It is a scene that’s played out across nearly every suburb in the southern states of Australia at a certain time of the year. 

Where little kids and their big dreams are chasing an odd shaped ball in parks, backyards, front yards, school yards and driveways, pretending to be their footy heroes. 

It was no different in Strathdale, a suburb three kilometers east of the Bendigo city centre, home to the Selwood family, and countless others living the suburban Australian dream. 

While older brothers Adam and Troy were still at school, younger siblings Scott and Joel would finish up early and gather around the light post out the front of their house. 

Whether your weapon of choice was a banana, a torp, a drop punt or a snap, the challenge was the same: hit the post. And the prize? Five red frogs. 

The boys would battle it out until the sun dipped below the horizon and Mum, Maree, would call them in for dinner. 

Joel Selwood’s competitive fire burned brightly from a young age, but it was matched by a skill that was apparent early. Really early. 

As the story goes a five year old Joel would pester Maree and Dad, Bryce, to take him down to Auskick with his brothers until they relented and dropped him off.

Maree picks up the story from here. 

"The next week we went back and he was with the grade twos and after that, the twins said, 'that's it, he's not coming any more... we can't have him ending up with us', she told the Bendigo Advertiser in 2019.

"So he was advancing every week and was certainly capable of holding his own against grade three and four kids, even when he was in prep.”

But the one thing he seemed destined to do as he charged through the junior ranks, play AFL football, was suddenly in doubt when a persistent knee injury threatened to derail it all.

He would go under the knife four times before his 18th birthday, and after the fourth operation, the surgeon delivered some crushing news. 

“We'd tried to do something with it in Bendigo to fix it, but it didn't work out,” Bryce told the Advertiser.

“So we went down to Melbourne and the surgeon indicated that someone undergoing this operation would have the use of his knee, but that there was the likelihood that he'd never play sport at an elite level." 

The usually stoic young Selwood was crushed.

"Joel was a real rough nut as a kid and you really had to hurt him to make him cry. He'd hardly cry, but he came home that day and there were tears," Maree said.

"I remember saying to him, 'Joel, you can do it, let's prove the surgeon wrong', and giving him all the right words to turn those tears into determination and that's exactly what he did.”

In a way, it could explain why he plays the game the way he does today, attacking every contest as if it’s his last, because, at some point, it may have been.

But one thing we do know for sure, it is the reason he is celebrating his 350th game as a Cat this weekend.

To this day, he still does exercises he did as a sixteen year old and he has said the knee is now possibly the strongest part of his body. 

It also ensured the clubs picking ahead of Geelong in the 2006 draft all ducked the prodigiously talented junior for fear the leg wouldn’t hold up. 

Geelong premiership captain Cameron Ling likes to tell a story about the day the young Selwood spent a week training at Kardinia Park as part of the old AIS AFL Academy.

“We generally got any (Geelong) Falcons kids who made the Academy or country kids would end up here," he told the To The Final Bell podcast last week.

“We got a kid from Bendigo named Joel Selwood, who came and trained with us for a week in 2006. 

“It is fair to say that I and most other senior players quickly went and visited (Recruiting Manager) Stephen Wells and asked about the likelihood of us ending up with Joel even after that week. 

“He didn't go out there and have 30 touches in a 15-minute drill, but it just looked like we were watching a bloke who'd been training with us for three years and was on our list.”

Sounding like a Kodak washed scene from an old sports movie, Selwood says he spent draft night in Strathdale at home with his family listening to it on a ‘crackly radio’ when he heard his name called by Wells, and an iconic career was born. 

His accolades, achievements, and awards are too numerous to mention. They read like a kaleidoscope of not just greatness, but of heart, persistence, determination, and bravery and a tribute to what he calls the ‘lonely hours' of work and preparation to be Joel Selwood.

Selwood himself appears to be still processing what the milestone means to him when he spoke to Cats Media this week. 

“I'm actually not sure how to put it,” he said.

“A couple of weeks ago when Scott Pendlebury made the milestone and I saw how big the occasion was for the Collingwood footy club, it made me understand that it's probably going to be bigger than I thought. 

“[And] I appreciate that others will enjoy it too. 

“I’ve always understood how old the footy club is, I've loved that aspect of it. I barracked for the Cats as a kid but never dreamt of going on to play this many games, but the journey has been so fun and I think that's what has made it all go so fast and enjoyable.”

In many ways, the little boy kicking a football at that light post until dark at the top of his driveway is the same kid who will pull on the hoops for the 350th time but under the much, much brighter lights of GMHBA Stadium on Saturday night. 

A relentless, big-hearted competitor who beat the odds and grew up to have an unmeasurable impact on his beloved Geelong Football Club. 

But don’t ask him about retirement, or what’s after footy, because there’s unfinished business burning in the gut of the greatest Cats captain of all this season, and the prize is far greater than a handful of red frogs.