But now studying the match-day tactics was almost a full-time subject. Homework was no longer my English revision, but being able to recite the team’s game plan and rules, verbatim. If my dad - who played a lot of amateur footy in the 1970s - was to sit in on one of these team meetings, he would have been totally gobsmacked by the instructions flying around and barely have understood a word. He thought a ''hedge'' was the thing that bordered his garden. That initiation was many, many years ago now - at a lowly club unrecognisable from its 2014 counterpart in regards to professionalism, culture and drive.

In fact, this is probably a good time to introduce myself. Just to establish my credentials as your regular Secret Footballer columnist, I’m a senior player who has been ''in the system'' for more than a decade and I’ve played in many finals. I’ve played in crap teams and some really good ones. I’ve played in front of crowds of 90,000 and 12,000. I’ve been on the end of some serious whacks, but dished out some punishment as well. I’ve trodden more Brownlow Medal red carpets and been on more end-of-season trips than I care to remember. So I’ve pretty much seen it all.

The purpose in writing this column is hopefully to give you a better understanding of how things operate inside our little players’ bubble.

While there is an obvious entertainment element in taking you inside an AFL club environment - and some future columns might be a little more sensitive and a little more salacious - my motives are really to educate and to dispel some of the myths about professional footballers. Anonymity is vital, so I can’t tell you who I am, but trust me when I say everything in this column is absolutely rolled gold, 24- carat true.

Anyway, back to the modern-day tactics and strategy. While the weekly training grind can sometimes become monotonous, that could never be said of the games themselves, when you get thrown the constant challenge of playing on and against the best players. The preparation for each game is now forensic in its detail. And such is the diverse nature and dynamic skills of many of my opponents, the pressure to perform - and negate their influence - has kept me awake many nights. Opposition players are now dissected to a microscopic degree; if requested, we could find out which side of the bed they sleep on. Or, more interestingly, who they sleep with.