Shannon Gill

He gets moved in to the A-team as a special comments man.

So for the best part of a decade, he is a play-by-play caller and then transforms into special comments from triple ground low medalist Bob Skilton for grand finals, other finals when there's one game only played, Sunday live games from Sydney, and sometimes the fortnightly reserves game would get a special comments.

But the thing is, I'm not quite sure they knew how to use him.

So this is the 1979 grand final.

So that was Bob Skilton.

After six minutes of a frenetic grand final, you would think he would be brought in to tell us what was going on, and he gets all of about three seconds airtime.

So...

They weren't quite sure how to use the special comments man at first, but he was a legend of the game, and he was qualified for the role, and he was the only one on TV.

And obviously, through the years, he gets better, and he's given more of a role as special comments.

And it becomes quite iconic that Bob Skilton is the special comments man.

But it's really more of a colour role, bit of opinion, and so forth.

Things change in 1987.

So...

I won't go into the full detail, but the television rights changes and the ABC ends up televising VFL football in Victoria.

They hire some regulars to do special comments, which is not just the finals.

So they get special comments on every game they broadcast, which is fantastic.

Very different to what had happened before.

So John Nichols, Kevin Bartlett, Bernie Quinlan, they're part of the first crop and they get some pretty good reviews.

So Trevor Grant talks about how the special comments men who provide just that.

This is a highlight.