Long-time Swans member Tom Travers fell in love with the red and white as a six-year-old battling “excruciating” tonsils pain as South Melbourne charged to the 1933 premiership.

And 85 years later, as Sydney prepares to host the Gold Coast Suns in Member Recognition Round at the SCG on Saturday, the 91-year-old is as true-blue a Swans fan as ever.

Travers became a Swans member in 1942 and has since lived through a 72-year premiership drought, the dark 1970s and 1980s in which the Club almost capsized, and a relocation to Sydney which made for uncertain times ahead.

But the Mount Waverly resident “will live and die a Swans supporter” and says although it was just the red and white colours that first had him hooked in 1933, the palette is now just the start.

“Putting to one side the success we’ve had over the last 10-12 years, I just get the impression that it’s a good club,” Travers said.

“Most of the fellows drafted to the Club or who come to the Swans from elsewhere are quite happy there and I get the feeling it’s a well-run club.

“I’m not the only one who thinks the Swans handle the young players very well. Commentators down here in Melbourne have often commented how well Sydney handles these young kids.

“Benny Ronke is my favourite of the younger lot. I thought it was a remarkable effort by Ronke to kick seven goals against Hawthorn. He seems very mature for a kid of his age.

“I’ve got to hand it to our recruiting staff. I had never heard of him and here he is. He was drafted to us and I was thinking, ‘Who the hell is he?’ Then the next year he kicks seven goals. It’s quite remarkable on the part of the people who first got on to him.”

Sydney’s 1933 premiership victory over Richmond capped an agonising week for Travers, with the skin-and-bone youngster having his tonsils tugged out on the kitchen bench earlier in the week.

Travers wasn’t alive when South Melbourne had last won the flag in 1918 and his love affair with the Swans would rumble to life on the day of the 1933 grand final.

As the boy from Brunswick shrugged off his tonsils pain to catch some sun in the backyard, a chance encounter with Mr Willsmore next door sparked a flame that continues to flicker today.

“I hadn’t been too good for a couple of days but then come the Saturday I wasn’t feeling too bad,” Travers said.

“So mum said, ‘Go out and get a bit of sun, Tom,' and I went out into the backyard and there’s this terrible noise coming from next door. I climb up on the fence and here’s Mr Willsmore sitting back in one of those big cane chairs, and the noise is coming from this big wooden box, which I understand in those days was called the wireless.

“I said, ‘What’s all the noise, Mr Willsmore?’ and he said, ‘It’s the grand final in the footy, Tom’. It didn’t mean much to me because I didn’t know what footy was, but he said, ‘Richmond’s playing South Melbourne. Richmond’s yellow and black, South Melbourne’s red and white. Which will you have?’

“As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t a fair question. I said, ‘I’ll have the red and white,' and ‘Good on you,' he said. We were premiers that day and we then weren’t premiers for another 72 years, but I still barrack for them. That’s my story and I’ve never wavered from it.”

Travers said supporting South Melbourne made for a difficult time.

“In those early days, when I was six, seven, eight, nine, 10 and so on, I didn’t know what football was, but I know that when the kids would ask who you barracked for and I’d say South Melbourne it wouldn’t go down too well,” Travers said.

“You either barracked for Carlton or Essendon in those days if you lived in Brunswick – they were the local teams – and you got a thumping in the arm if you said anything other than Carlton or Essendon.”

But the scarce highs and rock-bottom lows Travers had lived and breathed swept behind him on grand final day in 2005, with Sydney breaking the longest premiership drought in VFL/AFL history in an epic clash with West Coast.

The Swans and Eagles met in back-to-back deciders across 2005 and 2006, with the Swans claiming the first in a four-point thriller.

Sydney’s 2005 grand final banner read: ‘You’ve kept the faith, so this one’s for you. Onward to victory!’

Few have been as true as Travers in keeping the faith and he and his son were in full voice as they cheered on the Swans at the MCG.

“It was such a magnificent win,” Travers said.

“I was lost for words. I stood there for quite some time after the game and wallowed in the knowledge that we had just won the premiership. The dark times were worth it on that day. I was able to say at long last that I barracked for the premiers. It was one of those times where you could look back and say, ‘I’m glad I stuck through the ups and downs’.”

Travers said watching champion Sydney defender Leo Barry fly high to pluck the Sherrin from the heavens and seal the 2005 grand final made for his favourite Swans memory.

“I was absolutely dumbfounded,” Travers said.

“I knew it was nearly time and he took the mark and the siren went and we won it. It was just wonderful. 

“All those years where we’d finished bottom, or second-bottom, or third-bottom were all worth it in the end.”