ONE OF Bob Skilton's most famous photographs shows him with two puffy, blacker-than-black eyes after winning a third Brownlow Medal. The sickening photo took up almost the whole front page of one daily newspaper.

According to information he has since read on the internet, the black eyes were courtesy of the elbow of tough Collingwood player Des Tuddenham in the last home-and-away game of the 1968 season. And this has bothered the South Melbourne champion for some time. He wants it cleared up.

"Tuddy had nothing to do with it," Skilton says.

The eight stitches to his right eye and seven to his left, plus depressed cheekbone fractures, were a combination of several unfortunate incidents.

In the Swans' second-last game of the season, Skilton was collected by Footscray big man Ken Greenwood in an incident that left his face in bad shape. It wasn't a good look. But Skilts still played the next week against Collingwood, when a collision with teammate John Rantall added to his facial injuries - and at half-time, he had eight stitches alongside his right eye. Later, he was involved in another collision, this time with Collingwood's Len Thompson, and needed seven stitches in his left eye. With broken noses in successive weeks, it was little wonder his eyes were a dark shade of black.

The story that Tuddenham had elbowed Skilton in the face appears on the internet. The entry also states that the Swans' champion missed the whole of the following season because of injuries inflicted by Tuddenham. Incorrect.

"I missed the 1969 season because I snapped an Achilles tendon in a pre-season practice match against Port Adelaide," he said.

Those lucky enough to have followed the game in the 1950s and '60s must agree that Skilton was the most wonderfully skilled small player over the two decades. The No. 14 in the South Melbourne jumper finished his 237-game career with Brownlow Medals won in 1959, '63 and '68. Courageous, unpredictable, he would have starred in any era.

His sharp football mind could read the play. And well ahead of his time, he possessed sensational evasive tactics, baulking and side-stepping. Standing or on the run, he could drop-kick 50 metres spot-on to a teammate with either foot.

Don Bradman honed his batting skill by hitting a ball against a wall with a stump. Skilton did much the same by kicking a football against a wall ("which didn't go over too well with the neighbours," he says) - first with one foot and then the other. By the time he was eight, he was almost equally proficient with left or right boot. In an era when elite players normally kicked on only one side of their body, Skilton delivered the ball equally well on either side of his body.

And opponents on his mark deserved sympathy for how foolish they could be made to look - which way would he break, left or right?

Swans fans in Sydney love "the Chimp". In 1992, Skilton was persuaded to join the Swans at their big Brownlow Medal night dinner at Randwick racecourse, packed with 750 red-and-white loyalists. The South Melbourne triple Brownlow medallist was not keen on going north because he and his wife Marion loved being at the Brownlow dinner and vote count in Melbourne.

But off he went to Sydney. When he was introduced, the crowd gave him a standing ovation that went on and on. It was one the best nights he can remember.

Besides his Brownlows, "Skilts" won the club's best-and-fairest award a record nine times in 237 games in Swans colours. And the Sydney crowd knew it. These days, the Bob Skilton Medal is awarded to the Swans' best-and-fairest winner each year.

Despite the fame and adulation, Skilton stuck to the lowly No. 14, when players usually aspired to single digits on their backs.

There are a couple of nice stories surrounding the No. 14.

North Melbourne's former long-time executive Ron Joseph was a schoolboy when his idol Skilton won his second Brownlow in 1963. When Joseph heard the medal count on the radio, he charged around to Skilton's home and knocked on the door. Marion answered and wanted to know what this kid was up to. He explained he wanted to borrow the Brownlow medallist's No. 14 jumper to wear to school the next day. She looked him over, thought he had an honest face, and Skilton himself emerged with his jumper. His generosity was as outstanding as his on-field skills.

Joseph wore the beloved No. 14 to Trinity Grammar and was hit with a Saturday morning detention.

The number was originally awarded to Skilton for his first game in May 1956 against Footscray. Like most players in those days, he aimed for a single number the second year and fancied No. 7.

"But I scrubbed that idea after seeing a couple of youngsters wearing my 14," he says. "I didn't want the kids having to buy new jumpers."

If there is a need for a reminder of what a magnificent footballer this 171-centimetre, 76-kilogram dynamo was, beside his three Brownlows and nine club best-and-fairests, he kicked 412 goals, was a Victorian state player 25 times, was state captain in 1963 and '65, is named in the AFL Team of the Century and is the Swans' Team of the Century captain.