GEOF MOTLEY defines Port Adelaide.

"I once asked Geof what is this 'Port Adelaide tradition'?," says Peter Woite who succeeded Motley to his trademark No.17 jumper and followed him to South Australian football greatness as a Magarey Medallist.

"I wanted to know what motivated Geof and his team-mates in that era when they would win premiership after premiership after premiership."

Motley played in nine SANFL league premiership-winning teams - a club and SANFL record. No man has walked off Adelaide Oval with more grand final victories as a player. From the moment he arrived at Alberton Oval to join the junior ranks in 1950, Motley made grand final day his annual tradition.

"His first nine years," adds Woite, "he would finish the season playing for premierships. He wins six in a row from 1954. And then in 1960 (as playing captain-coach), it ends with a preliminary final. Geof told me he thought about quitting football - he had failed to win a premiership!"

This is Geof Motley's legacy at the Port Adelaide Football Club. Motley is the only man to feature in all nine premierships from the golden run from 1954 (with the six in a row that he completed as Fos Williams' successor as coach) to 1965 when Port Adelaide overtook Norwood as the most-successful club in South Australian football.

"And I wanted to know from Geof," says Woite of his eagerness to maintain the Port Adelaide tradition built by Motley, "what motivated the Port Adelaide players of his era.

"It was simple. The fear of losing.

"If they did not play in a grand final, they thought it was the end of the world."

Motley played in 11 SANFL league grand finals at Adelaide Oval - missing the premiership play-off just only twice in a 14-season career that ended early (after just one league game) in 1966 by a knee injury. With Williams, he symbolised the premiership-winning decades of the 1950s and 1960s that club great Bob McLean dubbed the "Golden Era" at Port Adelaide.

From his league debut in 1953 until his retirement in 1966, Motley defined Port Adelaide week after week. He was never dropped from the senior side. He never played a B-grade game (reserves) after his promotion to the league side from the colts.

Born (January 3, 1935) near the club's cradle at the traditional home at Alberton Oval - and educated at the nearby Woodville High - Motley wore for all but a few of his then club-record 258 league games the No.17 jumper. He was allowed to break from the club tradition of wearing the No.1 guernsey as captain by superstition - and the want of the fans.

"He gave me that No.17 jumper and I will never forget what he said to me " Woite recalls. "He shook my hand and said, 'Son, the player makes the number; the number does not make the player. Remember that'."

Motley certainly made his name in No.17 during the 1957 SANFL grand final against Norwood. Shifted at quarter-time from centre to half-forward in a switch with Magarey Medallist Dave Boyd, Motley kicked seven goals to turn the game and flag to Port Adelaide's favour.

Australian football will remember Motley in No.17 as one of the toughest, most-uncompromising players to ever take the field. For his rugged and brutal ways in a time when the game was played with a heavy hand, Motley never strayed - he was never reported. He earned the 1964 Magarey Medal not just for his brilliance, but notably for his fairness.

"Tough ... but a gentleman," says 1961 All-Australian and SANFL leading goalkicker Geoff Kingston. "He was unbeatable - as good as Ted Whitten was in the VFL; as good as anyone I played against. Tough, hard ... but also gentlemanly in the way he played the game and honoured the spirit of the game. That's why I always looked at Geof with the greatest respect.

"One day at Alberton Oval, Geof was beating me badly," Kingston recalled. "I was frustrated to the point that I whacked Geof.

"At the next break, while we were going to our respective team's huddles, Geof stopped me and said, 'You're too good for that; you don't need to be doing that'. That was the gentleman in him. I never threw another punch."

Motley was Port Adelaide from his entry to the club as a teenager in the early 1950s to his controversial exit in 1977 when he was dismissed as chairman of selectors. As much as he wanted - out of anger from his removal - to have his name erased from Port Adelaide history, Motley could never be taken out of the storyline at Alberton.

