NTUA – Never Tear Us Apart, as sung by the Port Adelaide fans for their pre-game war cry – was to have been a reminder to “external forces” that the Port Adelaide Football Club would never again be taken to the brink or split in two.

Yet for most of the past decade since adopting the INXS anthem as a ritual for its AFL matches at Adelaide Oval, the greatest threats have been within the club’s own walls – with most of the tension centred around the administration’s unwavering faith in long-serving coach Ken Hinkley.

A new internal fight, watched well beyond the club’s heartland at Alberton, is the battle of two Port Adelaide greats for one seat of the nine on the club’s board of directors.

Already, the nominations of AFL premiership captain Warren Tredrea and SANFL premiership hero Bruce Abernethy for election by club members in February are loaded with myth and misrepresentation.

Tredrea seemed compelled to stand for members’ endorsement after his offer last year to replace world-leading tennis coach Darren Cahill on the board as a co-opted director was rebuffed and mocked by club president David Koch.

Abernethy is described as Koch’s “hand-picked” spoiler to Tredrea’s immediate appeal to the anti-Hinkley faction in the Port Adelaide membership and fan base. The Tredrea camp notes “coffee meetings” between Abernethy and senior Port Adelaide leaders soon after Tredrea submitted his nomination at the start of the process on December 2.

The truth is Abernethy made his intent to return to the club as a director – a decade after he was axed in the AFL-inspired clean out of the Port Adelaide board room – known to his closest confidants a year ago and was reaffirming his plans to former club leaders during the SANFL grand final at Adelaide Oval in late September.

Abernethy had his nomination forms in order 10 days before they could be submitted to the club at the start of December.

“And I was not going to put them in a day after Warren,” says Abernethy who shuns the public limelight, despite a strong media profile.

Port Adelaide’s internal audit will “vet” the nominations before members get their ballot form with three names to choose from – Abernethy, Tredrea and the incumbent Kathy Nagel, the chief executive of Western Hospital who was elected by the members two years ago.

Each candidate will be restricted to a 250-word statement delivered to the members. Voting will be limited to those members who were on the club books in 2023. This will prevent any vote stacking. It also makes redundant the membership recently bought by FIVEaa sportscaster Stephen Rowe, who was labelled by Koch in September as an “unprofessional” broadcaster and at the same time was denied any interviews with the club’s players for his drive show.

Rowe bought his membership as a public declaration of support for Tredrea, a regular panellist on his radio show and an expert commentator in FIVEaa’s football coverage.

The race is very much between Abernethy and Tredrea and heavily laced with the Hinkley question, regardless of his security with a two-year contract extension signed in September before Port Adelaide’s straight-sets exit from the AFL finals.

Nagel is most unlikely to repeat the John Major moment from UK politics that dethroned Magaret Thatcher in a three-way vote for the leadership of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister’s seat. She is hard-pressed to gain enough votes – at least 3000 – to profit from any split of support assured to a former player wanting to join the board.

Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley. Photo: Michael Errey/InDaily

Part of the myth of the Abernethy-Tredrea duel is based on unfounded perceptions about which candidate will put a blowtorch on Hinkley from within the clubhouse.

Abernethy is not building his campaign on a pro-Hinkley stance to counter Tredrea’s noted appeal to the anti-Hinkley faction that is considered a minority of the Port Adelaide fan base.

It would be wrong to label Abernethy as pro-Hinkley.

Abernethy’s return to the club as a director would give the boardroom the much-needed football savvy to mirror all that former player and coach Tony Hobby offered two decades ago, when he was the key to every review of the football program and the work of the club’s lone AFL premiership coach Mark Williams in the lead-up to the breakthrough 2004 national league flag.

“I am at the time of my life when I can put back into my club,” Abernethy told InDaily.

“I love my football club,” adds Abernethy, who made his SANFL league debut in 1979 as a teenage sensation still studying at Woodville High School.

“I now have a chance to do something for my football club. Why not?”

Privately, Tredrea – who has told the club he will not engage in any media interviews before the election – says virtually the same thing.

