The Showdown must go on!

By the end of the 2021 AFL season, two major milestones will have occurred in South Australia. The first, will be the completion of “Showdown 50” between the Adelaide Crows & Port Adelaide. The second will be the closure of the iconic West End Brewery in Thebarton. 

As part of a review of the glory days of Lion’s West End Brewery, it's fitting to remember the 90’s, when Port Power was preparing for its entry into the AFL and a beer war was raging across South Australia. Not surprisingly, both events produced their own winners and losers. 

Around this time, CUB was the major AFL sponsor, Coopers was a boutique craft brewer and West End was the dominant beer by volume and presence, across the South Australian beer landscape. The arrival of Port Adelaide into the AFL in 1997, presented a mouth-watering opportunity, for major sponsor – West End, to leverage its long-term sponsorship of South Australian football.

Creating an iconic event that could routinely arouse and affirm the parochialism of the parched public, was my goal when I started managing the west end brand in 1996. And what follows, is a brief history of how the Showdown originated. 

1. The first Western Darby between West Coast and Fremantle took place in 1995. David Metherell and Howard Cearns from the Swan Brewery Marketing team created the Darby campaign, and it was a roaring success. I spent some time with them in late 1995 and came away inspired to create something comparable for the twice annual Crows versus Port matches  

2. During 1996, both the Adelaide Crows and Port Power were receiving significant sponsorship support from West End & were willing participants in the build of a promotional campaign to represent and heighten their rivalry, despite CUB’ s overarching AFL sponsorship agreement. 

3. The opportunity to design the logo and launch campaign for the very first game, was tendered to three agencies – Mike Da Silva, came through with the winning concept and it was so strong, that no consumer testing was required. The use of Roman Numerals to record the ongoing game count of each Showdown, was a standout factor. 

4. A major media launch took place in advance of the first game to present the Showdown concept to the public. The support was overwhelmingly positive but several journalist at the time, including local stalwart Michelangelo Rucci, ironically advised that they would interchange the use of Showdown with the term, Darby.

5. A promotional program was rolled out, in conjunction with Channel 7 and the Advertiser Newspaper. Over 200 tickets to the first sell out Showdown game were given away to the public and thousands of caps, shirts and flags were distributed across hotels around the state. 

6. The first Showdown took place on April 20th, 1997 and Port Adelaide surprisingly won by 11 points. Darren Mead from Port Adelaide was best on ground and was awarded the very first West End Showdown Medal. 

7. Fun Facts: Mark Bickley and Nigel Smart, both played for Adelaide in the very first Showdown and were also members of the West End Sales team at that time. The CEO of the AFL in 1997 was Wayne Jackson, who up until 1996, was the Managing Director of the West End Brewery!

Between 1997 and 2020 the naming rights, beer rights and bragging rights, associated with the Showdown all took a multitude of turns. Later this year, the 50th Showdown will be played. Remarkably, 24 years on, the score is tied, with Port Power and Adelaide each having won 24 games. 

On the beer front, consumer tastes have changed dramatically with the spectacular explosion of craft brews. CUB, Coopers and Lion all remain in the game, but rationalisation of brewery production capacity continues and with it, the planned closure of the West End Brewery in June this year. 

As always, there will be winners & losers, but for those of us there when Showdown 1 came to life, the best end of the day will always be ... the West End of the Day!

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PS: This is the very first commemorative can that rolled off the West End filling line to commemorate the Crows 1997 AFL Premiership: