Family, then football for new Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley

KEN Hinkley came to Port Adelaide as the perfectly groomed coach, but one you never would have picked to end up there.

He called time on his VFL career shortly after it started, with only 11 games under his belt and all ambition sapped.

Hinkley had despised bustling Melbourne and playing for battling Fitzroy.

He'd had enough and retired at the age of 21.

"My wife has been crook and in hospital for weeks and I was missing home," he told The Sun in May 1988, from Camperdown in country Victoria.

"We talked about it and I decided to put my family first. After all, I don't do it (football) because I like it.

"I've been there since I was 17, on and off, but I've had enough. I'm definitely finished. My wife and I have moved into a new house and I've got a job."

Hinkley laughs about the memory now.

He changed his mind and had a decorated career that included three Grand Final appearances with Geelong, a best-and-fairest and third place in the Brownlow Medal.

But Hinkley is devoid of football snobbery - he has had some of his best days in country football.

And he was deadly serious when he told his coach at Fitzroy, David Parkin, that his time in the VFL was over.

"You're talking the full journey now," Hinkley said this week.

"It's quite incredible that, as a young player, the transition from young country lad to VFL player was as far away as I was ever going to be.

"At Fitzroy, I didn't enjoy city life. That was me. That's how I felt at the time, but you learn a lot of things.

"I think I always wanted to play - it just didn't fit with my life at the time.

"But when the opportunity came to go to Geelong, there was never any issue."

Hinkley has settled quickly into Adelaide, where he lives close to the beach and Alberton.

He loved his time on the Gold Coast, where he was an assistant to Guy McKenna, but cherishes being back in a football city.

There is also the bonus of avoiding Melbourne and being in a smaller place.

"Adelaide's a really good place to get around in - we enjoy it," Hinkley said.

"Away from this, I just want to get home.

"I do actually like my own space, which is a little bit hard when you consider what I do."

THE BUSH

HINKLEY spent part of his childhood on a dairy farm at Camperdown and has had a job outside football for most of his time in the game.

He has worked for a pie company, a dairy company and was in fleet car sales in Geelong.

Some of his fondest memories stem from the premierships in the bush.

Hinkley is passionate about the game, loves coaching and loves how it moves people.

Like John Northey, who always had an affinity with country football, it has never worried him to cross the invisible divide between full-time AFL football and blokes just having a kick.

"It was only when I went back to coaching back at Geelong full time that I actually just did football," Hinkley said.

"I did whatever I had to do to make a living. It was mainly sales stuff. The job usually came about from coaching football.

"But I didn't have any problems coaching country football because I enjoy coaching. I love being involved and helping footy clubs achieve things they want to.

"I've seen the effect it has on people. You see how much it means to people.

"It is just a game, but to some people it's a pretty big part of their lives."

GOLD COAST

HINKLEY landed a senior coaching job after a series of near misses.

He was on the bookmakers' shortlist every time there was a job up for grabs and he narrowly missed out when Richmond appointed Damien Hardwick.

The setbacks did not devastate him, but he took stock.

"It is some sort of distraction, but the fall-back position was one I was always really comfortable with," Hinkley said.

"I was enjoying the job I was doing and the environment I was in. So my worst-case scenario, it wasn't that big a let-down for me. It was in mind that I thought that, given the opportunity, I could coach my own club. But whether it was going to happen or not was probably out of my control."

Hinkley became part of the foundation team on the Gold Coast, which started its days playing in the VFL.

Hinkley now regards the move as a masterstroke for his development.

"Gold Coast was a really good experience for me, having had the success we'd had at Geelong," he said.

"I'd just missed a coaching job, and if I was going to get the next step, which was starting to look like a possibility to me, it was to work with young kids and show that you can develop them, with a blank canvas.

"It was something we really wanted to have a go at and, as a family, we regularly holidayed up there so we enjoyed being up there. It was just a chance to take another progression with my career as well as living up there."

PORT DECISION

HINKLEY seemed indecisive when he was offered the Port Adelaide job and the Power feared it had lost another good candidate. But he was open with the club.

It was about his family, and Hinkley has always, unashamedly, put family first.

He and his wife Donna and their three children had relocated from Victoria two years previously and he wanted to make sure they were comfortable with a shift to South Australia.

"If my family wasn't going to be OK with it, I was never not going to do it," Hinkley said.

"I'd been through about two or three job (interviews) trying to get one, so it wasn't like I didn't want to be a coach.

"It was that we were at the stage where I was enjoying what I was doing, enjoying our lifestyle and had to think about unsettling the family. Did I want to do that again?

"So it was more about getting their full support. We are a close family."

Those who know Hinkley best - Malcolm Blight, Crows coach Brenton Sanderson and players at Geelong - do not doubt he is the best man for Port.

"He has one of the smartest footy brains I know. I loved working with him. He will go very well,"

Geelong star Andrew Mackie said: "I think Kenny would enjoy the fact there is a lot to do. He would love to get stuck into it and would be looking forward to the challenge ahead."

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