Motley's peace with Port Adelaide was appropriately made in 2014 when the club - amid astonishment that the redeveloped Adelaide Oval had no feature honouring the most-successful footballer - named its player race in honour of Motley.

Every Port Adelaide player today and forever more will enter and leave Adelaide Oval's playing field with the image of the man who defined the Port Adelaide Football Club by premierships.

"The record speaks for itself," says Woite with Motley's achievements etched into the race. "You cannot get a better record in football."

NINE league premierships (1954-1959, 1962, 1963, 1965)

MAGAREY MEDALLIST in 1964

FOUR best-and-fairest titles at Port Adelaide (1958, 1959, 1963, 1965)

PREMIERSHIP COACH in 1959, completing the six in-a-row for Port Adelaide

GREATEST TEAM at right half-back in Port Adelaide's all-time line-up from 1870-2000

STATE representative 28 times including the famed 1963 team that beat Victoria at the MCG where the VFL selectors regarded Motley as South Australia's best player

CAPTAIN at Port Adelaide from 1959-1966 

HALL OF FAME honour with club, State and nationally

Motley's uncompromising image as a footballer did invoke football poetry from one of the game's classical writers, fellow Magarey Medallist Jeff Pash.

He described Motley as "fearless and resolute". In his notable style Pash wrote of Motley: "The shape of his flying play for the ball and of his recovery is brave and pleasing; he flies with abandon and bounces up smiling from some impossible rolls and spills. Others certainly have more elegant techniques, and they, too, are admired in their place; but Motley is unique."

Ten-time premiership coach John Cahill arrived as a teenager at Port Adelaide in 1958 to see the transition in the club's on-field leadership from Fos Williams to Geof Motley - and the traditions originally set by Williams from 1951 continue with Motley.

"Geof was a fearless leader," Cahill said. "He was my captain from 1959 and he led by example. He was very courageous. And talented. Be it at half-back or centre, Geof stood tall as a captain. He led with conviction and if something needed to be done - or said - Geof was there to lead us."

Premiership team-mate Bob Philp rates Motley as one of the game's "best half-backs".

"If you stood against Geof Motley, you knew about it. Tough and hard; asked for no quarter and gave none," said Philp, ruckman in the 1962, 1963 and 1965 flag-winning teams. "And he kicks seven in a grand final to win the game for us. 

"A great man. A great Port Adelaide man."

Port Adelaide premiership captain Brian Cunningham grew up watching Motley while standing with his grandfather on the east side of Alberton Oval during the 1960s and closed his administrative career in 2004 dealing with Motley as a player manager.

"Rugged, tough, brutal and physical - but fair and brilliant, as the Magarey Medal demands," Cuningham said. "At Port Adelaide, Geof is an icon as one of the greatest players we have ever known in any era. As a State player, I saw how he would take on the biggest names in the game - in particular the Victorians - and he would nullify their part in the interstate matches from half-back.

"As a player, I enjoyed the time and encouragement he gave me. He was very positive. I saw Geof at his best in so many ways."

Former Port Adelaide and South Melbourne defender Max James remembers how Motley's reputation as a player extended well beyond the SANFL by his exemplary performances in the red South Australian jumper.

"As a Port Adelaide board member I was in Melbourne where (St Kilda and national Hall of Fame legend) Darrel Baldock spoke so highly of Geof," James said. "He told the story of how hard it was to play on Geof. He never conceded anything at all. 

"Great player. Great person. And so well respected by everyone, everywhere in football."

Motley's pride in his State performances came as part of his respect for his coach, Williams. Together, they took their uncompromising standards from Alberton to the State team.

"Geof always gave his best in State games," State team-mate and fellow Magarey Medallist John Halbert said. "He was a very important part of that 1963 team at the MCG - on a half-back flank with Ken Eustice on the other flank and Jeff Bray at centre half-back. That line was very powerful in our win against Victoria.

