In the first of our Your Footy Family stories we share the tale of Glenn Tooth who only discovered his true Swans roots during the inaugural Hall of Fame night in 2009.

My 'Footy Family' story is one that I only truly discovered in depth after the inaugural Hall of Fame night in 2009. After attending with my dad, also a Swans supporter, I asked him if he knew the story of how his late father came to barrack for South Melbourne when he arrived in Australia in the 1930s. Dad had never bothered to ask. Thankfully, as his father was no longer alive to tell us, his mother knew the story.

It was in about 1934. My grandfather had recently arrived in Australia, aged seven, having spend the last five years in New Zealand after being born in England (to his dying day, he still followed England in the cricket). His family moved to Elwood when they settled in Australia. One day, while walking down a local street, a boy called to him from across the road and asked "who do you barrack for?" At the time, my grandfather didn't have a team, and had no idea what the question meant. By the end of the conversation, he barracked for the Swans. While it was during a successful period for the club, he would miss the only premiership of his lifetime by one year and wouldn't live to see us achieve the ultimate glory.

I was born in 1976, turning six years of age in our first season playing home games in Sydney. (Unfortunately, this meant that I never had the opportunity to watch a home game in South Melbourne.) At the time I had no idea what was really happening to my adopted club, but I think I must have had some inkling as I spent that season following the Carlton side that my best friend followed. However, the following year my allegiance was sorted out once and for all. My younger brother and I both have birthdays in April, that year, we received football sports bags. Mine was a Swans bag, which I think I was happy to receive, so I mustn't have been too closely aligned with Carlton by then. I'd also moved schools, so wasn't with that best friend any more - I wonder if things would have been different. My brother had different ideas when it came to following a football team. He wanted to follow a team with an Australian animal mascot, so upon discovering that there was no koala team (the Brisbane Bears still four years from playing), he chose North Melbourne as his team.

This followed another aspect of my Footy Family - multiple teams being supported. While Dad followed South like his father, his five sisters have followed different teams over the years. Growing up in an area that was in Collingwood's recruiting zone, most of them supported the Pies (at least at some stage), while two now follow St Kilda due to their husbands, and one follows West Coast somehow. Many cousins are Collingwood or St Kilda fans through those same channels. In my family, there is also my sister who supported Essendon as a child (because her Year 2 teacher said she could go out to play early if she did) but now follows her husband's Hawks.

Being a Melbourne-based Swans supporter was never easy. It would be rare to find another Swans fan at school and, being such a vocal fan myself, I would always be the target of all the ridicule for another loss, whereas other team supporters could share the brunt of similar attacks. The mid-80s Edelsten era success was a brief moment of happiness in an otherwise unsuccessful childhood - we finished last in the seniors and reserves in my final year of school.

We still went to games as often as we could. My brother would be a Swans supporter for the day when he came to our games, just as we'd cheer for North when we went to watch his team. Not ever expecting to win, we still enjoyed cheering for our Swans, never getting too upset at a bad result. At the time I kept the Footy Record from every game I attended and worked out that I went to 28 consecutive losses before finally seeing a victory when the likes of Kelly, Lockett and Roos began to turn things around.

I think that those years of poor results have turned me into a pessimistic supporter, never allowing myself to expect victories and always grateful for any success we may achieve. I know this is silly, as we've spent almost all of the last 20 years playing finals. I guess I know that it can disappear, so it's best to enjoy it while it lasts. I have been fortunate enough to see my team play in five grand finals, and even win two of them - two more than I ever though I'd see when I was younger. Both wins are special for different reasons. 2005 was the drought-breaker, with the last ten minutes being painful to endure once Buchanan kicked that final goal. But we held on - Leo held on! - and I spent a good 5-10 minutes standing on my chair crying as the emotion of all those years (even those for which I wasn't alive) was released. My grandfather didn't get to see it, just as many other Swans fans over those 72 years also missed the ultimate glory, but we'd finally made it. 2012 was something else. Sitting behind the boundary fence with the ball in our forward line, those around us listening on the radio said there were only 50 seconds left. So we knew that Malceski's goal was the winning score. In 2005 we held on; in 2012 we won it. It was pure celebration.

That Hall of Fame night was special for so many reasons. Being the first one, the cream of Sydney and South Melbourne heritage was there that night. Hearing the stories of those players, and the history of the club being narrated throughout the night, it made me so proud to be a supporter of this great club. I know others have won more premierships and achieved more success that us, but I wouldn't change for all the cups in the world. My club has a special and unique history. And the only song with a banjo solo.

I now have two sons of my own and, in family tradition, they support different teams. At birth, there was an unwritten rule between their mother and I - boys would barrack for Mum's team, girls would barrack for Dad's. Two sons provided me with two Collingwood supporters. However, my younger son changed teams at the start of 2011 and is now truly a Swans fan. After the Hall of Fame night, I remember Dad telling me how glad he was that he had a child to share the night with, and that it would be great if I had that same chance with one of mine. While I never went out of my way to make it happen, I am now glad that I do too. It's great to share the game of Australian Football with my sons, but that little bit more special to share my team with one of them.