too late to do all of that in the haste to get this afl reserves thing all pushed through.

I must add that, however, contemplating a power reserves in the sanfl is not something I really want either, under any model.

I've never really understood that Booney.

To me the PAFC (Magpies) would still be alive and well within the AFL competition. The Magpies may disappear, but Port Adelaide will not. In fact their success has secured their future in national competition.

The Magpies should've ceased to operate on the clubs inclusion to the AFL IMO. Maintaining a presence in the SANFL will/has only made the inevitable all the more difficult.

I'm sure you've heard that many times over the last few years and I know that you disagree.

How can they be doomed if they still exist in another comp? 

B J10 wrote:How can they be doomed if they still exist in another comp? 

doomed from the SANFL WHERE THEY BELONG

James Mickeljohn announced his retirement today, last game at Alberton this weekend. Has he seen the writing in the wall?

bayman wrote:

B J10 wrote:How can they be doomed if they still exist in another comp? 

doomed from the SANFL WHERE THEY BELONG

In your opinion of course! We get the Crows in and Port out, all is good in the world

The SANFL League Directors are considering a proposal which would enable the Port Adelaide Magpies to exist in the SANFL league competition as a support team for the Port Adelaide Football Club’s AFL team.


The proposal would ensure that both the Adelaide and Port Adelaide football clubs would have support teams in the SANFL from the beginning of the 2014 football season.

“Once the League Directors agreed on a model to admit a team from the Adelaide Football Club, the same invitation was extended to Port Adelaide,” said John Olsen, SA Football Commission Chairman.

“The Commission then listened to feedback from the club’s executive and we have now arrived at a model which is being considered by the League Directors.”

The SANFL League Directors will meet later this week to discuss the matter further ahead of a resolution

From Adelaide Now 28/8/13 - Reece Homfray & others

Port Adelaide Magpies players and supporters say they are shattered their suburban-based SANFL side is likely to play its final game at Alberton Oval on Sunday.

Players have been told the club wants to field an AFL reserves team in place of the stand-alone Magpies in the league next season.

The Magpie cheer squad has vowed it will disband regardless of whether the Power reserves side called itself the Magpies and played in Port's famed prison-bar guernsey.

The move would mean any Port Adelaide team in the SANFL from 2014 will be predominantly made up of players on the Power's AFL list. It is unclear how vacant spots in the side will be filled.

It was also unclear what would happen to the Magpies' junior zones in the Port Adelaide, Salisbury and Eyre Peninsula areas beyond 2014.

Retiring Magpies captain James Meiklejohn confirmed Port Adelaide's AFL chief executive Keith Thomas addressed players last week and told them the club was considering a move to field an AFL reserves team in the SANFL next season.

Meiklejohn said the structure under which the Power's reserves would play was unclear but players had accepted the side would replace the current Magpies - leaving dozens of players in limbo.

"Obviously there are a few things still to sort out but the feeling is these will be the last two games in 143 years of the Magpies in this sense,'' said Meiklejohn, who received a personal briefing from Thomas last week.

"It won't be the same set up as this year. The make up of the league team will be different and the SANFL guys won't know how many spots will be available."

Port Adelaide returns to the negotiation table with the SA Football Commission this week.

Thomas said he understood players' frustration.

"They are significantly affected by this decision," he said yesterday.

"Our current position is if we can't have our junior structure in place, then it will be status quo for 2014.

Thomas said there was no way around the reality that having all Power players together at the Magpies would reduce the number of opportunities for non-AFL listed players.

The Magpies play West Adelaide at Alberton this Sunday, before playing what will likely be their final match in their current format on September 7, against Glenelg at the Bay.

Long-term Magpies cheer squad leader Harold Wilson said he and the squad's 67 members were devastated.

Wilson, a member for 38 years, said the cheer squad would disband at the end of the season. "We thought this would happen but we thought they could have come up with a better outcome for the club," Mr Wilson, from Pennington, said.

"We've been involved with the club since 1966 - outside of my work and family, it is my life.

"Every weekend is spent following the team around.

"My kids, family, grandkids and friends all support the Magpies and it is something that has been part of all our life for decades."

Mr Wilson does not support the Power and said he would have no association with the club from next season. He said the cheer squad would not protest, or officially send the Magpies off at Alberton on Sunday.

The cheer squad was planning a special farewell the following weekend at Glenelg, Mr Wilson said.

Is this story at odds with the one above R&B posted?
So little concrete information is being distributed to the populace. Almost like we are not worthy. Does anyone else feel like a "lemming"?

Either way, I think the PAM cheer squad understands what is going to happen and can only support the team that has continued in its current guise for 143 years. It is clear that to them, the incarnation that will exist next season season is not that entity.

This sort of stance should be the type of barometer the Presidents took into consideration in making their decision to admit afl reserves sides to the sanfl.

They just don't want to understand the collatoral damage that is going to occur like this. Maybe the interests of 67 (up until now) devoted souls are not worth preserving.

But if not them (the heart and soul of a club) then what are we preserving and for what purpose?

it sounds too easy, but I blame the afl. If they had the interests of its clubs at heart, they would instigate an afl reserves program. Let's face it, this whole issue is their problem, not the sanfls.

They already have 50% of a reserves competition with the NEAFL and if you add the VFL to it, you get it up to 75%. With soem injection of their copious amounts of funds (and as of yesterday they are now $2,030,000 richer), I think it would be a relatively easy fix to put all that together and add a Crows / Power team to the mix. The AFL has that duty and refuses to acknowledge it.

And so blokes like Mr Wilson suffer, and you and me and all of the people who support the integrity that the sanfl has represented until now.

...off the soapbox now!

I should have made it clear that my post was an official SANFL Media Release.

They could be intimating the same thing.
Without any details of the model Olsen speaks of, we can't really tell.

2013 nationwide has not been the year of pedestal "Football Administration" in my opinion.

The title looks like a definitive statement that the PAMFC is continuing as is for next year.

Dont be at all surprised to see a special general meeting called by a group of members regarding this issue.

We've been LIED TO so many times now, that I can't even be bothered reading it. This whole AFL reserves episode has been the most shameful example, of the high rollers conning the mug punters, I can ever remember. My only decision from here, is whether I want to be involved with football at all in the future. There are plenty of other things I can do with my leisure time and money. I almost (Repeat almost) accepted Adelaide. But if Port come in on their terms, Magpies and all, I go out. It amounts to a complete take over of the SANFL. And I will not put in time and money to prop up clubs run on chook raffles, by volunteers, while trying to compete with the billions and the "supplements" of the AFL.

Mate, Port can't come in on our terms, that has been decided.Which ironically is based on the model proposed by Adelaide which is yet to be decided.

FOOTYfollower wrote:The title looks like a definitive statement that the PAMFC is continuing as is for next year.

Amended, thanks.