Sale's premier sporting export Scott Pendlebury almost never played AFL

Liza Pendlebury was in an underground car park when she received a phone call that would eventually change the course of modern AFL history, though she did not know that at the time.

It was late 2004. The voice on the line was her son Scott, a prodigious athlete training in Canberra on an Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) basketball scholarship.

"He was saying, 'I'm thinking of leaving basketball for footy,'" Liza said.

She called her husband, oil rig worker Bruce Pendlebury, and the pair organised to meet their son in person.

"I drove to Canberra [from Sale] and Bruce flew from offshore and he said 'I don't want to play basketball anymore', so we packed him up and came home," she said.

It was a sliding-doors moment.

Pendlebury's spot at the AIS was eventually filled by Patty Mills, who went on to become an NBA champion and an Olympic bronze medallist.

As for Scott Pendlebury, he will be celebrated as the AFL's most durable athlete when he runs out in the record-breaking 433rd game of this career on Saturday.

The baller

Pendlebury was an extremely talented junior basketballer and played with the Sale Sonics before representing Victoria and Australia as a teenager.

That trajectory shifted when the lure of kicking a Sherrin with friends in his final school year proved irresistible.

"Basketball Australia weren't happy with us," Gippsland Power talent director Peter Francis said.

"They wanted him, but I said it's Scott's decision and, if it doesn't work out, if he didn't get drafted, he could go back to basketball."

His junior basketball coach, Jo Crawford-Wynd, remembers a "locker-room leader" who did not always use his influence for good.

He once tested her authority by urging his teammates to continue playing tennis during a break instead of recovering as instructed.

With an eight-man team Pendlebury was sure she wouldn't bench all four of them.

"So the next game we started with four players and they were gobsmacked," Crawford-Wynd said.

She has attended every milestone match of Pendlebury's career, admiring the leader he has become.

"From there I watched him grow as a leader and we built a really beautiful relationship," she said.

The moment

Pendlebury starred in a talent-filled Gippsland Power side in 2004, eventually surprising a number of draft pundits by being selected by Collingwood with pick five in that year's AFL draft.

Even the Pendleburys were surprised by the selection, but it had little to do with his talent.

In those days, dial-up internet could be patchy in the country.

"Our internet crashed and he never heard his name get read out," his mum said.

"We just sat there and then the home phone rang and it was [Collingwood president] Eddie McGuire.

Pendlebury was to join fellow Gippsland Power player Dale Thomas (pick two) at Collingwood, while Power exports Xavier Ellis (pick three, Hawthorn), Trent West (pick 31, Geelong), Jay Neagle (pick 34, Essendon) and Craig Flint (Rookie pick 17, Carlton) would also join AFL lists that year.

"The next day I drove, picked up Dale Thomas on the way and kept going to Melbourne," Liza said.

At one point the Gippsland duo slept in king single beds in Dane Swan's pool room.

Both would both go on to be Collingwood greats.

Tough choice paid off

Pendlebury would elevate himself to greatness during his career in black and white. He collected two premierships, a Norm Smith Medal, six All-Australian selections and numerous Collingwood accolades.

Talking to the ABC from an oil rig in Bass Strait, Bruce Pendlebury said he was "over the moon" at his son's achievements.

He said Scott would feel relief on Saturday when he walked onto the ground at the MCG to focus on football rather than milestones.

"We're excited for Scott to get the game out of the way because of what he's been going through in the lead-up," he said.

"I've worked away all my life, through all the footy stuff … I've watched games out here and it can be tough, but you know, my wife has been incredible through the journey."

Bruce thinks his son has plenty left in the tank.

"He can go on if he wants to but it's all mental now," he said.

"It's obviously the preparation he puts in. He knows what he's got to do."

That determination is something he inherited from his mother.

"His mum's very strong willed and doesn't take nonsense from anybody," Bruce said.

What's next?

Pendlebury has done the media rounds ahead of his milestone match.

The veteran Pie has refused to say whether this will be his last season at the top level.

He will surpass North Melbourne champion Brent Harvey as the outright VFL/AFL games record holder in Saturday's clash with West Coast at the MCG.

He's off contract at season's end and yet to decide whether he will attempt to play on.

"I'm not sure. I think if my form's good enough and my body holds up, that's a discussion that I'll have later on in the season," Pendlebury said.

His age won't diminish his preparation.

"He always wanted to be better and you could see that," Peter Francis said.

There's been talk of renaming the local football oval in his honour, or erecting a bronze statue, despite the fact he only played one senior match for the Sale Football Club before joining the Gippsland Power in the talent league.

Whether Collingwood will beat the club to the punch is another matter.

But before any of that, there's a game to play.

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