I DON'T remember a lot about school, or rather I don't remember a lot of things I was meant to be paying attention to, but a few bits managed to sneak into my brain and find a permanent home. Like a piece of scholastic prowess that was handed on to me on a school camp.

We were hiking through the Grampians and had found a place to camp where a beautiful little stream meandered past.

As we set about putting our tents up, our tour guide told us, "When in the bush, all we take are photos and all we leave are footprints".

We were a pretty ratty group of year nines, but his message hit its mark. It was just a nice way of putting it, I thought, and it has stayed with me all these years.

And so it was this week, as I took off on a lap around the Whitten Oval, as I do most days. One hundred and fifty years of Australian football and we still run laps for a warm-up — it's enough to warm the cockles of your heart.

I trudged around as rain gently fell on the grass, and while trying to warm up my mind ran away, thinking again about that line … "all we take are photos, and all we leave are footprints".

As more rain fell, I could see behind me my own footprints.

It dawned on me that the path I was running is the same one trod by all the Bulldog players who have gone before me. I got tingles just thinking about all the warriors who had braved the cold and bitter winds as they made their way around the boundary.

I kept shuffling along, and with each step began to think more and more about this notion of footprints, that deep in the soil of the Whitten Oval, not visible to the naked eye, are footprints from eras long passed.

Men like Chris Grant and Matthew Croft from a recent time, and much deeper down into the earth to the imprint of Charlie Sutton.

And of course, the great E. J. Whitten.

With my mind in full nostalgia mode, I began to look out across the oval and recall some of the incidents and people that make a football career rich in characters and character.

As I bumbled down the wing I thought about my early days at the kennel, mucking around with Simon Garlick during our warm-ups; it was a huge thrill for a young kid to be accepted into the team by guys as kind and full of fun as Simon. Rolling around the bend looking out over Geelong Road, I got to remembering being pitted against the wily Todd Curley for numerous battles of completive work, while Terry Wallace kicked the ball high into the air in an attempt to toughen me up. These battles were like torture at the time, but as they say, they make you better in the long run.

Still running though, and by now I had rounded the goals and began the searching run down the Dougie Hawkins wing. The rain had softened the ground to a point where I thought for a split second I could see the size 14 footprint of gentleman John Schultz, but I was moving pretty quick by now and it was hard to tell for sure.

With the traffic from Gordon Street whizzing past on my right shoulder, and the wind howling from behind, it almost felt like the moving cars were offering a little helpful push along.

With the finish line in sight, I made my way past a part of the ground that isn't so warm and fuzzy — the half-forward flank at the Barkly Street end, where I was felled behind play in one of the most reckless acts ever seen on a football ground.

My dear friend Luke Darcy had taken exception to some vocal feedback I gave him during an intra-club hit out and, with my back turned, he ran up to meet me. I think his own words sum it up best: "I shoved Rob with a round-arm motion." Shoved, king-hit, bashed … it doesn't really matter what happened, I'm just happy that I still have my health.

Strangely, I look back on the hard times at this place as fondly as the good times. Running laps at 6am with a fuming Chris Bond behind us a few years back, after a particularly bad loss, still makes me giggle now (though at the time I was scared out of my wits).

With the lap now completed and my bout of nostalgia almost gone, there was room for just one more thought before training began. This week's Hall Of Fame game of the Vics versus the Dream Team is all about paying homage to those who have gone before us — to pay respect to the forefathers of our game who have taken to the field over the past 150 years.

The name that is most synonymous with not only the Bulldogs but Victorian football is, of course, the great E. J. Whitten. His footsteps, more than any other, have left a huge impression on the earth he covered in both the jumpers he wore so passionately.

For those of us lucky enough to run out and play on the MCG on Saturday night, as we scrap and fight for each possession we shouldn't forget that we will be running in the footprints of E. J. and all of the greats. A century and a half of the greatest game on earth, symbolised in one big spectacle — that's more than enough to warm even the coldest of cockles.