The “kooky” stat behind Choco Williams’ breakthrough Port flag

Mark Williams is a name that is synonymous with the Port Adelaide Football Club.

Williams is the son of Port legend Fos Williams who played 151 games and coached 447 games for the Magpies, finishing as a six-time premiership player and nine-time premiership coach.

Mark himself followed in his dad’s footsteps, playing 115 games for the club among stints at West Adelaide, Collingwood and Brisbane before going on to coach the now Port Adelaide Power from 1999 to 2010, leading the club to their first and only AFL premiership in 2007.

Along with his brothers Anthony and Stephen, who also played for the club, the Williams family ended up being involved in 22 of the club’s 36 premierships - a simply incredible number.

Williams himself can barely believe the legacy his family have left at the famous club.

“The fact is that Port Adelaide have won 36 premierships,” Williams told This is Your Journey – thanks to Tobin Brothers.

“Of those 36, 22 of them, my dad or my brother or I have been involved in.

“It's pretty kind of kooky. To get an AFL one as coach, it was like it was meant to be.”

Port Adelaide’s victory in 2004 under Williams was the culmination of a long period of sustained success with the club finishing 3rd in 2001, 1st in 2002 and 1st in 2003 without ever sealing the deal in September.

After they finished climbing the mountain in ’04 with a memorable win over the four-peat chasing Brisbane Lions, it was a sense of relief for Williams and the playing group.

“I think in the five-year period we won the most games of anyone that ever had in like the AFL,” Williams said.

“To be at the beginning of a club and do that, it's quite remarkable and certainly an interstate club to win the McClelland Trophy (minor premiership) three years in a row, no-one else has done that before or since. So it’s pretty damn special.

“We won a couple of night Grand Finals, we beat Brisbane more than they beat us, so it's like, ‘Wait a minute, we need to get something out of this’.

“The resilience and the belief and the opportunity to just go again and find a way and keep selling the story, I'm so proud of our players, our club, the supporters and even the board by the end to be able to commit and stay with us, stay the journey and get that success.

“As the siren went, it was just complete relief, that, ‘Yep, we've done it’.”

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