Sydney Swans coach John Longmire doesn’t mind a good laugh and there were plenty to be had at the annual Sydney Swans Citi Corporate Lunch held at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel.

The event was billed “A Lunch with John’’ and it was a chance for more than 350 guests to get to know the new Swans coach a little better.

Longmire’s former coach at North Melbourne, Denis Pagan, and his former team-mate, Liam Pickering, flew up from Melbourne to regale the audience with tales of John’s heady days as an AFL full forward.

Pagan said John was “such a gentleman’’ when he arrived at the club as a 16-year-old from Corowa in country New South Wales. “He didn’t even swear and he was always intelligent and showed very early on that he really understood the game,’’ Pagan said.

“At that stage I was not thinking he would make a coach some day. I thought he was more the type who you’d want your daughter to marry!’’

Longmire was the youngest-ever Coleman medallist when he kicked 98 goals in 1990, including a bag of 14 in one game, while just 19 years of age.

Pickering told how Longmire went into the last game of the season needing to kick just four goals to get the century. “Everyone went out there trying to get the ball to Horse (John) in the goal square to help him get the ton. But he kicked 2.8 and missed it. He choked!’’ Pickering laughed.

Longmire, who doesn’t mind sending himself up, said that his wife Shelley has always told him he peaked at 19 and went downhill from there as a player.

But the high point of Longmire’s playing career was undoubtedly taking part in the 1999 premiership with North Melbourne.

He had been injured in 1996 and missed playing in the club’s premiership side that year, so he was desperate to be part of it in 1999.

“I was limping to the line in 1999,’’ Longmire recalled.

“We won the preliminary final but the next day I was really concerned I wouldn’t get a game in the grand final. But Denis (Pagan) came to me and said ‘What’s it like to play in a grand final son?’

“At training that week I tiptoed through the tulips, desperate to get through and play in the grand final and it all worked out,’’ he said.

Pagan said it was  tribute to Longmire’s character that he was able to play in the 1999 premiership, which also marked his 200th and final career game.

“His persistence and mental toughness meant he was able to get there and make a good fist of it,’’ Pagan said.

A number of Swans players, including co-captain Adam Goodes, Marty Mattner, Dan Hannebery, Ted Richards and Mike Pyke, attended the Sydney Swans Citi Corporate Lunch.

Richards and Pyke are both currently doing an internship with Citi and work in the organisation one day a week. Watch the boys at work here.

Comedian Anh Do also entertained guests at the Citi Corporate Lunch which has become an annual highlight on the Swans Events calendar.