His brother didn't look like his brother: he was covered in blood, his head was swollen, bruised and misshapen, and there were lumps all over it, like golf balls. The Mitchells have a picture of Dave with a black eye and a tube running into his mouth, but that was taken two weeks later. ''When we walked in there we weren't thinking about photos, we weren't thinking this is what we can put in the scrapbook for when he makes it through,'' said Luke. ''We had no way of knowing whether he would make it through. It was hard to see how he would.'' It was only later, with Dave lying in an induced coma, somehow still alive, that his family worked out what had happened. He had been out with a group of friends, standing outside a bar in Moonee Ponds when a fight broke out beside him. The CCTV vision shows him shaking hands with a young man, who then king hit him from behind as Dave turned away. As his head bounced up from the pavement, the man kicked him in the head. Then he stomped on it, twice. As the bigger fight finished, Dave's friends noticed him on the road, dragged him off it and called an ambulance. But even they didn't appreciate how seriously he was hurt. ''He was unconscious and it sounds silly, but unconscious to me is what you see on the footy field, and people wake up from that,'' said Matt Hughes, one of the Mitchell boys' good friends and, coincidentally, Carlton's community partnership co-ordinator. ''I was walking home when I got a call saying 'Dave's going to die'. It was just a huge shock.'' It wasn't until a few years later that Dave saw the footage. He had other things to do, before then. After he was brought out of his coma he was moved to a rehabilitation centre, spending the first week lying in a darkened room and a padded bed, barely allowed to move as his badly damaged brain recovered. Even the sheets were black, because he couldn't be stimulated at all. For 39 days he had post-traumatic amnesia: he didn't know his name and he couldn't remember his parents and brothers. He would be shown something - a piece of fruit - but then forget what it was called, inside 30 seconds. He couldn't understand where he was, why he was surrounded by old people, stroke victims and amputees. Dave didn't know how to walk, how to speak, how to take himself to the toilet, how to tie his shoelaces. He would wake up in the middle of the night, confused, and had to learn some other very basic behaviours. ''I remember one day going to see him, and we were all sitting around in this common room,'' said Luke. ''Dave started spitting on the floor, and we were saying to him, 'No mate, you can't do that'. And this other time, we were sitting outside around a table, and he was looking at us saying, 'Who are you? Who are you?' All I could think was 'wow', but we got up, moved back inside, and he remembered again. His brain kept playing these tricks on him.''

Eventually, Dave was able to go home. Gradually, he improved, though there were many things he had to start over: his driver's licence, his carpentry course, his independence. It wasn't until later, sitting in court, that he was able to watch the vision and see what had actually happened to him. Until then people had told him about it, but they were vague, wanting to protect him. But he wanted to be able to tell his own story, and to do that he needed to know exactly what his story was. His attacker, sentenced to six years in jail, was sitting just metres away. But Dave made himself watch. ''It went for 45 seconds, if that. I shook his hand, I tried to break things up and then I turned around. It was one punch, I fell down, he kicked me in the head and then he stomped on me. All for nothing,'' he said. ''They asked me in court if I wanted to watch it and I did, because it was a bit of closure for me as well. But it was sickening to see. It was hard to watch, especially having no memory at all of it. Watching something like that happen to someone, and realising that person is you, is really weird. But I'm happy I watched it. I needed to.'' Before, Dave was a 19-year-old kid, not long out of high school. He had finished his carpentry course and was one month into his first job. He played footy every weekend for St Bernards, the club he and his brothers had grown up at. His memory isn't what it was, and he's not sure it ever will be. When he meets someone new he repeats their name three or four times to make sure he remembers it. He has his own carpentry business now and that causes some occasional anxiety, where he'll worry whether people really want him to be working on their homes. ''It's only in my head that those thoughts come up, but they're the sorts of things you feel a bit conscious of,'' he said. 'They asked me in court if I wanted to watch it and I did, because it was a bit of closure for me as well. But it was sickening to see. Dave is still social and able to strike up a conversation with just about anyone. But he doesn't like to go out too much any more, finding himself wondering what moods people might be in, what someone could do. ''I do look around a bit and think what might happen?'' he said. Still, he would go through every bit of rehabilitation again if he knew he would make it through. ''The worst part in some ways was the things I wasn't there for, the things I didn't know. The thought of my parents getting a phone call like that, and being told I wouldn't make it, was very hard to deal with. I don't really like thinking about that.''

Some things he has needed to give up on. Contact sport is out, meaning he can't play football any more. ''That's been tough. Football was a massive part of my life. I always knew that I was going to finish school, be a carpenter and play footy on the weekends,'' Dave said. ''I can go and watch Luke play, because I was never good like he is. But I hate going to St Bernards, because I should be out there. I should be able to play and that got taken away.'' It was about two years after his brother was hit that Luke looked at him and thought he was just about back to how he used to be. By then he was a Carlton draftee, hoping to play his first senior game. That happened in the final round of last year - he kicked his first goal right in front of where his four brothers were sitting - but it doesn't feel like enough. He has more perspective than most, but he still wants his shoulders to stay where they're supposed to be. ''I look at Dave and what he's gone through, and he's had things taken away from him. I've just had sports injuries and he can't do some of the normal things in life. But I guess what I've seen him do is roll on, try to get better, and it makes you want to do the same,'' said Luke, who for the first time in four years has played around 20 games in a row. ''Last year I thought I was starting to feel good. I thought I was playing more like myself, but looking back I was just telling myself that. I wasn't going for marks, I was playing like I didn't want to get hurt, but I can feel that starting to go. Now I'm trying to actually play.'' His brother loves watching it. ''It's definitely different for me, watching Luke,'' Dave said. ''I hold my family and my mates so closely because of what they did for me, and I'm just happy to still be here with them, really. I know what Luke's been through. He's had both shoulders reconstructed, he's had a tough time but he's worked so hard to get to where he is. I want him to succeed and I want him to keep going.''

Dave Mitchell is a spokesperson for Step Back. Think. Players from Carlton and Hawthorn will wear orange shoelaces on Friday night to raise awareness of the group's ''Lace Up Against Street Violence'' campaign.