Dustin Fletcher will take sole possession of Essendon’s games played record this week. He has been one of the most durable player in AFL/VFL history.

To place his longevity in in context here’s what the AFL was like when Dustin debuted for the Bombers.

• The GWS Giants and the Gold Coast had never won a game

• Each team had 80 players and games lasted four days

• Nobody cared if you slid into a tackle, ducked your head or clotheslined a player into next week

• Jumpers where made out of the finest Merino wool in all the land

• Dustin’s debut was one of the first to be broadcast on the ‘wireless’

• Concussion hadn’t been invented yet

• A ten minute smoke break was called every half hour

• A cap on the interchange was not required because there were only about four all game

• Calling for a zone defence would have been met with blank stares

• A ‘structure’ was where the fans sat to keep the rain off them

• Players sometimes disappeared in the mud in the centre square, never to be found again

• Some players had signed £9 contracts over 10 years

• The idea of a ‘Leadership Group’ would have been mocked by every coach and player

• Injuries were unheard of

• Supplements were widespread. Tobacco, rum, whiskey and brass knuckles all supplemented a lack of talent

• Players were occasionally given time off football to work in the mines

• The glamour side was the University Students

• The Essendon’s major sponsor was ‘Little Workers,’ a child labour recruitment and labour hire firm

• Equalisation was something the Russians did and could get you locked up