Shinboner number: 853
Guernsey number: 29
Born: May 14, 1978
North Melbourne games: 432 (1996-2016)
Goals: 518
Captain: 2009-11
North Melbourne Hall of Fame inductee: 2026

On the eve of breaking the AFL games record in Round 19, 2016, Brent Harvey was asked how he wanted to be remembered as a player. “As someone who gave his all for our football club, week in week out, regardless of the situation. That’s what a Shinboner is, a true competitor with a never give-up attitude. If I’m remembered as a Shinboner that would sit really well with me,” Harvey said.

It seemed a rather modest ambition for a player who was about to play more games than anyone had in 120 seasons of the VFL/AFL competition. Especially one whose football CV already included a runner-up finish in the 2007 Brownlow Medal, a record five North Melbourne best and fairest awards, four All-Australian selections and the 1999 EJ Whitten Medal (best for Victoria against South Australia).

But Harvey was not someone who dwelled on individual accolades. In his 21 seasons at North, he said his most prized award was his life membership of the club.

When Harvey first arrived at Arden Street in late 1995, few would have envisaged the stellar career that followed. After North took him with pick No.47 in that year’s national draft, long-time junior coach Ray Jordon quipped to North recruiter Neville Stibbard, “I see you picked a jockey.”

Harvey stood just 168cm and weighed 64kg when he reported for his first day of pre-season training at the Tan, the track surrounding Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens. North had played in the previous three final series and boasted battle-hardened stars such as Wayne Carey, Glenn Archer, Wayne Schwass, Mick Martyn and Corey McKernan. “Gee whiz, it was an amazing group back then,” Harvey said in 2016. “You go there and you look at all of those guys and think, ‘Wow, this is real. How far off am I?’ It was very, very daunting.”

Harvey played just one game in his debut season, managing a single handball in the Roos’ Round 22 win over Richmond. The former Northern Knight watched from the sidelines as North claimed its third premiership four weeks later, but was an established player in Denis Pagan’s team by the time the Roos claimed their next premiership in 1999.

Harvey had announced himself as a star in the making earlier that year when he kicked five goals in a best-on-ground performance for Victoria against State of Origin rival South Australia at the MCG.

But it was after North’s golden era fizzled out in the early 2000s that Harvey really came into his own. By then best known throughout the football world simply as ‘Boomer’, Harvey claimed five best and fairest awards in eight seasons from 2003 and won the AFL Media Association MVP award in 2008.

Harvey at his best was simply exhilarating. Quick, elusive and cheekier than a Jack Russell, he could break games open with long, jinking runs and thread the ball through the goalposts from seemingly impossible angles.

Harvey took over as North Melbourne captain in 2009, a position he held for the next three seasons, before stepping aside to let Andrew Swallow take over. He was 33 at the time, but not about to fade into the football sunset.

Blessed with a seemingly ageless body, Harvey remained one of the Roos’ most damaging players right up until his retirement at the end of 2016. He briefly toyed with playing on at another club after North informed him shortly before the end of the 2016 season he, along with fellow veterans Drew Petrie, Nick Dal Santo and Michael Firrito, would not be offered a contract for 2017.

But when he announced his retirement at North’s 2016 best and fairest count, he told a gathering of 900 club loyalists that in the end he could not bring himself to “pull on another team jumper”.

Brad Scott, Harvey’s coach for his last seven seasons, said the No.29 would leave an “unrivalled” legacy at Arden Street. “In all the time I’ve been involved in football I’ve never seen anyone who has been so thorough, so professional and so competitive,” Scott said.

Harvey finished on 432 games, six clear of previous record-holder Michael Tuck, setting a mark that seems likely to stand the test of time.

As for Harvey’s desire to be remembered as a Shinboner? Rest assured, he has nothing to worry about there.

Many will also remember him as the best North player of the post-Carey era.