For so long the fixture never changed. Every game started at 2:10pm on Saturdays.

The only variation from the very early days was a shift from what originally was a 3pm start when the old VFL began in 1897.

There was the occasional public holiday game but pretty much football fans could plan their lives around Saturday afternoon football from late March or early April through to the end of September each year.

From 1979 the AFL experimented with three Sunday afternoon games at the SCG in an effort to grow the game in the NSW capital. There were two games in ’79 and four in 1980, including South Melbourne against Geelong  on 15 June in Round 12, when Graham Teasdale played his 100^th AFL game.

There were two more in 1981, including South Melbourne’s second visit on 26 July in Round 17, when they beat Collingwood by 18 points. Stephen Wright played his 50^th game for the Swans, and Graeme Allan, later to become a prominent figure in AFL football administration at a string of clubs, played his 100^th game for the Magpies.

There was also a Sunday game played in Brisbane in Round 14, 1981, when Essendon did battle with Hawthorn on a small pear-shaped Gabba surrounded by the famous Gabba Greyhounds racing track.

In 1982, Sunday afternoon was a regular timeslot for the renamed Sydney Swans, who were still based in Melbourne but flew north to play their home games at the SCG.

For a long time from 1983, Sunday afternoons at the SCG were a lock, with an occasional Friday night SCG game thrown in from 1986, after North Melbourne had pioneered what at the time was considered a revolutionary move to what is now a feature timeslot of the football week.

As the competition grew and television coverage expanded, different timeslots were added and Saturday afternoon football at 2:10pm for all teams was a distant memory. But still it was Friday, Saturday, Sunday and an occasional public holiday.

In 2011-12, the AFL experimented with Thursday night and Monday night football on occasions other than public holidays, and in Round 11, 2014 the Swans hosted their first Thursday night game at the SCG.

It was Thursday night 29 May. The Swans thumped Geelong by 110 points. Nick Malceski had a career-high 37 possessions to head six Sydney players with 30+ and earn three Brownlow Medal votes, while Lance Franklin earned two votes for four goals and Kurt Tippett one vote for five goals.

In 2015, with Monday nights dropped from the schedule, the League scheduled four Thursday night games mid-season, including a Round 15 game between Sydney and Port Adelaide at the SCG. The Swans won by 10 points.

In 2016, there were four more, including Sydney’s five-point SCG loss to Hawthorn in Round 12, and five in 2017, including Sydney’s 46-point win over the Western Bulldogs at the SCG.

After the Swans’ 26-point loss to Richmond on Thursday night at Etihad Stadium last week it’s on again tonight at the SCG, when the Swans host Geelong.

It’s the first Thursday night re-match at the SCG.

Do you like Thursday night football? Josh Kennedy does. In five games in this new timeslot his possession count reads 32-33-33-37-36.

Coach John Longmire will look to his skipper to continue his rich vein of Thursday night form as the fourth-placed Swans tackle the eighth-placed Cats tonight hoping to further their top four claims.