Geelong vice-president Bob Gartland has spent countless hours assembling an extraordinary collection of memorabilia relating to his beloved footy club.
The collection includes membership tickets from the mid-1800s, premiership medals from the 1880s and Records dating back to the earliest days of its publication.
Gartland has also assembled a collection of nearly 30,000 photos of all things to do with the Cats, and it is these images that inspired his latest labour of love.
Over the past decade, Gartland has endeavoured to find a picture of all 1323 players who are known to have represented Geelong between 1877 (when the club entered the Victorian Football Association) and the end of the 2014 season.
With the assistance of many people, including AFL and Cats historian Col Hutchinson, he was eventually able to secure pictures of just under 1300 of those players.
Those pictures were then blended together to create an immense team photo-style image, which has been labelled The Greatest Team Of All
"Football clubs are built on people," Gartland said. "And there are no more important people than the players that run out each week to represent the navy and white hoops of the Geelong Football Club.
"Whether they played one game or whether they played over 300 games, they and they alone know what it is like to run down the race and onto the field in a Geelong jumper.
"It is a bond that only these players share, and all of their stories are who we are as a club."
Gartland looks at The Greatest Team Of All as the ultimate celebration of Geelong's proud history.
"The image is a tribute to all who have played for the Cats," Gartland said. "It is a piece for those that have left a legacy for all of us who support this great club."
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