THE guard of honour comprising past and present players and officials stretched from the half-forward to half-back flanks as the Port Adelaide Football Club saluted one of its greats.
Almost 2000 people packed the Robert B. Quinn stand at Alberton Oval on Tuesday 13 September to farewell Bob Clayton, a man whose contribution to the Club spanned 50 years.
Read about Bob Clayton’s Port Adelaide Career
Bob - a respected player, administrator, team official and committee member - passed away on Thursday after a brave battle with leukaemia.
He played 151 league games and served in some of the Club’s most senior posts including General Manager and Team Manager during Port Adelaide’s first eight years in the AFL, culminating with the Power’s 2004 Premiership.
As a player, he never won a Grand Final despite five League and two Reserves attempts. But he shared his final stage on the grass of Alberton Oval with an AFL and six SANFL Premiership trophies, all of which he played a major role in through his off-field duties.
Among the mourners were Bob’s wife June, sons Ashley and Mark and their families, team-mates, generations of players whom he recruited and mentored, staff and management past and present, and supporters.
Good friend John Higginson spoke of Bob’s upbringing, his love of training trotting and pacing horses, his family and the Port Adelaide Football Club.
He described him as a “wonderful father who shared his sons’ joys and troubles” and the “Mr Fixit” for both the Magpies and the Power.
“Bob was a man of the people,” John said.
“No mature what your stature he showed you respect and gave you time.”
“He may have lost the race for life, but in the race of life he was a winner.”
He said his good friend used the “discipline of his sporting life” to face up to his illness, confronting leukaemia as he would his greatest opponent - “with gritted teeth and diving headlong into blood tests, transfusions and all his other medical treatments”.
He said Bob remained positive until the end, even sending text messages in his final days to players whom he knew needed his reassurance and guidance.
John also read from a letter Bob had written during his health troubles, but which had not been uncovered until after his death.
Of his battle, Bob was philosophical writing “every good journey must come to an end.”
In the letter, he thanked his wife, children and grandchildren along with the many “wonderful people” he met through football. Of the players he had been involved with at SANFL and AFL leve he said “they kept me young” and of the Club’s volunteers: “Without your help we couldn’t survive”.
Bob penned the names of only three individuals he’d met through football: Port Adelaide player-coaches John ‘Jack’ Cahill and Mark Williams and team official David Keyes.
John Cahill told the funeral service of his former team-mate and team-manager’s dry sense of humour, love of his family and his loyalty to his friends and the Port Adelaide Football Club.
“Not once did he self-promote and never did he seek recognition,” ‘Jack” said.
“Bob was quiet and humble. For him it was what he could do for the Club not what the Club could do for him.”
Facing his friend’s death, Jack said he took strength from the Clayton family.
“I look at him and I love him,” ‘Jack’ said in concluding his speech beside a photograph of Bob in his playing days.
Bob’s son Mark - who himself played more than 200 games for the Magpies - thanked the many people who had helped his father during his long battle, acknowledging them on behalf his mother June and the family.
Mark said his father had been a positive influence on the lives of those he met, especially his sons.
“It’s hard not to be positive when you lived with a man who saw the positive in every situation,” Mark said.
He said he always put other people first.
“Dad always ‘knew someone’. If you needed carpet, he ‘knew someone’. If you needed paint, he ‘knew someone’. And those people were always only too happy to help, probably because Dad had done them a favour.”
In closing, Mark recalled a telephone conversation his Dad had with a past player in the days before his death.
“Just because we don’t talk so much any more, doesn’t mean I don’t think of you,” Bob told the player.
Mark said that was the way the family and friends would now always feel about Bob.
Port Adelaide Football Club chaplain Brandon Chaplin - who led the service - said Bob’s was “a life well lived”, He credited him with being key to Port Adelaide’s “community culture”, making people welcome at the Club in whatever role they played and from wherever they came.
“Bob had been a big part of that as a person, player, administrator and a leader of significance,” Brandon said.
“It is that characteristic - the culture of community - that has always set this Club apart and continues to set this Club apart.
“Bob, in so many ways, led that … whether it was welcoming the chief executive or the boot-studders, the senior coach or the trainers, a 200-game champion or the team chaplain.”
Bob was taken in a hearse on a final lap around Alberton Oval past his guard of honour, to applause from those who’d gathered to celebrate his life and with the siren sounding as he left Port Adelaide’s home for the final time.
Bob’s wish was for people to support the Leukaemia Foundation of SA and the Red Cross Blood Service.
