THE RIVALRY between Adelaide and Port Adelaide began long before the Power entered the AFL in 1997.

South Australia was an obvious spot for a club in an expanded competition after South Melbourne moved to Sydney in the early 1980s and West Coast and the Brisbane Bears joined the league in 1987.

Failed discussions throughout the 1980s kept a South Australian club out of the VFL and in May 1990 the SANFL's clubs voted to refrain from joining it until 1993.

However, the state's most dominant club Port Adelaide started negotiations to join the national competition and in early 1990 it agreed to join what would become the AFL the following year.

The SANFL's remaining clubs were angry with Port and took legal action to stop the move. They filed another application to enter a representative team in the AFL, to be known as Adelaide Football Club.

The AFL’s decision to accept Adelaide set up a ferocious rivalry with Port, which believed it should have been the first team from South Australia in the AFL.

That rivalry boiled over once Port was eventually granted an AFL licence in 1997 and the two clubs met for the first time on April 20 that year. The rivalry continues on Sunday and is the subject of a feature story in this round’s AFL Record.

As dual Adelaide premiership captain Mark Bickley tells the Record, Showdown contests have offered fans a taste of everything that makes the game great.

"It's always been a sellout and the crowd always enjoys it so much because of the bragging rights on offer that generally makes the atmosphere fantastic," Bickley says.

"There's been some great games, some close ones, some comebacks, a bit of physicality.

"I don't think the rivalry really needed to be worked on much because of the way the Crows were formed and the first couple of years of Adelaide being in the competition.”

Read the full story in the round five edition of the AFL Record, available at all grounds.