Alfie Trebilcock and Bob O'Malley are hanging up the boots after seventy-six combined years of service to Port Adelaide. Image: Matt Sampson.

In 1968, when a young butcher from Broken Hill named Alf Trebilcock first studded a pair of boots under the Williams Family grandstand at Alberton, Russell Ebert was preparing for the first game of his storied 392-game career in the black-and-white.

This Saturday night, at Adelaide Oval, that fifty-eight-year journey reaches its close and he will not walk off alone. Beside him will be Bob O’Malley, “Bobby” to the playing group, who steps away after eighteen years of his own unheralded service. Between them, seventy-six years given to a club forged in 1870 on the same principle both have lived, that Port Adelaide is nothing more, and nothing less, than its people.

“I just love the Port Adelaide Football Club because it means so much to me,” Trebilcock said in 2013, on the day the AFL awarded him the prestigious Jack Titus Award for conspicuous service to the game. Typical Alfie, the smallest amount of words for the largest contribution.

As the late, great Russell Ebert once said, “Alfie loves the players, he loves the club and the players love him. He can talk to any player at any time and would have the complete respect of the entire playing and coaching group... we couldn’t have had the success we had without him.”

High praise from a four-time Magarey medallist who won three premierships with Alfie tending his boots with a special raised heel to alleviate Achilles soreness.

Alfie and Russell Ebert worked closely together with their journeys long interlinked through their time spent together at Alberton. Image: PAFC.

Alfie, ever the numbers man, remembers it differently. “We went from ’68 to ’77 before we won a premiership and I was beginning to think I was a jinx,” he once laughed.

“But from 1977 to 1996, when I left to go over with the Power into the AFL, I saw eleven premierships, and it was just absolutely amazing.”

Ask his greatest memory and he doesn’t hesitate. “The 2004 AFL premiership was mighty,” he says.

“I always pictured standing on the MCG on Grand Final day, celebrating a flag. That dream came true in 2004. I’ll never, ever forget that day.”

Now the emotion is harder to disguise on the eve of retirement. “It’s a strange feeling,” he admits. “I feel happy, I feel sad. I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it.”

Ask why he kept returning for almost sixty years and the answer is always the same.

“It’s the people,” he says. “I used to walk into the changerooms and the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up, because of who you were surrounded by. You just felt like you belonged.”

Bob O’Malley sums up his durability best: “If he had been on the Titanic with a bucket, he would have saved it from sinking. He doesn’t know when to stop or give up.”

Bob and Travis Boak share a special moment ahead of Port Adelaide's game against Carlton earlier this year. Image: Matt Sampson.

O’Malley’s own story is woven just as deeply into Alberton. Eighteen years beside Alfie, he too has become a constant figure at Alberton. “It’s the camaraderie,” he says of what kept him coming back.

“I just loved being involved in this football club. Port Adelaide was always a family club, and all my family barracked for Port Adelaide.”

Among his fondest memories were the mornings with Russell Ebert. “Just to sit down with Russ every morning to share stories and have a laugh is something I will never forget.”

“Bob is a very loyal man,” Alfie says of his great mate. “Nothing is too big, or too small for him. The club should be proud of what he’s achieved. I consider him a great friend and I have a lot of respect for him.”

Senior coach Josh Carr, who met Alfie as an eighteen-year-old recruit, understands what both men mean to this club.

“There wasn’t a day when you would take your boots off and Alfie wasn’t there to grab them, clean them and have them in your boot locker soon after,” Carr says.

“It’s people like Alfie and Bobby that make our club feel real. I thank them both, for nearly sixty years in Alfie’s case.”

Alfie and Bob with Robbie Gray before the Port Adelaide great's final AFL game. Image: PAFC.

Today’s players know it too. “When you’re 19 and terrified walking into that change room for the first time, Alfie’s the bloke who makes you feel like you belong,” said former captain Travis Boak.

Ollie Wines puts it even more clearly: “He’s not a volunteer to us. He’s family. Every set of boots he’s ever touched has had Port Adelaide in it.”

Chairman David Koch is unequivocal. “Alfie Trebilcock is the Port Adelaide story in one man,” Koch says.

“Nearly sixty years of turning up, asking for nothing and giving everything to the club he loves. On behalf of every player, coach and supporter we say thank you, Alfie, and thank you, Bobby. We are the club we are today because of people like you.”

From knock-in timber sprigs to today’s ultra-light boots, from the 1977 flag to the club’s inaugural AFL premiership in 2004, the game around Alfie Trebilcock has transformed almost beyond recognition. He has not. Still first through the doors and last to leave. Beside him this final week is Bob O’Malley – two different men, one same devotion.

Fifty-eight years and eighteen years respectively. Seventy-six years combined, given to a club that felt more like a home. Thank you, Alfie. Thank you, Bobby. For everything.