WHEN John Beveridge took a job at St Kilda in 1983, he told his wife it wouldn't last long. "I told her it would be three years at the most," recalls the veteran recruiter. "Maybe four."

Twenty-four years have passed since that promise, and Beveridge has only just moved from his full-time job to a part-time role that still eats up his weekends. "It's very hard to leave," he says. "It's not a normal job. You never say, 'I wish I didn't have to work today'."

A football club is a business, and to play the game is a job. Clubs have — or are — "brands" and the draft takes young players to teams and places they have little or no affinity with. The same goes for coaches.

When Xavier Clarke became a Saint six seasons ago, he didn't realise the club had won only one premiership. When chief executive Archie Fraser speaks of selling his club, he knows he's not pushing a normal product. "We're selling hope and emotion," he says. "All the intangible things."

It means the Saints are about much more than the players who wear their colours, and the coaches who tell them what to do. There's a team behind the team, like there is at any club, and it doesn't play for acclaim. Instead, it is driven by a passion that the people they help must come to understand and embrace.

"You come into a family, and they make you one of them," Clarke says. "They teach you what you need to know. You come to love the club like they do."

The roles differ and the hours range. Pam Mawson joined the cheer squad about 20 years ago because her 12-year-old son was desperate to. He is in his 30s now and a chef. He can't get to many games; she is in her second six-year stint as squad president. "I never thought I'd outlast him," she says.

Mawson arrives at games two hours early, to hang signs up in the dressing rooms and hope her boys arrive inspired. She — and between 20 and 30 friends — work late into each Friday night putting together the banners that are broken in just a few seconds.

So strict are the AFL's regulations (no alcohol, no bad language, no enormous signs) that cheer squads are no longer the place for boozy young men, as they were in the Moorabbin days. "We have lots of little kids and lots of oldies," says Mawson. "There's a real family feel."

Larry Benge's dental surgery is another gathering place. Benge, the team dentist, spent several hours on a Monday night last month putting Leigh Montagna's broken jaw back together.

He removes players' wisdom teeth before they can cause trouble, and is in the rooms each weekend in case of emergency (and with a set of spare mouthguards should someone forget). Each week, three or four players will bob up in his surgery. "They're interested in the cosmetics now," Benge says. "They want to bleach their teeth …"

As a kid, Benge was the only member of his family to support the Saints. He can't remember why; perhaps it is because he lived so close to the Junction Oval. Now, like then, he says St Kilda people are united by "the struggle", the success that has seemed to be coming, and coming and coming, without ever arriving.

Peter Maddern became property steward 10 years ago. He did some work for Beveridge before then, scouting potential players. He flew to Perth before the team this week, having checked in somewhere between 60 and 70 pieces of luggage and crossed his fingers none would get lost.

His title these days is logistics manager, which makes Saint veteran Andrew Thompson laugh. "He's gone up in the world," says the midfielder. "But he works as hard as anyone around the place. We wouldn't get anywhere in one piece if it wasn't for him."

Greg Gniel, the team manager, gets to games early, too. He used to watch Carl Ditterich play, and later worked with Trevor Barker, when Barker coached Sandringham. To him, Barker personifies the Saints.

Gniel makes sure everyone is where they need to be at the right time. He makes sure the players are unworried and that the coach is even less stressed. "I'm a clock-watcher," he says. "It's a pressure-cooker situation before games. I try to make it less so."

Working for the club brings simple pleasures. Andrew Keech, who mans the change-room doors, takes great pride in his club uniform. There are boot studders, property stewards, medical staff, administration staff and many more. They all do their bit.

Wendy Flintoff, a member of the Sinners support group and a fan of Steven Baker, Stephen Milne and various other "little ones", goes into hibernation waiting for each new season, even though it will mean spending hours selling raffle tickets and memberships.

"People know to call the Sinners because they'll help out," she says. "I love my football on the weekend. It's my passion."

Mawson was cheer squad president when the Saints won a pre-season grand final, and when they made it to grand final day in 1997. "My reward is helping the club in some way get to that day," she says. "I'm a bit like the players; when we win, it might be time to give it away. But it's a very hard thing to give up."

Gniel feels the same way. "We've been through a long, tough time and we're still going after the same thing with the same sort of hope and passion," he says.

"Every club would be the same: loyal and passionate and hoping that something good might be coming. I'd love to grab the ultimate victory before I hang up my boots."

The team is trying. Clarke is grateful that he was settled in so quickly. "You probably don't realise until you get here that there are so many people that help out," he says. "The young boys coming in now should realise how much time some people do give up."

Co-captain Nick Riewoldt agrees. "St Kilda's got a very rich history and the supporters have been through a hell of a lot," he says. "They've had a barren, dry run of success.

"We're very aware our supporters have stuck by the club through thick and thin and we're certainly looking forward to repaying them. Hopefully sooner, rather than later."

With MARTIN BOULTON