Mark Browning remembers vividly the first time he went near the ball in an AFL game. He got a whack behind the ear from Hawthorn veteran Ian Bremner.

It was 46 years ago today, on 26 Saturday 26 April 1975, when the then 18-year-old began a brilliant career that would span 13 seasons and 251 games, and include two years as captain, a Bob Skilton Medal and eight Victorian jumpers.

There was no such thing as an AFL Anzac Day round of matches, and Browning had spent the first three quarters of his Round 4 debut at Lake Oval on the reserves bench before he was finally given a run by coach Graeme John.

“I was just a skinny kid playing half forward. The game was still in the balance and the first time I went near the ball Bremner gave me a good clip as if to say ‘welcome to League footy young fella’. I couldn’t believe how big the Hawthorn guys were, and they were everywhere,” Browning recounts.

He finished with one kick as the Swans, coming off an 0-3 start to the season and later to finish with the wooden-spoon, went down by five goals to the Hawks. The latter begun 3-0 and went on to be minor premiers before losing the grand final to North Melbourne.

Coach John had rotated half his side in the first month of the season after making four changes for Round 4, including Browning with fellow debutants John Dean and Garry Scott and a 27-year-old 120-game recruit from North Melbourne, later to become a senior coach at North and Carlton – Denis Pagan. Barry Rowlings debuted for the Hawks.

“Garry Scott. I remember him,” said Browning. “He was the stuntman for John Jarrett in the movie The Great Macarthy.”

Indeed he was. It was a movie which also starred Barry Humphries and Judy Morris in which the title character (Jarrett) was a country kid signed by South Melbourne. Much of it was filmed at Lake Oval, with Browning and other young players among the “extras.”

And Pagan? “One bloke back then called him ‘loose’ Pagan … because he was a very loose back pocket player,” Browning added with a laugh.

That the now 64-year-old immediately recalled these obscure and trivial facts says it all about the champion half back flanker, who still follows the Swans closely despite having lived for more than 25 years in Queensland and played a key role in the development of a host of young players.

He is a walking, talking encyclopaedia when it comes to the last 50 years of club history, having grown up in regional Victoria as his father Keith, a 53-game player at South Melbourne from 1951-54, built a wonderful career as a captain-coach.

Keith quit the VFL at 21 due to his 'bad hammies', and that he 'wanted to look after his family.' He went on to win a couple of flags as a captain-coach at Trafalgar in the old Gippsland League. 

Browning could talk about his football days forever, and he had plenty to talk about when it came to his second game a week later against Richmond at the MCG in Round 5 1975.

Starting on the ground against Richmond legend Francis Bourke, he had 24 possessions, second only to Peter Bedford for the Swans, took a career-best 10 marks and kicked an equal team-high two goals in a 51-point loss.

“What I don’t tell people is that Bourke got injured in the second quarter,” he said with a laugh.

Browning recounted, too, how he played 13 games in his first season and was dropped twice from a side that won only two games. Which two? The two games he was dropped for, of course.

Browning recounted fondly his time as the second development officer employed by the Swans, replacing teammate David McLeish after he had been among the original 1976 intake of one-per-club employed by the AFL which included Kevin Sheedy, Kevin Sheahan, Trevor Barker and Robbie Flower.

But for all the great Swans things that followed for Browning, he very easily could have played elsewhere. He’d spent time in the North Melbourne zone at Wangaratta growing up, and at 14, the family moved to Melbourne and he found himself in the Fitzroy zone.

He kicked six goals in his one and only practice match for Fitzroy at Warrnambool and because he was so young the club asked him to sit out of football for 12 months.

Browning wasn’t having any of it. He was already committed to following his father to South, and when they offered a $500 sign-on fee and $500 for his first game he gleefully joined the club under the then 50-game father/son rules.

It was a lot of money at the time, especially when years later Browning found the 1975 South Melbourne Annual Report in a box at home which revealed the entire budget for players, coaches and trainers for the firsts, seconds and thirds was $58,000.

But it was never all about money. Quite simply, Browning just loved the club. He was disappointed to play just five finals – all losses – but it didn’t matter. He was and is a loyal Swans man. In the absence of premiership flags, he takes great pride in having represented Victoria eight times and won a Simpson Medal as best afield in a State of Origin match against WA in Perth in 1982.

Ninth on the Swans all-time games list, 33 years after his retirement in 1987, club champion in 1983 and captain in 1984-85, he was an inaugural inductee to the Swans Hall of Fame in 2009.

Best known for his thumping left-foot kick off half back in the #11 jumper, which he wore for the last nine years and 174 games of his career, he ranks third in Swans games in #11 behind Stuart Maxfield (200) and Peter Bedford (178).

But he also holds a little-known place in club history as the games record-holder for jumper #43, which he wore in his first four years and 77 games playing alongside the brilliant Bedford.

It was the jumper number that also launched the 182-game career of Dale Lewis and current co-captain Dane Rampe, before now identifying the locker of defender Lewis Melican, who debuted in #43 in 2017 and still wears this number.