It was the first football club in South Australia. It was the first to play night football. Adelaide Football Club was a trendsetter that won a premiership as the best football club in the State and also beat powerhouse Victorian club Carlton.

Only this Adelaide Football Club was not the Crows. It didn’t last long, coming and going, reforming then disappearing. But 131 years before the Adelaide Football Club spectacularly kicked off its Australian Football League life with that stunning, unforgettable 86-point hammering of Hawthorn at Football Park in 1991, the first Adelaide club took its wobbly infant steps. Footy would give the young men of the 24-year-old colony, many of whom played cricket in the summer months, winter recreation to keep them fit in the off-season. Outstanding cricketer and local entrepreneur John Acraman was the man credited with initiating the club’s founding in 1860. If Acraman could see the Adelaide Football Club of today he would not be able to believe the sporting phenomenon he helped kickstart.

The morning newspaper The Register of April 25, 1860 featured a notice:

Gentlemen interested in the establishment of a football club.

Notice of meeting to be held in the Globe Inn, Rundle Street, on Thursday, 26th April, 1860.

SIGNED: J. Acraman, W. J. (William) Fullarton, R. (Robert) Cussen.

The Register later that week followed up: “A number of gentlemen interested in football have for some time been making active preparations for organising a football club in Adelaide. A meeting with that object in view was held at the Globe Inn last night. The chair was occupied by Mr J. B. Spence. So far, 42 names have been handed in for membership. The first game will be played tomorrow on the north park lands.”

There was no such thing as building a squad, training together or working out strategies at team meetings in those days. They were straight into it, The Register noting “there was a large muster both of members and spectators” for the club’s kick-off. Games to start with were what amounted to intra-club clashes, mostly played between members of the club living north and those living south of the River Torrens, with a third squad, known as Collegians, featuring past and present scholars and teachers.

Acraman, who The Chronicle noted in his obituary in 1907 was “practically the father of football here, for he imported five footballs shortly after his arrival in the State (in 1848)”, and Spence were elected captains for the first clash. The game lasted nearly three hours and Araman's men “were the most active” but these were the days well-and-truly before Champion Data had every possible statistical angle covered. Acraman’s team “obtained one or two goals more than their opponents”, according to The Register.

Players from this first Adelaide Football Club could not have looked less like the 21st century Crows. Some wore their white cricket trousers, while others wore heavy pants known as knickerbockers cut off below the knee or tucked into long woollen socks, along with long-sleeved jerseys. And by May 19 the players were showing their true colours as “the respective sides wore for the first time their blue and pink caps”, The Register revealing this “added much to the gaiety of the scene”. The caps were an integral part of a footballer’s uniform in those early days, making it easier for spectators to identify which team had the ball as players scrimmaged for it in often difficult, always primitive conditions.

The thrills and spills of this rapidly-developing sport were already making it a game for the fans, with dignitaries including the Governor, the Anglican Bishop of Adelaide, members of parliament, doctors, police inspectors, army captains and the sheriff among growing crowds. A brass band added to the entertainment, while there were a “considerable number of ladies who graced the scene with their presence”.

On May 26 there were 40 competitors when the match kicked off but “as the game progressed, that number was increased to nearly 70”. “One and a half hours elapsed before the first goal was made … it was obtained by the Pinks.” The Pinks in this clash were the South Adelaideans, skippered by Acraman. While goals were hard to come by – this game was pronounced a one-all draw as “the shades of the evening came on the players” – the crowd had plenty to cheer about, the hurly-burly resulting in “injured shins, awkward tumbles and other ludicrous mishaps”. The Register’s reporter wrote: “During the game an accident happened to one of the players, Mr George Barclay. It occurred by another, a gentleman on the opposite side running against him, which caused him to fall heavily on the back of his head. He was insensible for a short time, but a little cold water revived him.”

Adelaide’s first recorded match against a rival club was in 1862 against the Modbury Football Club. Adelaide continued its pioneering spirit as it practiced “by moonlight” in 1860, introduced city v country matches in 1864, held the first “Moonlight Football match” between North and South on June 18, 1867 and a decade later was an initiator of intercolonial competition.

Next (part two): Adelaide’s role in football’s growth