ASK any Geelong player at today's parade about his club's recent history of failing in grand finals and he will tell you that the past will have no relevance tomorrow. And therein sits the most remarkable difference between Port Adelaide and Geelong.

Port Adelaide's players will enter tomorrow's AFL grand final fully aware that the lifeblood of their club is its tradition of success in grand finals and pride in its history.

Geelong has neither success nor pride in its recent past. Geelong's players can outwardly ignore the fact, but deep down they know they are actually trying to overcome the hurdle that is their club's history. They are trying to wipe away a failed past and get a 44-year-old premiership gorilla off their club's back.

Logic might tell you that the past will not help Port Adelaide's players when the ball is to be won tomorrow. But part of Port's culture of success is due to the fact that its tradition passes down an expectation and an attitude.

Coach Mark Williams may teach it now, but his father Fos was actually the first to document it when he wrote the club's creed while coaching nine premierships from the 1950s to the '70s.

Part of that written, tangible club philosophy demands that players "accept the heritage which players and administrators have passed down to us".

Walk through the halls at Alberton Oval and the walls talk to you. There are names and photographs of successful men spanning 130 years and 34 SANFL premierships, all of them acknowledged as bricks in the road that led the club to where it is now.

In contrast, Geelong has had only one thing to celebrate since 1963 — the brilliance of Gary Ablett. And the sad reality is that the greatest player to wear the hoops never played in a premiership, nor have the bricks he and other Cats have laid paved a way to a flag.

Geelong's past team failures also led to the poor treatment of many past greats. Captains such as Michael Turner, Andrew Bews, Mark Bairstow, Barry Stoneham, Leigh Colbert and Ben Graham were either dumped or departed disappointed.

Geelong chief executive Brian Cook and president Frank Costa have tried to heal those wounds, because unity and belonging is now a critical part of strong clubs. Port has always understood that.

Pick a Port Adelaide-schooled footballer from any era and they are revered for making the club and its fans the kings of the day.

When young forward Justin Westhoff was presented with his jumper by a former player in the change rooms before his first AFL game this year, he was not wished luck, he was told "welcome to the family".

History has also helped cause a contrast between the two towns and their people. You can be a Geelong person, born and bred in Geelong, and not barrack for the Cats. But you are not a Port Adelaide person if you do not barrack for Port. It's plain and simple. You are either with us or against us.

Nor does the Geelong team define its people, the way Port Adelaide's teams have always represented its working class roots. You have two choices now as a football supporter in South Australia. You either want to be defined by the Crows and what they represent, or Port and what the club born from the wharves and the tough isolated peninsula north of AAMI Stadium represents.

Grand final week cockiness and outward self-confidence is also an old Port Adelaide tradition. While Geelong is cleverly going about its business strictly by the book this September, Port Adelaide just as cleverly put its passion and self-belief on display against the Kangaroos last week.

It is a weapon, and one that is universally enjoyed by Port fans because it leads people, through fear and jealousy and a pompous cultural superiority, to condemn it.

The beauty of Geelong now — as an outsider looking in and as a former player who has lived in Geelong now for more than 20 years — is that the club has changed. It has not only changed from the selfish and unsuccessful 1980s and '90s when I was there, but it also appears to have changed in the past year.

The beauty of Port now is that despite the inevitable progress of professional football, many things that have always made Port Adelaide the greatest club in Australia, have not changed one bit.

Dwayne Russell played for Port Adelaide and Geelong.