"I stood him several times when playing at centre for Sturt. You would come up against the opposition's best player - and you had to work very hard against Geof. He was true to all that Fos Williams demanded of his teams - get at the ball as hard as you can, win it and kick it down the line as far as you can. Geof had very good ball skills, very good kicking skills."

James and Woite knew Motley as a mentor not just in football but in life.

The humanity in Motley's character, notes Woite, is the love and devotion Motley carried for his son Peter when he faced life-threatening moments after a car crash in Melbourne in 1987 while playing for Carlton after starting his SANFL career at Sturt.

"The way Geof took care of Peter was amazing, absolutely amazing - it tells you of the strength and character of the man who was so caring to so many," Woite said. "He was a great friend. I thought the world of Geof. His guidance to me and many others not only made us better footballers but also better people. Geof was a man who made his presence felt. His judgment was so good, always. He always was in control."

James took regular guidance from Motley who forged him post-playing career as a State team selector and manager and then as one of the toughest and most scrupulous player agents.

"I was so fortunate to have Geof as my mentor as a young footballer - and as a friend as an old, past footballer," James said. "He was so generous to me as a young fella. He always encouraged. He was never flustered. He always was in control of his emotions. He made a great mentor who gave you great knowledge."

Motley regarded his greatest achievement at Port Adelaide as the 1959 premiership - the flag that completed the six in-a-row after Williams had retired as player, captain and coach at the end of the 1958 grand final.

Motley originally did not want to be coach. He later acknowledged the pressure-filled challenge to follow Williams' five consecutive flags immediately with a sixth was his proudest moment in football.

"At the end of 1958, after Fos Williams had been our captain-coach for the first five of the six, the honour - and challenge - of continuing the golden era was handed to be me. Despite my reluctance to coach - when I wanted to remain one of the players - that 1959 season remains the greatest year of my football career," Motley said.

"I remain proud of how we completed the Australian record, as players, as a team and as a club. The greatest pride is in how we never failed our people who are Port Adelaide."

Motley never acted rashly, nor did he speak without deep thought. He made a habit of avoiding quick-fire opinion by holding off a verdict until "I have an argument with myself".

One of his well-considered reflections on entering the Australian Football Hall of Fame echoes with his legacy as a premiership winner.

"When you start in footy you don't know if you are going to be in it for the long term or short term or how long it is going to last," Motley said. "I didn't have a clue what was going to unfold in my football career. I have been involved in the game for a long time, so it has to mean something to you. I have seen an enormous amount of change in my time. And as I have said before, the game is that bloody good no matter what we do to retard it, the game will always survive. It has to be the best game in the world. 

"I have had a philosophy during my journey along a reasonable period of time - you feel sad when it all finishes, but you should never cry about it. You should smile and be happy it happened. I am."

Vale Geof Motley.

WHEN GEOFF BECAME GEOF

FOR all his football career - as a player and coach - he was Geoff Motley.

But from birth he was Geof Motley ... and it took a future Hall of Fame basketball journalist to note the difference during the 1970s when Motley opened his sports store on King William Street in the Adelaide city centre.

Boti Nagy tells the story on how - in his early days in journalism – he corrected a mistake that had been repeated again and again for two decades.

"I was writing a feature on the new Motley and Ebert sports store and I followed Journalism 101 by asking him how to spell his name," Nagy says. "He laughed and laughed saying I was the first journo to ever ask him and they'd been getting it wrong since Day One.

"He told me his mother loved Geoff as a name, but didn't know to spell it. So, on his birth certificate she wrote Geof," added Nagy. Motley was not aware of the "error" until he searched for his birth certificate before his marriage to Australian basketballer Gaynor Flanagan.

"I was the only person to ask and he delightedly told me the story so I had to do a breakout in The News sports pages about how this Magarey Medallist and all-time South Australian great had always had his name misspelt - until then and now forevermore!

"All it took was for me as a cadet journalist to ask him how he spelt his name. I got to know him well and he was a great man."