Mark Bickley had to fight his way just to get onto Adelaide’s inaugural list in 1991, but that’s when the hard work really started.

 Like his teammates, Bickley had a full-time job and combined work with training in the Club’s infancy.
 
“I was a sparky doing afternoon shift and that got too hard, so then I started working at SA Brewing,” Bickley said.
 
“We’d do weights in the morning from 7am to 8.30am, then go to work, then straight to training at 4.30pm for a 5pm start, train until 8pm, sometimes have a meeting then I’d be home at 9pm and do a bit of paperwork from the day.
 
“So you’re leaving at 6.30am in the morning and getting home at 9pm.
 
“It was a massive commitment from the group and for $15,000 a year at that stage.”
 
Inaugural coach Graham Cornes said the players were transitioning from part-time to semi-professional and eventually professional footballers.
 
“I was trying to set professional standards with guys who were tied up at work,” Cornes said.

 “To do that you had to put the time in, I probably could have done it a little bit smarter with hindsight but we had so much to catch up. We were trying to cram it all in with limited time.
 
“They did work hard and there were long hours, the biggest commitment I felt was given by the guys in the first squad that was named in November, 1990, they trained 13 days out of 14 and had two or three mornings a week as well doing weight training with no promise of a contract and no guarantee of a wage.
 
“That was probably the hardest they ever worked.
 
“I always held those guys in the highest esteem for the commitment they gave without getting much in return. Some of the guys weren’t even contracted before their first game, it was a huge rush.
 
“No one understands how strict our entry conditions were and how limited time we had, footy season 1990 ended and two weeks later we had an Adelaide Footy Club and three weeks later we were training, it wasn’t two or three years.”
 
Cornes would wear his footy boots and often joined in some of the training drills with the players.
 
“Coaches did in those days (wear full kit), look at those photos of Jack Oatey coaching Sturt he’s in his gear with his footy boots, it was the done thing.
 
“I used to like it, Chopper Handley cleaned me up playing soccer one day. We both went up for a ball and Chopper headbutted me which everyone thought was quite funny.”