Mark Williams has made a habit of being ‘first’. And after being the first official signing of the Brisbane Bears he is now part of the AFL Hall of Fame’s first father/son combination.

Williams, a prominent football identity across South Australia, Victoria and Queensland for 47 years, was inducted into the HOF last night to join father ‘Fos’, an inaugural inductee in 1996 as a six-time SANFL premiership captain at Port Adelaide and a nine-time premiership coach.

And while inevitably Gary Ablett Jnr will join Gary Ablett Snr in the Hall of Fame, and a long way down the track brothers Nick and Josh Daicos might join father Peter Daicos with the same honor, the Williams pairing will always be the first.

Among other significant ‘firsts’ for the man known throughout the industry as ‘Choco, he was the first true import, an established player interstate, to captain Collingwood when appointed by coach John Cahill in 1983 after just two years at the club.

And after his key role in helping to launch the first AFL club in Queensland in 1987, he was the first AFL premiership coach at Port Adelaide, and the first senior assistant coach with the League’s 18^th team, the GWS Giants.

The now 64-year-old, a key member of the coaching panel at Melbourne, he even had the first kick in Bears history, was one half of Brisbane’s first brother/brother combination, playing alongside brother Stephen in 1987, and later was the first person in AFL history to represent SA, Victoria and Queensland.

It was a mark of his total commitment to the game in the Sunshine State that, even when left out of the Bears side late in his last season in 1990 as the club preferred a youth-first approach, he played a key role in Windsor-Zillmere’s QAFL premiership side under Wayne Brittain, later to coach Carlton.

In the same year, when a string of Bears players had made themselves unavailable for State selection, he took an injury into a game against Tasmania and was one of his side’s best.

One of football’s great journeymen, he played with SANFL clubs West Adelaide (1976-78) and Port Adelaide (1979-80), AFL clubs Collingwood (1981-86) and Brisbane (1987-90), and after his QAFL stint at Zillmere finished his playing career back at Port Adelaide (1991-92).

He coached Glenelg in the SANFL (1993-94), was assistant-coach to Kevin Sheedy at Essendon (1995-96) and was assistant-coach under at Port Adelaide under his former Collingwood coach Cahill as the SANFL powerhouse stepped up to the AFL (1997-98).

He was senior coach at Port for a record 12 years (1999-1910), denying the Brisbane Lions a fourth consecutive premiership when he steered the Power to a win in the 2004 grand final.

He was Kevin Sheedy’s official coaching off-sider at GWS in 2011-12 and was responsible for a large slice of the football-specific operations while Sheedy fulfilled a busy promotional schedule.

And from 2013-16, after it became evident Williams would not succeed Sheedy as senior coach – as he believed he had been promised – he was head of development at Richmond under Damien Hardwick (2013-16).

It was a role perhaps under-appreciated at the time as the Tigers struggled for success, but proved critical to the Richmond premierships in 2017-19-20 when Williams coached Werribee in the VFL in 2019-20 before joining Melbourne as head of development in 2021.

A devout non-drinker and a total football ‘junkie’, a greying Williams, always seen wearing a club tracksuit sitting on the Melbourne team bench on match days, still talks fondly of his time at the Bear. Or the ‘teddies’ as he calls them.

And that despite being overlooked as the club’s inaugural captain when foundation coach Peter Knights preferred South Australian Mark Mickan, who was new to the AFL.

It was a major shock at the time, with the four-year Collingwood skipper and dual club champion expected to be an automatic choice after he was trumpeted by Bears chairman Paul Cronin and owner Christopher Skase as the club’s first signing on 15 November 1986.

He was the first interstate recruit to move to Brisbane and a rare established figure at the club’s first training session among a predominantly Queensland playing group.

As Williams would confirm later, he was virtually sacked at Collingwood by two men who would be later play key roles in the Lions’ 2001-02-03 premiership hat-trick - coach Leigh Matthews and football manager Graeme Allan. And learned of the club’s decision via the newspaper.

He said at the time: “I believe the club decided my days there had run out. When they asked me whether I had been talking to other clubs I was honest enough to tell them ‘yes’. I could have said ‘no’ like most other players do. Collingwood said this wasn’t setting the right example for younger players and I believe they used it as an excuse to let me go. I thought at least I would have had the courtesy of a phone call.”

Williams later revealed he had been spoken with then Carlton coach Robert Walls at the time and was offered a contract with the Blues, but preferred the fresh opportunities football offered in Queensland.

“When the Brisbane thing came up it appealed to me. I felt as a Collingwood player going to Carlton it was always going to be difficult, and I thought Brisbane would be a new adventure.

“It sounded very interesting, and a chance to be a pioneer and help develop footy. I probably didn’t understand how difficult it was going to be, and how different the environment was going to be from everything I’d known at Collingwood. But I enjoyed it and it was another special part of my football life,” he said.

Fittingly, ahead of the Bears’ first game against North Melbourne in Round 1 1987 he plotted with captain Mickan to get the first Bears kick on the team bus heading to the MCG.

Knowing Mickan was a left-handed tap ruckman, he said:  “I’ll stand to your right and you hit it to me.” He did exactly that and all worked perfectly. After the captain had the first official ‘touch’ in the ruck the vice-captain had the first official kick.

Williams had 27 possessions and kicked two goals in the Bears first game – an unforgettable 33-point win that shocked the football world – and a week later, when they surprised Geelong at Geelong in Round 2, he had 30 possessions and kicked six goals.

It is a possessions/goals double so special that it has never been repeated in Brisbane history.

Williams’ first season with the Bears ended at Carrara in Round 19 against Collingwood when he had his jaw broken in an incident 40m off the ball. He also lost a tooth and later suffered a nasty case of shingles after he endured four hours of agony, unable to get to a Brisbane specialist until 8.30pm due to heavy traffic on the Gold Coast Highway.

“I was told it might only be dislocated so I played the rest of the quarter, but every time I moved it was hitting a nerve and it felt like me head was going to drop off. I sat on the bench for the fourth, and then we had to wait for all the crowd to go before I could drive to hospital,” he said at the time.

Always a valuable contributor, he was the fourth player to reach 50 games for the club in 1989 behind Phillip Walsh, Geoff Raines and Mike Richardson, and after 135 games at Collingwood finished with 59 games in the #2 Bears jumper. In his 2^nd last Bears game he played the 200^th AFL game of a career that spanned more than 300 senior games overall and sees him also a member of the South Australian Football Hall of Fame and the Port Adelaide Hall of Fame.