Who am I? I was a player, coach and president of the Sydney Swans. I was the club’s first official All-Australian selection. And I fathered the Swans’ first father/son draft selection.

Don’t know? Then you are probably not a student of Swans history.

Among more than 1400 Swans players only 28 have also served as Swans coach.

In alphabetical order, the people who fill the first two criteria are Vic Belcher, Jack Bissett, Jim Caldwell, Roy Cazaly, Ron Clegg, Brighton Diggins, Bill Faul, Fred Fleiter, Tony Franklin, Arthur Hiskins, Bert Howson, Graeme John, Harvey Kelly, Tommy Lahiff, Gordon Lane, Johnny Leonard, Herbie Matthews, Allan Miller, Laurie Nash, Charlie Pannam, Ricky Quade, Charlie Ricketts, Paul Roos, Paddy Scanlan, Brett Scott, Bob Skilton, Bill Thomas and Arte Wood,

After that, regardless of which order you look at the other three criteria, there can be only one answer.

The owner of this extraordinary record is Graeme John.

Quite simply, he did it all. He even sat for 11 years as a member of the AFL Commission from 2000, and was inducted into the Swans Hall of Fame in 2011.

All that while pursuing a highly distinguished business career in which, among other things, he served as Managing Director of Australia Post from 1993-2009 and was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2003 for service to business and the community.

Perhaps the least known aspect of John’s remarkable CV, but most relevant this week, is the fact that he was the Swans’ first official All-Australian selection in 1966.

He blazed a trail that 36 other Swans players have followed over the past half-century and which is front of mind this week ahead of the announcement of the 2017 All-Australian side.

There will not be a first-time Sydney Swans All-Australian because Josh Kennedy and Lance Franklin, the two Swans players named in the 40-man squad on Monday, have already earned this special distinction.

Kennedy has been All-Australian in 2012, 2014 and 2016, while Franklin was All-Australian when playing with Sydney in 2014 and 2016 after winning the same honour while playing at Hawthorn in 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Both are considered huge chances to win selection as John did in 1966, when teams from Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the VFA gathered in Hobart for the National Carnival.

The Victorian team, coached by Alan Killigrew and captained by Ken Fraser, also included Swans player Stuart Magee, who played 84 games in the red and white from 1962-68 and later 132 games at Footscray from 1968-75 after switching clubs mid-season.

Victoria completed the carnival unbeaten, as WA’s Barry Cable won the Tassie Medal as the best player, and Tasmania’s Peter Hudson, who would join Hawthorn the following year to begin a stellar AFL career, was the leading goal-kicker.

Victoria’s Darrel Baldock was named captain of the All-Australian team which also included Victoria’s Ian Bryant, Neville Crowe, John Goold, Graeme John, Hassa Mann, Dennis Marshall, John Nicholls, Ian Stewart, Noel Teasdale, SA’s Brenton Adcock, Robert Day, Rick Schoff, WA’s Barry Cable, Keith Doncon, John McIntosh, Kevin Murray and Brian Sarre, and Tasmania’s Peter Hudson and Graeme Lee.

It was the fifth official All-Australian team named after a national carnival, with the Swans having gone without representation in 1953, 1956, 1958 and 1961.

It is all something of a grey area after a panel of sports writers from the Sporting Life magazine had earlier selected an annual Team of the Year from all affiliated competitions.

This occurred from 1947-55, and for a time, AFL historians considered these teams to be official AFL teams.

The first Sporting Life Team of the Year in 1947 included South Melbourne’s Billy King, a wingman originally from Ascot Vale who played 136 games for the club from 1940-48, including the famous ‘bloodbath’ grand final of 1945.

In ’49 and ’51 selectors included 231-game South Melbourne star Ron Clegg, who won the Brownlow Medal in ’49 and was runner-up in ’51. He also was a three-time club champion and six-year captain who was later named at centre half back in the Swans Team of the Century.

But the Sporting Life Team of the Year was later stripped of official AFL status, leaving Graeme John as the club’s first official All-Australian selection in ’66.

The AFL now acknowledges as All-Australians players recognised in this fashion from the 1953 national carnival through to the Bicentennial Carnival in 1988, plus the official AFL Team of the Year chosen annually from 1982 by the Victorian State selection, and adjusted in 1991 to the All-Australian team following the advent of the national competition and the establishment of an All-Australian selection panel.