“I am in a space of my life when I can help (my club),” Tredrea has told those asking about his motivation to be a board member at Alberton.

Tredrea became the hero of the Hinkley haters after the third game of the 2023 AFL premiership season when Port Adelaide had lost consecutive games to Collingwood and Adelaide in a Showdown to have a 1-2 win-loss record. He described Hinkley’s position as “untenable”. Port Adelaide then won a club record 13 successive AFL matches to secure passage to its fourth consecutive finals series.

Those who expect Abernethy or Tredrea to keep the heat on Hinkley might be as disappointed as the old Port Adelaide guard who endorsed former football boss Rob Snowdon’s election to the board this year. Most notable in the announcement of Hinkley’s contract extension in September was Koch referring to Snowdon’s approval of the football program at Alberton and Hinkley’s work.

While Tredrea has walked away from all media interviews, he cannot escape the question of how he would juggle media commitments – particularly at FIVEaa when facing inevitable baiting from Rowe each week – with duty and confidentiality demands on the Port Adelaide board.

Tredrea faces cries of hypocrisy considering he declared in his blog in 2020 that Brownlow Medallist Mark Ricciuto had to be sacked from the Adelaide Football Club board while being outspoken in the media. Tredrea labelled this as a “conflict of interest” particularly when commentating on issues at rival AFL clubs – a theme that has him banned from entering the Port Adelaide changerooms on match days when he is a Fox Footy commentator.

Tredrea told InDaily that the AFL has examples of board members working in the media without conflict.

“Luke Darcy did at the Western Bulldogs and James Bartel did at the Giants,” said Tredrea, although Bartel did not always find it easy to manage both media commitments and duties at Greater Western Sydney.

Tredrea notes he would need to discuss with FIVEaa how he could juggle the needs of his employer in the media and the demands for confidentiality imposed as an unpaid club servant on the Port Adelaide board.

Crows premiership captain Mark Bickley opted not to compromise when he was asked to consider joining the Adelaide Football Club board in 2021 while also working in the media.

At the time, Bickley told InDaily: “You cannot do justice to either role. In the media, your employer expects you to use all the information you have to tell a story. At a club, you are compelled to maintain confidentiality while the official spokesmen are chairman, chief executive and coach. I did not want to compromise. You can’t do both roles without failing either your media employer or your club.”

Tredrea’s dilemma would be eased if he wins his $5.75 million case in the Federal Court for wrongful dismissal from Channel Nine where – in an appropriate twist – he was Abernethy’s counter at Channel Seven as a sports news presenter. He could then walk away from FIVEaa with financial security.

Abernethy’s media commitments are not as “risky” in relation to the confidentiality demands placed on Port Adelaide directors. Abernethy notes his work on Seven News is to read the lead-in to a story and he introduces the journalist filing the report. He passes no significant comment that could create a headline and embarrass Port Adelaide.

Abernethy also is prudent during the Channel Seven presentations of AFL matches involving the Crows and Port Adelaide which are Fox Footy productions. He prefers to ask the key questions as host and leave the answers to co-host, Central District SANFL premiership player and former Sydney AFL-listed player Andrew Hayes.

Tredrea’s real challenge as a match-day commentator, blog writer and FIVEaa panellist is the same as that faced by Ricciuto. And when either passes a controversial or contentious remark on football, they would be referred to as a “club board member” rather than as a “former player”.

Abernethy’s resume includes service as a board member during the darkest hours at Alberton when the Port Adelaide Football Club was near financial ruin and removal from the AFL competition in 2012. His football career includes SANFL duty at Port Adelaide from 1979-1992 with seven premierships and more than 100 games in the VFL-AFL with North Melbourne, Collingwood and Adelaide. He is a South Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee.

So is Tredrea who played all his SANFL and AFL football at Port Adelaide from 1997-2010 while establishing himself as one of the game’s greatest key forwards.

Bruce Abernethy in his Channel Seven promo shot.

