Central Districts icon and SANFL great Sonny Morey was the first Bulldog to win a kick in league football after the club entered the competition in 1964.
He's now a member of the South Australian Football Hall of Fame with inclusion in 2023's crop of inductees at Monday's Magarey Medal awards night in Adelaide.
Across 13 years, Morey ran out for Centrals 213 times - the first man to crack the double-century at the club, won a club best and fairest, represented his state, ran second in the 1972 Magarey Medal count, and carved out a spot deep in the annals of SA footy.
His induction came alongside fellow champions Darly Hicks, Nick Chigwidden and Charles Kingston.
A proud Arrente man and member of the Stolen Generations, Morey's life has included hardships and trauma alongside exploits on the field.
Born at Yambah Station, outside of Alice Springs, in 1945, Morey said he remembered the day he was taken away from his family at around seven years old.
"It's kidnapping," he told Glenelg legend Graham Cornes on Adelaide's FIVEaa radio in 2021.
It was the last time he saw his mum and waited decades before learning of her lifelong efforts to find him from a French nun.
"I'm playing with my cousin and these coaches pull up and these people get out and they just grabbed me," Morey said.
"You can remember things but this was to me a very traumatic event...I can still remember it today.
"I really don't know how I got through that first, three, four days, weeks, months. I'm still trying to come to terms with how I actually got through something that…I'm surprised I'm still reasonably sane."
He described being kept in a "compound" in the short time after.
Later arriving St Francis' House in Adelaide, Morey spent his teenage years alongside a group of future Indigenous leaders and voices including Australia's first Indigenous Socceroo John Moriarty and Charles Perkins.
Unable to make his way back to Alice Springs, Morey was taken in by a foster family and remained in the South Australian capital.
"To take a young bloke that's totally alien to the culture in any other way, and to raise me and bring me up and teach me the things that I know today…without her I would have been lost," Morey said of his foster mother.
He said language barriers continued to create difficulties through schooling, and even into adulthood.
By 15, he joined Gawler Central Football Club for his first competitive football, winning the under 17's and senior best-and-fairest soon after.
With SANFL expansion in 1964, Morey was quickly a league footballer after taking an invitation to newly-admitted Central Districts.
At the same time he worked for the Postmaster-General's Department (PMG - later separating into Telstra and Australia Post) as a fitter and turner.
Later years brought new ventures, a marriage spanning more than 50 years, children, grandkids and reconnection with his estranged sister.
The Bulldogs early years were difficult and brought sparing wins.
"You're playing at the highest competition but then you start to have some doubts within yourself because you can't win a game of footy. But not because you're not trying," he said.
By 1972 Morey ran second to Malcolm Blight, who would shortly after win a premiership at North Melbourne and star in the VFL, in the SANFL best and fairest - from the back pocket no less.
He said being the first Central Districts player to reach 200 games for the club was a "absolute honour".
"It's a lot different today. You can get 200 games up really quickly. Not playing in finals and if you're injured you might play 10 Out of the 18 (season games). To do it. I was pleased but somebody had to set a benchmark for the footy club," Morey said.
Morey played four state games for South Australia before coaching underage at Centrals, and later local footy with Eudunda - to a premiership, and Salisbury.
His playing tenure in SANFL between 1964-1977 and further accomplishments now imprint the state's footy Hall of Fame.