Since 2007 the AFL has chosen a 40-man All-Australian squad from which he final 22-man team is chosen to spread the recognition further across the competition.

So, besides being someone who has filled more key roles in Swans history than probably anyone else, who is Graeme John?

He was a superbly talented 188cm centre half forward originally from East Perth, and was Swans player #884 when he debuted in 1964 aged 21 after having caught the eye of then South Melbourne recruiters in four appearances for WA.

He played 77 games and kicked 97 goals for the club from 1964-69, developing into one of the most exciting forwards in the League after taking a little while to adjust to the faster tempo and unremitting physicality of the game in Victoria.

In 1965, he represented Victoria four times with distinction before his standout performance at the ’66 carnival.

Always known for his astute football brain, he was only 30 years of age when appointed Swans coach in 1973.

He had huge shoes to fill, replacing the legendary Norm Smith, who was later named coach of the AFL Team of the Century and inducted as a Legend into the AFL Hall of Fame.

John appointed Peter Bedford as captain to replace John Rantall, after Rantall had transferred to North Melbourne under the 10-Year Rule, but after three years at the helm John was replaced as coach by triple Brownlow Medallist Ian Stewart.

He later served as Swans president from 1979-80, and claimed a historic place in the club’s draft history in 1988 when his son Gareth became the first father/son selection under criteria which, at the time, provided priority access to sons of anyone who had played 50 games for the club (now 100 games).

The greatest Swans representation in the All-Australian team in any one year is five in 2016, when Kennedy, Franklin, Dan Hanneberry, Luke Parker and Dane Rampe were chosen.

Five times the Sydney Swans have had four representatives in 1987, 1988, 1997, 2006 and 2014.

SYDNEY SWANS ALL-AUSTRALIANS
Swans players who have won official All-Australian selection, as recognised by the AFL, have been:

Ackerley, David – 1982, 1984*
Barry, Leo – 2004, 2005
Bayes, Mark – 1989
Bolton, Craig – 2006, 2009
Browning, Mark – 1983
Carroll, Dennis – 1986
Cresswell, Daryn – 1997
Evans, Bernie – 1984
Franklin, Lance – 2014, 2016
Goodes, Adam – 2003, 2006, 2009, 2011
Hall, Barry – 2004, 2005, 2006
Hanneberry, Dan – 2013, 2015, 2016
Healy, Gerard – 1986*, 1987*, 1988*
Holden, Craig – 1987*
Jack, Kieren – 2013
John, Graeme – 1966*
Kelly, Paul – 1995, 1996, 1997
Kennedy, Josh – 2012, 2014, 2016
Kirk, Brett – 2004
Lockett, Tony – 1995, 1996, 1998
Malceski, Nick – 2014
McVeigh, Jarrad – 2013
Mitchell, Barry – 1988, 1991
Murphy, David – 1988*
O’Keefe, Ryan – 2006
O’Loughlin, Michael – 1997, 2000
Parker, Luke – 2016
Rampe, Dean – 2016
Richards, Ted – 2012
Roberts, John – 1980*
Roos, Paul – 1996, 1997
Schwass, Wayne – 1999
Smith, Greg – 1982
Smith, Nick – 2014
Toohey, Bernard – 1987*
Williams, Greg – 1986*, 1987*, 1988, 1989
Williams, Paul - 2003

Note:  Players are recognised as All-Australians if chosen in the Official National All-Australian Teams (1980-88), AFL Teams of the Year (1992-90) and AFL All-Australian Teams (1991-onwards). This means in some years some players were recognised twice even though they are listed only once for each year here. For example, Gerard Healy here is a three-time Sydney Swans All-Australian in 1986, ’87 and ‘88 but officially he is regarded as a six-time choice in these three years, having also been named in the All-Australian Carnival/National All-Australian Team, as (*) denotes.

SYDNEY SWANS ALL-AUSTRALIAN NOMINEES
Since 2007 the AFL has named a 40-man squad before announcing the official All-Australian team. Swans players included in the squad before missing final selection have been:

Bolton, Craig – 2007
Goodes, Adam – 2010
Jack, Kieren – 2012
Jetta, Lewis – 2012
Kennedy, Josh – 2013, 2015
Kirk, Brett – 2007, 2008
Malceski, Nick – 2007, 2010, 2013
Mumford, Shane - 2010
O’Keefe, Ryan – 2008
Parker, Luke 2014