SA Footy

IT is with great sadness that the Port Adelaide Football Club advises that John Ede passed away this morning at the age of 59 (Tuesday, 18 January 2011) after a short battle with ill health.

Ede joined Port Adelaide from local club Seaton Ramblers and made his league debut in 1969.

The rugged, left-footed, half-back flanker played 113 games for the Magpies up until the end of the 1976 season after which he transferred to Central Broken Hill to complete his football career.

Port Adelaide President Brett Duncanson said that Ede epitomised everything expected of a Port Adelaide player.

“John was a local product who started at our club in 1969 and had to work really hard to become a regular player in our side in the early 1970s,” Duncanson said.

“He wasn’t a fashionable player but once he established his place in the side he became the quintessential Port Adelaide player - a tough, resolute, uncompromising half-back flanker who refused to give up.

“As a one hundred game player his name will be forever etched on the number 28 locker ensuring his legacy will live on forever within the Port Adelaide Football community.”

Port Adelaide great Russell Ebert, who captained Ede from 1974 to 1976, remembers him as being a great character on and off the field.

“I thoroughly enjoyed John’s company off the field as well as going into battle with him on the field,” Ebert said.

“Similar to the way he played his footy, John was a hard and tough character off the field but also had a human touch which made him a great friend and very enjoyable to be around.

“One of my greatest memories of playing with John occurred in the early 1970s against North Adelaide at Prospect where I played alongside him and Rod Davies and we defeated Barrie Robran and his Roosters in an unforgettable game.”

John Ede is survived by a son and daughter and two grand-children.

Before my time, however I do recall the name and stories of his on-field determination and off-field character.

Yeah he looked hard and mean and he was, as a footballer; the classic Port player of that era that we loved to hate. A pretty neat left foot kick too as I recall. It does seem way too soon to go.

nickname wrote:Yeah he looked hard and mean and he was, as a footballer; the classic Port player of that era that we loved to hate.

He played in the 1971 and 1976 losing Grand Finals, I'm not sure about hating an era when Port didn't win a flag

Seriously though, as people have said, a real typical tough nut Port Adelaide half back flanker who gave the club great service.

Adelaide Hawk wrote:

nickname wrote:Yeah he looked hard and mean and he was, as a footballer; the classic Port player of that era that we loved to hate.

He played in the 1971 and 1976 losing Grand Finals, I'm not sure about hating an era when Port didn't win a flag

Yeah, true enough.
He seemed to fit that stereotype though that I was fed, as a kid - that Port players were dirty thugs. He just looked like a 'baddy'. But I think I admired the fact that he was one of those very effective, unheralded, under-rated types who just quietly went about beating his opponent.

I'm sure if you looked up the definition of a Port back flanker - Ede's name would come up