Australian Football

In the words of Magarey Medallist, Sturt football champion and Australian Test cricketer Victor York Richardson, Harold Oliver of Port Adelaide was “the finest all-round exponent of Australian football in my playing and watching experience of it”. Renowned for his spectacular high marking, Oliver was also extremely quick, had exceptional ball handling skills, and showed enormous versatility, being equally at home in attack, defence or on the ball.

For many years Harold Oliver was popularly considered the greatest South Australian footballer never to win a Magarey Medal. He did, however, win Port’s major award on two occasions, and was a regular (13 games), and successful, interstate representative, participating in three carnival teams, including the successful 1911 side.

A first generation Australian, born in South Australia’s Riverland region to Cornish parents, Oliver played in the Western Suburban Association when he first moved to Adelaide, and before long he was being courted by both West Torrens and Port Adelaide. The Magpies it was who ultimately procured his signature, and in 1910 he made his league debut. With his uncanny ability to elevate himself high above even the densest of packs he soon became the most feted footballer in South Australia, eliciting chants from the crowd of ‘OL-I-VER!’ every time he flew for the ball.

His league career was interrupted during World War I when he returned to the family’s fruit block on the river Murray, and he remained there for most of the 1919 season, when full-scale football resumed. In 1920 he managed just eight games, but the following year he was back in the Port Adelaide fold on a full time basis, thanks to the generosity of a group of club supporters who banded together to buy him a motor bike. As Port skipper in 1921, Oliver led the Magpies to a memorable premiership victory over arch rivals Norwood.

Harold Oliver’s last five appearances in a Port Adelaide jumper came during a 1922 season which lifted his final SAFL games tally to 117.

Author - John Devaney