When Simon Trappel decided to follow a few school-mates along to Pirates he could never have envisaged how big a part the club would come to play in his life, and vice versa, and that he would rewrite their history books.
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On Saturday the 36-year-old became the first person to play 300 games for the club.
Already the first to reach 250 - he did that in August 2019 - it puts him up there in the pantheon of players to achieve the milestone across the whole Central North zone.
The script couldn't have written any better. Pirates won to cement the minor premiership, and Trappel scored in the corner in front of where a host of his former team-mates were gathered. The man they call "golden boots" then took the tee and nailed the conversion to a big cheer.
"I said to [brother and captain] James can I just have one goal kick," he said.
An "amazing day", Trappel admitted to being a bit "overwhelmed" by it all.
Not someone who really likes the limelight, he had tried to "steer it away" from him. He didn't want much fanfare.
But the club and his team-mates weren't going to let such an incredible achievement just slip by.
Somehow they managed to keep what they had planned a secret from him.
He only found out about the special tent that had been organised when he arrived at the ground and first grade co-coach Evan Kellow asked him to sit on the bench.
"I said yeah I'm happy to sit on the bench, and then people were going no no you can't," Trappel said.
"I said why's that? and they said come down here (the Anne St corner of the ground) and there's the tent and people everywhere and drinks on."
He said it was "really special" to have so many former team-mates, family and friends there to share the occasion with him, with some even travelling back for it.
Another very special part was having James out there beside him - they played 10 and 12 - and having his dad John present his jersey to him before the game.
"It was a pretty special moment, actually that," he said.
"Everyone shed a bit of a tear."
The only club he has played for, or had a desire to, since he was 16, Trappel's Pirates odyssey began when he was dropped from the representative soccer side he was playing for.
"I was going to Farrer and a lot of my mates said we're all going to go and play for Pirates so I tagged along," he reflected.
"And I've just loved every minute of it."
One of only two players still running around for Pirates from the 17s side that he started out with - the other is Andrew Collins - Trappel admitted he has clung to the 300 as motivation a bit in recent times.
"To be honest it's been a battle just with work commitments and stuff like that," he said.
"I haven't been able to get to the gym and I'm not as fit as what I'd like to be and just niggling injuries and stuff that I can't shake."
"But it has been a motivator. To be the first one to do it, it's pretty special."
Joking that he does feel every one of the 300 games, he has no plans to push on for 400. He's done after this season.
"It's time now," he said.
"I can't get over the little niggly injuries and my girls - Millie is 11 and Elsie four - are playing sport and things.
"I think it's probably time to put more time into the girls."
He will leave an indelible imprint on the club, and not just in the record books.
Mat Kelly, who played with Trappel through the juniors and early years of grade, and later coached him, described him as the ultimate clubman, on and off the field, and said you can't "truly measure" his value to the club.
