MARK WILLIAMS

Driven To Succeed

Driven to improve. Driven searching for the next challenge and innovation. It’s how Mark Williams describes himself, and how he remembers every part of his involvement with footy.

Self-motivated, he has devoted a lifetime seeking to improve, to learn, to confront the next task and to keep looking to the horizon for possibilities, from his first days as a child learning the game.

Having made his SANFL debut as a precocious 17-year-old in 1976, his journey in the game stretches across the past 47 years of elite-level involvement variously with the SANFL, VFL and AFL through four states and sees him become part of just the third fatherson combination in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

The fortune to be born the son of Fos, a nine-time Port Adelaide premiership coach, meant he, elder sister Jenny and brothers Anthony and Stephen had an early education in the game that most could never imagine.

Fact File

Club: West Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Collingwood, Brisbane

Born: August 21, 1958

Recruited from: West Adelaide

Playing career: 1976-92

Games: Games: 377 (West Adel 65, 1976-78; Port Adel 111, 1979-80, 1990-92; Coll 135, 1981-86; Bris 66, 1987-90); also six QAFL games for Windsor-Zillmere 1988

Goals: 377 (West Adel 37; Port Adel 104; Coll 178; Bris 58) Player honours: Coll best and fairest 1981, 1985; Coll leading goalkicker 1984; Port Adel (SANFL) premierships 1979, 1980, 1990, 1992; Windsor-Zillmere (QAFL) premiership 1988; Coll captain 1983-86; All-Australian 1980; 8 games for SA, 1 game for Vic, 1 game for Qld.

Coaching record: Glenelg 1993-94 (45 games, 22 wins, 22 losses, 1 draw); Port Adelaide (AFL) 1999-2010 (273 games, 150 wins, 121 losses, 2 draws, premiership 2004; also held senior assistant roles Essendon (1995-96), Port Adelaide (1997-98), GWS (2011-12), Richmond (2013-16), Melbourne (2020-); also coached AFL Dream Team 2008, Ajax (VAFA) 2017-18, Werribee (VFL) 2019-20

Other: SA Hall of Fame; AFL, SANFL, Port Adelaide, Collingwood life member.

And as a child Williams’ days at the footy were the full Port Adelaide experience, dressed head-to-toe in the black and white match-day kit.

“My childhood hero was John Cahill. I always had 14 on the back, which was his number,” Williams said.

Fos Williams, as a playing coach, engineered six flags at Alberton before Mark was born, stepping away at the end of 1958, before returning to coach the club for a further three flags from nine grand finals between 1962-73.

From the time he was at primary school, it was apparent Mark was a serious talent and Fos and mum Von encouraged their children to be all they could be and not leave any stone unturned.

“Mum and Dad never smoked or drank, and they said if I wanted to be my best, I shouldn’t do it, so I didn’t smoke or drink as a result –forever!” he said.

By the time Mark was ready for SANFL ranks, the family was living in the West Adelaide zone with Fos in the third year of a five-year contract to try and lift the struggling Wolves up the ladder – a club that had lost five Grand Finals to his Port Adelaide teams.

“Dad wanted us to play juniors at West, because we lived in the area, and he wanted to be able to keep an eye on us to make sure we kept developing,” he said.

“All the kids at school played with Westies, but I couldn’t believe I had to play there at the start –I was a full-on Port man, through and through.”

The headstrong Williams played three years under his legendary coach/father and they had words from time to time because their internal drive was the same.

“Dad had it written into our contracts that we could go to Port Adelaide the moment he finished up at Westies and we looked forward to that day,” he said.

When Fos finished his extraordinary 577-game coaching stint at the end of 1978, all three boys promptly moved to Alberton, with Mark slotting straight into the centre, while Anthony and Stephen had to work harder for their senior careers.

His childhood hero Cahill was now his coach – another Hall of Famer – and his later career saw him coached by or work with other Hall of Famers in Tom Hafey, Leigh Matthews and Kevin Sheedy.

Port was not the best team of the 1979 season, but it was clearly the best team of that year’s finals and won the flag.

It was truly dominant in 1980, taking all before it with just two losses for the year before Williams claimed All-Australian selection at the post-season carnival.

The VFL beckoned and he went across the border at just 22, something unheard of at the time.

Williams was an instant star in Victoria, a dual best and fairest as he captained Collingwood.

His Victoria Park experience is remembered with great affection, but was the full gamut from on-field highlights to constant off-field turmoil.

“We’d play huge games in front of huge crowds, played in big finals and it was an amazing football experience,” he said.

“I made great friends for life, but it was total mayhem off the field with four CEOs, five coaches and three presidents just in the time I was there.”

As captain of the club, Williams was in the group which took a 20 per cent pay cut to help its finances, unimaginable now at such a powerful outfit.

At this time, he was frustrated with how his contract was being negotiated – a catalyst to look for a new challenge.

He was the first signing for new club the Brisbane Bears and led from the front as they tried to establish themselves.

History repeated twice more later in his career when he was there at the start for Port Adelaide’s entry into the AFL (as assistant to Cahill) and at the start for the GWS Giants’ entry into the AFL (as assistant to Sheedy).

The tragic early death of twin brother Anthony in 1988 remains a deep pain for each of the Williams siblings and, by 1990, with his VFL career starting to wind down, he started to consider a return to Alberton to close out his playing days alongside youngest brother Stephen.

Mark was the first SANFL player to play 200 games in the VFL and, on return to Adelaide, elected to change his number from 21 to nine, so that when he notched his century of games with Port Adelaide, his name would sit beneath Anthony’s on the nine locker.

“His death broke my heart, my families’ hearts, and we all miss him every day,” Williams said.

Williams was done by the end of 1992, a premiership he shared with a young Nathan Buckley, while a teenage Gavin Wanganeen was part of the 1990 team.

Within a week of his last game in black and white, Williams was SANFL coach of arch rival Glenelg in his first senior role – and the two years was a huge learning experience, largely with a fan base that didn’t want to accept him.

He wrote to every AFL club at the end of 1994, knowing he would not be retained at Glenelg, and asking for the chance to prove himself as an assistant.

Only Essendon and Sheedy wrote back, and he got the gig coaching youngsters Matthew Lloyd, Scott Lucas, Justin Blumfield and Blake Caracella through 1995 and 1996.

Port came knocking in 1996 when it won its AFL licence and Williams was at a second start-up club, serving two years under Cahill before taking the senior job outright in 1999.

The Power were a serious on-field power from 2001, but didn’t claim the flag until 2004 after several near misses.

Williams acknowledges the talk around what could have been with some dispiriting finals losses, but argues passionately for better recognition of that start-up group.

After the premiership, famously greeted with Williams holding his tie above his head, most of the senior staff left within the next 18 months, feeling the mountain had been climbed.

Williams was ready for the climb again – always the drive –but it ended for him at Port a few years later.

The challenge sent him next to be part of his third start-up at the GWS Giants, and has led him to significant development roles across the past decade at Richmond and Melbourne, where premiership success has come to both outfits after long eras without success.

The Williams family has been involved in 22 premierships at Port Adelaide since the 1950s.

The Mark Williams story started with his family and it remains about family, led by wife Pauline and their five children.

Mark and Fos Williams now sit alongside Haydn Bunton snr (Legend) and Hayden Bunton jnr (coach) and Jack McMurray snr and Jack McMurray jnr (both umpires) as the only three families with two members in the Hall of Fame –truly an outstanding achievement.

PATRICK KEANE