One initial and two words published in small print in The Age in April 1956 ushered in one of the all-time great careers of the AFL, and arguably the greatest of the Swans.

It was on a page listing the South Melbourne training squad for the upcoming season.

New players as listed in the newspaper were: G Crough (St Patrick’s Ballarat), R Clegg (North Wagga), E Hicks (Stanhope), B Jeffreys (R.A.N.), D Matthews (Thirds), J Monks (Essendon), T Ryan (Seconds), R Skilton (Fourths), J Taylor (Norwood) and M Younger (St Patricks Ballarat).

Ron Clegg, South best and fairest winner in 1948, 1949 and 1951, and captain in 1953-54, was returning to the club after serving as captain-coach at North Albury in 1955. He would later coach South in 1958-59 and was named at centre half back in the Swans Team of the Century.

Jim Taylor, best and fairest winner in 1953, was back after a stint at Norwood in the SANFL in ‘55. And Ian Monks – not J Monks as was listed – was a 16-game Essendon player who had transferred to South.

The other seven were newcomers to a club which hadn’t played finals since the 1945 grand final, and had finished 10^th in the 12-team competition in 1954-55.

In modern football language, the club was embarking on a rebuild under third-year coach Herbie Matthews and new captain Ian Gillett, who had taken over from Bill Gunn.

And although the group of new players produced only moderate success collectively it did include one outright champion.

Monks played 14 games for South, while Gerald Crough played 56 games, Ellis Hicks five games, Bernie Jeffrey (not Jeffreys) seven games, Don Matthews 31 games, Peter Ryan (not T Ryan) seven games, and Marshall Younger 41 games.

Bob Skilton, a 17-year-old out of the Fourths – or the Under 17s – played 237 games from 1956-71, won nine best and fairest awards, three Brownlow Medals, was captain of the Sydney/South Melbourne Team of the Century, the first rover in the AFL Team of the Century, a legend in the AFL and Sydney/South Melbourne Hall of Fame, and a member of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

It all began 58 years ago on Saturday 12 May 1956, when Skilton made his senior debut.

Having started the season in the Under 19s before quickly being promoted to reserves, he’d watched South lose the first game of the season to Geelong at Lake Oval and was listed among three emergencies for the Round 2 game against Collingwood at Victoria Park.

Then, as is documented in Jim Main’s book In The Blood, after further losses to Fitzroy at Brunswick Street and Hawthorn at Lake Oval, the selectors could no longer ignore Skilton’s credentials.

He was named first rover for the Round 5 match against Footscray at the Western Oval.

Eighteen-year-old Crough, who had played the first three games of the season, was included with 17-year-old Skilton and 20-year-old Bob Pratt, son of the South legendary full forward of the same name. Taylor was unavailable and Matthews and Clarrie Lane were dropped.

Says In The Blood: “Skilton won the first kick of the match and never again played in the reserves. The Bulldogs beat South by 10 points and although Skilton was not named among the Swans’ best players, he quickly made a name for himself as an emerging champion.

“South notched its first win of the season in defeating Essendon by 12 points at the Lake Oval in round six, and, this time Skilton won rave reviews.

“The Age, under the headline SOUTH DESERVED FIRST VICTORY, noted: Skilton’s aggressive fearless roving, backed up by deadly accuracy around goals.

“Skilton kicked five goals in just his second match, and The Sporting Globe named him best player on the ground. The reporter Cyril Nott wrote of one Skilton goal: ‘They (the Swans) found Skilton, who, with the confidence of a veteran, scored another goal.’

“The 21,000 fans at the Lake Oval that afternoon saw enough to suggest that the young Skilton one day would be a champion”.

Never a truer word has been written as Skilton embarked on a career unparalleled in club history.

He won South Melbourne's best and fairest in 1958-59, 1961-65, and 1967-68 – a nine-time haul matched only by Fitzroy’s Kevin Murray in the game’s history.

During his prime the only South players to deny him what would later be named the Bob Skilton Medal were 1960 best and fairest winner Frank Johnson and 1966 winner Max Papley, grandfather of current Swans star Tom Papley.

In 1960, the diminutive and fearless Skilton, officially listed at 171cm and 76kg, played only 10 of 18 games, and in 1966 played only 13.

He shared the Brownlow Medal with Verdon Howell in 1956, and won it outright in 1963 and ’68 to rank alongside Haydn Bunton, Dick Reynolds and Ian Stewart as the only triple winners of the game’s highest individual award.

Six times, too, he finished top 10 in the Brownlow: third in 1958, equal seventh in 1960, equal sixth in 1961, equal eighth in 1964, sixth in 1965 and equal seventh in 1967.

Never reported and once invited to play with Sydney-based rugby league club St George, Skilton polled a career total of 180 votes in the Brownlow to rank ninth in the all-time list, to the end of 2016 behind Gary Dempsey (218.5*), Gary Ablett Jr and Sam Mitchell (220), Robert Harvey (215), Chris Judd (210), Brent Harvey (191), Dane Swan (186) and Simon Black (184).

Significantly, too, among 23 players to poll 150 or more career Brownlow votes, only six have averaged better than 0.70 votes per game – Ablett Jr (0.79), Skilton (0.78), Judd (0.75), Joel Selwood (0.74) Swan (0.72) and Mitchell (0.72).

Skilton was South Melbourne captain for 11 years from 1961-71, including 1965-66, when he was captain-coach, and 1969, when he missed the entire season due to injury and handed the reins to John Rantall.

Despite playing in an era of only 18 home-and-away games, and playing only one final, his 165 games as South captain ranked 13^th all-time in AFL history to the end of 2016, behind Stephen Kernahan (226), Dick Reynolds (224), Nick Riewoldt (220), Ted Whitten Sr (212), Michael Voss (210), Matthew Pavlich (190), John Nicholls (188), Wayne Carey (184), Paul Kelly (182), Danny Frawley (177), David Neitz (175) and Perc Bentley (168).   

Among his many accolades, Skilton was also the Swans’ leading goal-kicker three times in 1959, ’62 and ‘63, while in 1959 he finished second to Ron Evans in the League’s goal-kicking with 60 goals.

A legend in every sense of the word.

Note: In 1976-77 two field umpires each awarded 3-2-1 votes in the Brownlow Medal so there were twice as many votes overall in comparison to other years. So, for comparison purposes, votes in 1976-77 are halved. Gary Dempsey polled 246 actual votes but his total is reduced to 218.5, while Leigh Matthews’ actual total of 202 votes is reduced to 173.5.