Tradition dictates that the captain of the Port Adelaide Football Club wear the number one guernsey – this started when Clifford Keal wore the number as club captain for the first time in 1924.[1] The tradition was cemented, at least in the view of then-secretary Charles Hayter, when in 1929 he received a letter from a junior Kilkenny player requesting a number one Port Adelaide guernsey as he had just become captain of his underage team.[2] Hayter granted the wish of the junior and provided him with a number one Port Adelaide guernsey.[2] Since 1924, there have been few exceptions to the tradition. The most notable exception was Geof Motley, who followed the captaincy of Fos Williams. Following his appointment as captain-coach, Motley elected to continue wearing the number 17, and continued to do so for the remainder of his career.[1] When Motley handed the captaincy to John Cahill in 1967, at the insistence of coach Fos Williams, the tradition of Port Adelaide captains wearing the number one guernsey resumed.[1] When co-captains were appointed for the 2019 season the No. 1 guernsey was temporarily retired, but it was re-instated the following season when the club returned to appointing a single captain.[3]
^ ab"Gossip of the Game". The News. Vol. XIII, no. 1, 898 (HOME ed.). Adelaide. 15 August 1929. p. 14. Retrieved 11 February 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
Port Adelaide joined the AFL as a separate entity to the SANFL side. The two clubs merged in 2014, and the SANFL side now functions as Port Adelaide's AFL reserves team.
