When the Bloods’ colours were painted on the chimney of the West End brewery this week it was a homecoming of sorts.

The West Adelaide Football Club is inextricably linked to the quaint and distinctly South Australian tradition of adorning the local beer factory’s peak with the winning – and losing – team’s hues after an SANFL Grand Final.

And it’s no coincidence that the brewery and the footy club share the same red and black emblem.

As SANFL vice-president and West Adelaide life member David Shipway tells it, “the brewery used to be in Hindley Street, in the west end of Adelaide (so) that was the connection, because the West Adelaide area was the west end of Adelaide”.

The brewery adopted the colours back in 1911, at the height of the Westies’ “golden era”, as a homage to the local team that similarly hailed from Adelaide’s west end and had just snared that rare double privilege, beating Port Adelaide to become SANFL premiers and downing Essendon to be crowned Champions of Australia.

Former West Adelaide premiership player and Advertiser sports editor Merv Agars’ 1987 centenary history of the club, Bloods Sweat & Tears, recounts the events that led to the South Australian Brewing Company adopting the Bloods’ colours as its own, thereby spawning perhaps the oddest team nickname in Australian football history.

“As a result of West’s great victories, the manager of the SA Brewing Co. Ltd, Mr T. Nation, announced that the company had decided to adopt red and black as the colours for its West End beer labels,” Agars wrote.

“The colours used on the labels remain unchanged today and the company’s decision led to the club becoming known as ‘The Bottletops’.”

A photo of the 1911 West Adelaide premiers from Agars’ book.

While the name stuck for a while, it’s long forgotten now, despite the West End beer’s colour scheme enduring.

Paul Sperling, West Adelaide’s one-time chairman and president, and now league director, says the West End beer was brought in by SA Brewing to supplant “what we used to call ‘Green Death’, the Southwark Bitter”, but that no-one at the club “who’s 40 years or younger” would be aware of the ‘Bottletops’ legend.

“I’m 64, and I’ve been involved in the club since 1969 when I played under 19s, and I didn’t know about the ‘Bottletops’ story until probably ten years ago,” he told InDaily.

Despite the historic links, the red and black has only adorned the West End chimney thrice since the painting ceremony began in 1954. But the club is nonetheless central to the chimney-painting tradition.

In ’54, West finished second on the ladder and took on minor premier Port in what Agars called “one of the most dramatic finals in history”.

“West appeared to be in command of the Grand Final when it led by 25 points at half-time,” he wrote.

But a half-time clash triggered a brawl, which quickly became a melee, with crowd members setting on the West players. The unsettled team returned to the field to be overrun in a second half thriller.

According to Shipway, though, “there was a very senior person at the brewery who was a West Adelaide supporter”, and who had determined to paint the chimney in the Bloods’ colours, assuming they clinched the premiership.

When Port won it instead, captain-coach Fos Williams prevailed upon the brewery to follow through with its plan, but granted a concession that the runners-up could also have their colours adorn the chimney – below his team’s black and white.

“That’s how the tradition of the two Grand Final teams came in,” Shipway explained.

“They were determined to get red and black on the chimney.”

Captain Chris Schmidt and the West Adelaide team at the unveiling of the Bloods’ colours on the West End brewery chimney. Photo: Peter Argent

And now the ‘Bottletops’ strip is back, after 61 years, in pride of place atop the West End brewery, which shifted from Hindley Street in 1980 and is now owned by Lion.

“The connection over the years between the two has always been very strong,” Sperling said.

“We’ve been very loyal to them, as they have to the SANFL.”