WHILE Neil Armstrong was on the moon taking one small step for man, Doveton Football Club's first indigenous player Steve Charles was taking giant steps to advance the cause of his people and give racism the boot.
Charles moved to Doveton with his family from Deniliquin and started playing with the Doves under-17s at 14, just two years after after the club was formed in 1959.
He went on to play in the club's first senior premiership in 1969, the same year Armstrong walked on the moon. Charles became one of the toughest and most skillful players in local football and a club legend.
Last month he was officially recognised with his selection as coach and full forward in Doveton's Indigenous Team of the Half Century.
The world was a much different place for a then-shy 14-year-old boy from country NSW, who with the help of his new club battled racism and ignorance on and off the field.
"I never thought much of it [racism] as a kid. I didn't think I was any different from all the other kids having a game of footy. I don't think people understood what went on and how much those comments hurt.
It [the abuse] got worse at senior level, especially from over the fence. You get a bit sick of the abuse and every now again you lash out and get into a few fights on the ground.
"Discrimination starts from the parents. Kids really don't know any different. It's what they hear and learn at home. I'm proud of who I am and what I've achieved in my life, and I'm proud of how our parents brought us up. I don't want my kids and anybody's else's kids, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, to go through that sort of stuff again.
"It's a lot better today and the AFL has got a lot to do with it with the policies they brought in that have drifted down through the ranks. People have become more aware of Aboriginal culture but I think before there was ignorance."
The defining moment against racism in the AFL was Nicky Winmar's defiant gesture of lifting his St Kilda jumper and pointing to the colour of skin.
Charles said a match in which he was called a "black bastard' was the defining moment in his career and in local football.
"It in the mid '60s during a game, a bloke called me a black bastard and I've just gone whack and hit him. The umpire was standing right next me and I thought I was gone. The bloke yelled at the umpire to report me for striking him, but the ump just said 'Yeah, I saw what he did, but I also heard what you said. Now get up and have your [free] kick.'
"It was a small thing compared with that of Winmar's and it happened years before, but to me that was a defining moment in people becoming more tolerant and understanding of indigenous people and rejecting racism on the footy field and in the wider community."
Charles and the rest of the Indigenous Team of the Half Century will be honoured at a ceremony before the the last home and away game, against Berwick on August 22.
The 62-year-old, who now lives in Corowa, said improving racial harmony on the field was just as important to him as Armstrong walking on the moon.
"Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969. It was the best year for music. Doveton won its first premiership. We were young and fit, and people were becoming more tolerant ... everything was right with the world."
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