Vale Barry Wilson

[Booney]

Perhaps not widely known outside of the PAFC, but he has left an incredible legacy at the PAFC.

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The Port Adelaide Football Club is mourning the loss of one of its “unsung heroes’’, Barry Wilson, who has died, aged 87.

Wilson was a key board of management player in helping Port secure its AFL licence in 1994 while he was the ‘Colonel’ of the club’s famous ‘Dad’s Army’ support group.

“Barry was one of the unsung heroes of the footy club,’’ said former Port chief executive and four-times Magpies SANFL premiership player Brian Cunningham.

“I go back to my career and Barry was around the footy club well before I started playing as a 15-year-old.

“He was there for a long, long time and when we were moving into the AFL, Greg Boulton was the chairman and Barry was the president and then we combined both of those roles but Barry stayed on the board.

“He was one of the key board members in our bid for the AFL, he was there in 1990 through the tough times and when our directors really had to stand up and back the footy club, which he did.

“He stayed on the board and did a great job but one of his greatest legacies was forming and developing, at that time, when I was chief executive, ‘Dad’s Army’.

“He took the lead on that and recruited all the old ‘Dad’s Army’ fellas (about a dozen of them) and they did such a magnificent job, not just what they did around Alberton and the oval but the culture they provided to the club.

“They were sort of like, unconditional, we’ll do whatever you want us to do, if you want us to clean up, we’ll go and clean up, we’ll do this, we’ll do that.

“And that group still exists today and still provides great support for the footy club. They do things that the club really needs to be done and he was the founder of that, which he deserves a lot of credit for.’’

Port’s ‘Dad’s Army’ gained its name from the 1970s British television sitcom about the Home Guard volunteers during World War II.

The group started in 1989, initially to help clean up Alberton Oval after games to save money that the council was charging.

The next step was recycling the cans and bottles left around the oval to raise money for the club’s junior programs.

Now the group’s work includes virtually every maintenance task at Alberton Oval.

A former Magpies player, Wilson was elevated into Port’s Hall of Fame in February alongside other influential administrators responsible for securing the club’s entry into the AFL, where it played its first game in 1997.

Among the group honoured for their significant roles between 1990 and 1996 were Cunningham, club presidents Boulton and Bruce Weber and directors Jim Nitschke, Geoff Monteleone, David Judd, Phil Hoffmann, Frank Hayter, Ian McLachlan, Robert Hoey and Tony Hobby.

The nomination committee felt the group of people named had contributed significantly to the club achieving its goal of entering the AFL competition and each warranted induction to the Hall of Fame in recognition of the vision, hard work, loyalty and absolute devotion to the club.

Wilson is survived by his wife Dawn and children.