The following is a list of players who have captained the Port Adelaide Football Club at a game of Australian rules football in the Australian Football League (AFL) since 1997, the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) and earlier iterations of competition between 1870 and 1996, and the AFL Women's (AFLW) since 2022.
Tradition dictates that the captain of the Port Adelaide Football Club wear the number one guernsey – this started when Clifford Keal wore the number as club captain for the first time in 1924.[1] The tradition was cemented, at least in the view of then-secretary Charles Hayter, when in 1929 he received a letter from a junior Kilkenny player requesting a number one Port Adelaide guernsey as he had just become captain of his underage team.[2] Hayter granted the wish of the junior and provided him with a number one Port Adelaide guernsey. Since 1924, there have been few exceptions to the tradition. The most notable exception was Geof Motley, who followed the captaincy of Fos Williams. Following his appointment as captain-coach, Motley elected to continue wearing the number 17, and continued to do so for the remainder of his career. When Motley handed the captaincy to John Cahill in 1967, at the insistence of coach Fos Williams, the tradition of Port Adelaide captains wearing the number one guernsey resumed. When co-captains were appointed for the 2019 season the No. 1 guernsey was temporarily retired, but it was re-instated the following season when the club returned to appointing a single captain.[3]
| Foundation era | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Year | Captain | |
| 1 | 1870 | John Wald | |
| 2 | 1870 | George Dale | |
| 3 | 1871 | Fred Stone | |
| 4 | 1872–1973 | George Middleton | |
| 5 | 1873 | H.Sparnon | |
| 6 | 1874 | John Rann | |
| 7 | 1874 | Charles Wells | |
| 8 | 1875 | Robert Sandilands | |
| 9 | 1876 | William Fletcher | |
| South Australian Football Association era | |||
| Year | Captain | ||
| 1876–1879 | William Fletcher | ||
| 10 | 1880 | John A.Atkins | |
| 11 | 1880 | Joseph Carter | |
| 1881 | William Fletcher | ||
| 12 | 1881 | J.H.Sandilands | |
| 13 | 1882 | Nathaniel Frayne | |
| 14 | 1882 | Charles Kellett | |
| 15 | 1883 | Ernest Le Messurier | |
| 16 | 1883–1885 | Richard Turpenny | |
| 1885 | Charles Kellett | ||
| 17 | 1886–1889 | William Bushby | |
| 18 | 1890–1894 | Ken McKenzie | |
| 19 | 1895 | Alfred Miers | |
| 1896–1898 | Ken McKenzie | ||
| 20 | 1899–1900 | Harold Phillips | |
| 21 | 1901–1904 | Archibald Hosie | |
| 22 | 1904–1905 | Jack Quinn | |
| 23 | 1906 | Jack Fletcher | |
| 24 | 1906 | Lewis Corston | |
| South Australian Football League era | |||
| Year | Captain | ||
| 1907 | Lewis Corston | ||
| 25 | 1908 | ||
| 26 | 1908–1909 | Mick Donaghy | |
| 27 | 1910 | Jack Woollard | |
| 28 | 1911 | George Dempster | |
| 29 | 1912 | ||
| 30 | 1912 | Sampson Hosking | |
| 31 | 1913–1914 | Jack Londrigan | |
| 32 | 1915 | Alexander McFarlane | |
| World War One | |||
| 1919 | Alexander McFarlane | ||
| 33 | 1919 | ||
| 34 | 1920 | ||
| 35 | 1920 | Bert Olds | |
| 36 | 1921 | Harold Oliver | |
| 37 | 1922 | Samuel Howie | |
| 38 | 1923 | Clement Dayman | |
| 39 | 1924–1925 | Clifford Keal | |
| 40 | 1926 | Maurice Allingham | |
| South Australian National Football League era | |||
| Year | Captain | ||
| 41 | 1927 | Peter Bampton | |
| 42 | 1928–1931 | Victor Johnson | |
| 43 | 1932–1933 | Sydney Ween | |
| 1934 | Victor Johnson | ||
| 44 | 1935 | Robert Johnson | |
| 45 | 1936–1937 | Jack Dermody | |
| 46 | 1938 | Ned Hender | |
| 47 | 1939–1940 | Robert Quinn | |
| 48 | 1940–1941 | Allan Reval | |
| Patriotic League begins | |||
| 49 | 1942–1944 | Llewellyn Roberts | |
| Patriotic League ends | |||
| 1945–1947 | Robert Quinn | ||
| 50 | 1948 | Llewellyn Roberts | |
| 51 | 1949 | Reginald Schumann | |
| 52 | 1950–1958 | Fos Williams | |
| 53 | 1959–1966 | Geof Motley | |
| 54 | 1967–1973 | John Cahill | |
| 55 | 1974–1978 | Russell Ebert | |
| 56 | 1979–1982 | Brian Cunningham | |
| 1983–1985 | Russell Ebert | ||
| 57 | 1986–1990 | Russell Johnston | |
| 58 | 1991–1993 | Greg Phillips | |
| 59 | 1994–1996 | Tim Ginever | |
| Australian Football League era | |||
| Year | Captain | ||
| 60 | 1997–2000 | ||
| 61 | 2001–2005 | ||
| 62 | 2006–2008 | ||
| 63 | 2009–2012 | ||
| 64 | 2013–2018 | ||
| 65, 66 | 2019 | Ollie Wines/Tom Jonas | |
| 66 | 2020–2023 | Tom Jonas | |
| 67 | 2024–present | Connor Rozee | |