Why Abernethy, 61, would seek to endure the pain of football politics again after the brutal end to his directorship on AFL grand final day in 2012 has baffled a few Port Adelaide observers.

He is a devotee of former club president Bruce Weber, who led the Port Adelaide campaign to join the AFL in 1990. He has long wanted Port Adelaide to disconnect from the SANFL despite it being a foundation member since 1877 of Australia’s oldest State league.

Port Adelaide’s exit from the SANFL to have its reserves in the VFL or a national second-tier competition – a concept Abernethy would enjoy overseeing – is set to unfold in 2025.

Abernethy does appear to have an “unfinished business” agenda at Port Adelaide.

“I am proud of what we achieved on that board – and I am keen to serve again,” Abernethy said. “I am not one who cares to have my name on a grandstand. I don’t need that. But I do care for this football club and I want to serve again now that we are financially sound, have a great venue at Adelaide Oval and have finally shaken off the shackles of the SANFL.”

Former club president Brett Duncanson defends the work and capability of every member of his board that was virtually dismissed en masse by then AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou to usher in the Koch era from September 2012.

“Every member of that board is successful in business or their chosen field,” Duncanson told InDaily.

“That was a very difficult period (2010-2012) for the Port Adelaide Football Club. We made tough decisions. We were brave in setting the future direction of the football club, and we took every knock on the chin. I am very proud of what we achieved to set up the club for today and beyond. And I am very proud of what those directors have done since leaving the club.

“The business model of the club was broken. We reunited the club that had been split as Magpies in the SANFL and Power in the AFL. We set up the path from Football Park to Adelaide Oval. We secured our licence from the SANFL to rest with the AFL – all difficult, very difficult paths to negotiate.

“We were hamstrung while our AFL sub-licence was with the SANFL. We were playing in a stadium (Football Park) where it was difficult to secure a financial return. We had our players spread across the SANFL rather than in our own team.

“All three issues were resolved on our watch with Bruce Abernethy on our board.”

Former players rarely fail to win member support when seeking election to the board.

Since joining the AFL in 1997, two AFL premiership players – Darryl Wakelin and Gavin Wanganeen – have notably served as board members at Port Adelaide. Wanganeen was the first Indigenous player elected to an AFL board but did not see out his term because of growing commitments to his private ventures.

Wakelin recently made this revealing admission of his time as a director after being a player at Port Adelaide and St Kilda from 1993-2007.

“I thought it was my time to have an influence in another way, but I was not ready for that,” Wakelin said of his experience as a board member. “I had a young family, I had just started to develop my business experiences (with pharmacies) and I was still thinking as a player who was ‘institutionalised’ in the team bubble. I was needing time to develop my own thoughts, strong thoughts too while the club was in transition.”

This theme was put to Tredrea by leading Port Adelaide officials in 2023, when the Hall of Famer was told he could have a greater influence on football committees rather than in the board room where football issues do not dominate the monthly agenda.

This concept is highlighted by the achievements of SANFL premiership defender George Fiacchi. After serving on the board, his greatest legacy was achieved as a “former player” in leading the “One Club” reunification of Port Adelaide’s AFL and SANFL units.

Tredrea, 44, also was encouraged to work in the football committee system as a start to rebuilding bridges with key members of the football staff at Port Adelaide. The uneasy challenge of serving a media boss and protecting club interests – the point made by Bickley – did hurt Tredrea while he was working at Channel Nine.

While Abernethy and Tredrea seek member support today, InDaily can reveal the former player being groomed for a future seat on the board is former captain Dom Cassisi who was Port Adelaide’s on-field leader during the darkest chapter a decade ago. He certainly is not aligned to Tredrea, as noted by his public criticism on social media of Tredrea’s comments on Hinkley last year.

The winner of the members’ vote will be declared at the Port Adelaide annual meeting at Alberton on February 9.

The election and the fall-out – particularly if Tredrea is defeated – will draw attention well beyond Port Adelaide. It also will test that NTUA theme.

Football politics can be as brutal as the game of football itself.