This week, the AFL football season arrives at Sir Doug Nicholls Round, which was formerly known as Indigenous Round.

All clubs will be proudly wearing their Indigenous jumpers when they take the field this week, honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

A few years ago, at the zenith of the deeply hurtful booing of AFL legend Adam Goodes, the Bulldogs team wore their Indigenous guernsey against the Essendon Bombers as a sign of solidarity.

The treatment of Goodes, from a seemingly spiteful minority, had sparked fierce debate in the community.  It was an issue that was never going to be dealt with passively or neatly with a bow around it.

Three years later, and the noise around the treatment of Adam Goodes and the spirit with which it came from still gurgles away.

In 2015, when the booing was the big news story in the land, Brett Goodes was playing for the Western Bulldogs.

It’s one thing to be aware of the hurt and anger that might affect people during something like this, but it is a whole other thing to witness the emotional toll it takes on a family member when someone so close to them is publicly mistreated in such a way.

Brett Goodes was a good man to have in your locker room.  He played tough footy and he’s a man of integrity.  

At the time, I wrote a newspaper column in The Age newspaper throwing my support behind Adam Goodes and his people, but it was also like an open letter to Brett, on behalf of his teammates.  We had his back too.

Say what you like about Adam Goodes, but he is a master of symbolism.  His courageous stand against racism and pride for his people have often been accompanied by a striking image.

On the weekend that the Bulldogs took on the Bombers, I was approached by Jordan Roughead in the locker room and he suggested to me that I should wear the number 37 for the toss of the coin.

The number 37 of course, was the number of Adam Goodes and the symbolism of the gesture was simple and heartfelt.

Essentially, what we were saying was “You boo him, you boo all of us”.