Australian Football

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Key Facts

Full name
Timothy Ginever

Known as
Tim Ginever

Born
13 April 1966 (age 57)

Senior clubs
Port Adelaide

Tim Ginever


ClubLeagueCareer spanGamesGoalsAvgWin %AKIAHBAMKBV
Port AdelaideSANFL1983-19973143020.96
Total1983-19973143020.96

If you were to undertake a detailed objective assessment of Tim Ginever’s football ability - marking, kicking, pace, ball skills and so forth - you might conceivably end up wondering how they could possibly be combined to produce a player of league standard. Tim Ginever, however, was much more than just an average league player; he was arguably one of the most important SANFL footballers of the 1980s and 1990s, and provided conclusively persuasive evidence that success in football is at least as much attributable to mental as to physical capabilities.

When Tim Ginever entered the playing arena he became so consumed by white line fever as to metamorphose, almost literally, into a completely different person from the happy-go-lucky larrikin who confronted the TV cameras during post-match interviews. Tough, intense, courageous and dynamic, he was the heartbeat of a Port Adelaide side that won no fewer than seven SANFL premierships between 1988 and 1996. For the flags of 1994-1995-1996 Ginever led from the front as team captain, and the longer his 314-game league career went on, the better he played.

At the start, in fact, it was a struggle even to get into the team: he made just one senior appearance in his debut season of 1983, and managed only half a dozen games the next. Even when he became a regular in 1985 there were no obvious indications that he was going to develop into such an important and influential performer, but as soon as Port began to make regular assaults on the premiership, Ginever came into his own. During the 1990s in particular his trademark desperation, which repeatedly seemed to involve treating his own body almost as an expendable piece of equipment, became virtually indistinguishable from the perpetually evolving Magpie ethos.

Ginever won a best and fairest award in 1994, his first year as club captain, was arguably best afield in the 1995 Grand Final defeat of Central District, was high among the best players in the both the winning 1996 and losing 1997 Grand Finals, and rounded off his playing career in style with the 1997 best and fairest award. Somewhat surprisingly, he only represented South Australia once, but this may in large part be attributable to a tendency on the part of the state selectors to judge a book on its cover rather than its contents. In any case, Ginever’s impact at Alberton was immeasurable, and his status there will no doubt become, if it is not indeed already, correspondingly legendary. He also afforded living proof that, as late as the 1990s at any rate, it was not essential for a footballer to be playing in the AFL in order to enjoy a high profile in the game.

Tim Ginever spent the 2005 season assisting Port Magpies senior coach Jack Cahill, and in 2006 he was installed as senior coach in his own right. In four seasons at the helm, he was unable to take the Magpies and further than an Elimination Final and after Port finished second last in 2009 he handed over the reins. 

Ginever was inducted into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2015. 

Author - John Devaney, with updates by Andrew Gigacz

Sources

Full Points Footy's SA Football Companion

Footnotes

* Behinds calculated from the 1965 season on.
+ Score at the end of extra time.