They got to the first game of that year, against North Melbourne. By then, Tom was on strong morphine for the pain. Through a club sponsor and a helpful official, Tom and his father got into the Melbourne rooms before the game. Recognising Tom and remembering his name, Dean Bailey came over.

With the assistance of his brother Simon, Tom, a genial. gregarious soul, had drawn up a bucket list of things he wanted to do. One was the Melbourne team photo. Another was to go to the football with his father.

Between coach Bailey and captain James McDonald, his walking stick partially hidden, sat Tom Wood in a Melbourne guernsey with a smile on his face. At that time he was dying and knew it. Bailey told Tom if he went to a Melbourne game, he should come down to the rooms.

In the week after I met David and Kati on the street, I visited their home and was shown a photo of which the family was most proud. Taken two months earlier, it was a classic team shot of the Melbourne Football Club, four rows of muscular young men in their deep red and blue.

The Dees won that day, defeating West Coast. To be frank, I would have written them off as a hopeless cause if they hadn’t. In flashes, they would show something promising and good but too often they wouldn’t tough games out. There was a mysterious inconstancy about the Dees, not just that year, but throughout Dean Bailey’s time.

David Wood was actually embarrassed by the amount of time Bailey gave them. "I told him I understood it was match day," he told me. But the coach said, no, he had time - this was the period when the players went through their individual preparations. Then James McDonald saw Tom, came over and shook his hand. He had a chat, too.

In the crowd, during the game, Tom kept saying to his father, "We're here, Dad, we're here. Isn't it great." For one day, says his father, Tom Wood escaped the fact of his cancer. By the end, the disease was brutal but when the Dees won their first match of the year, against Richmond in round four, Tom raised a fist in a victory salute from his hospital bed. Four days later, at the age of 28, he died.

The match I remember as the Jim Stynes game was round 12 of that year. I got to the ground late, hurried to the rooms and, after speaking to Barry and Arthur, the Melbourne doormen, I watched the players go through their warm-ups. Then I saw Dean Bailey.

That year, I wrote: “I won't pretend to know the Melbourne coach better than I do. By temperament, I judge him to be of the officer class. He is thoughtful and reserved. He has poise. I haven't heard him say anything I thought untruthful. I do not find it hard to believe that, as far as the team is concerned, he has a bigger picture in mind.” But with me he was always reserved, possibly because I was a journalist.

Normally, I would never approach or interrupt an AFL coach before a match. It isn't fair and it isn’t safe. But, on impulse, I approached him. I must admit a look of mild alarm crossed his face when I began what sounded like a lost-dog story, but he heard me out. I think he was pleased to receive the spirit of Tom Wood. "That's the power of the game we play," he said, before turning away and re-entering the pre-match drama. It was one of the moments when I thought we actually connected.