It's Round 4 of the 1993 AFL season. St Kilda are battling an undefeated Collingwood on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Melbourne, and the Saints' Indigenous stars are on fire.
Gilbert McAdam kicks five goals, dancing around Collingwood defenders. Nicky Winmar is relentless — machine-like — laying seven tackles against an increasingly pressured Magpies side.
As the sun sets on Victoria Park, Winmar effortlessly scoops up the ball and launches a thumping kick from 60 metres out that slices through the goal posts, sealing the win for St Kilda.
The partisan crowd erupt, hurling racial abuse towards Winmar, and he decides to take a stand once and for all.
After the game, Winmar lifts his jumper and points to his black skin, telling the crowd, along with the rest of Australia, that he is black and proud of it.
The image of Winmar, proudly declaring his Aboriginality, remains one of the most powerful anti-racism symbols in Australian history.
The fallout from the weekend was immediate.
Newspaper editorials decried the presence of racism among AFL fans, while then-Collingwood president Allan McAlister appeared on television to assure Victorians that the Magpies were not a racist club.
According to McAlister, Indigenous players like Winmar and McAdam would be respected "as long as they conducted themselves like white people on and off the field", a comment he later apologised for.
In 1995, the AFL introduced an anti-racial and religious vilification section into the official AFL Player Rules, a move the AFL said "clearly signalled that racial and religious vilification would no longer be tolerated in Australian Football".
Aboriginal singer Archie Roach would go on to pen a song, Colour of Your Jumper, inspired by Winmar's actions that day.
"What I saw was not just an Aboriginal man proud of his heritage and people, but a young man who had made it, an elite sportsman in the greatest game … who played his heart out for that jumper," the late Roach said.
However, the three decades since Winmar's famous stand have been scarred with a litany of incidents of racial abuse, leaving fans of the AFL to wonder how much has really changed.
Racial vilification still an issue in the modern game
As Winmar returns to the site of the famous photo 30 years on, walking onto the ground through the metal cage built to separate players from rabid fans, he is overcome with mixed emotions.
"It's freaky when I come back, because we played here amongst all this harassment," Winmar said.
However, while Winmar had to contend with frenzied cheer squads behind goals hurling racial slurs, modern players experience much of their abuse from faceless online accounts.
The move from the grandstands to distant computer screens has only made racial abuse more virulent.
Last week, the AFL Integrity Unit announced that it was investigating four separate online racial vilification incidents, with slurs directed at Brisbane's Charlie Cameron, Adelaide's Izak Rankine and Fremantle's Michael Walters and Nathan Wilson.
However, the courage shown at Victoria Park by Winmar has flowed through to the current generation of Indigenous players.
Following reports of alleged racial abuse in March, Western Bulldogs star Jamarra Ugle-Hagan echoed Winmar's protest by raising his own jumper after a win against the Brisbane Lions.
"I knew it was coming up to 30 years since Nicky Winmar did that, but it just came in the moment," Ugle-Hagan said.
"Hopefully people look back on it in 30 years and ... nobody has copped anything like I have."
The pain of the Ugle-Hagan incident was particularly pronounced for Winmar, with the abuse allegedly coming from his former club.
"From a St Kilda person, as well. Why would you want to say that? What makes you want to say that?" Winmar said.
"It's just sad that we're still facing these problems 30 years later.
"I rang [Ugle-Hagan's] mum and said that I've got his back, I'm so proud of him and hope to catch up with him one day."
Winmar also praised Western Bulldogs' Luke Beveridge, saying the support the coach had provided was crucial for players who had been racially abused.
Despite the protest enduring as a symbol of Indigenous pride, the act took a heavy mental toll on Winmar.
News bulletins from the weeks after the Collingwood game report Winmar missing training sessions, as the star wrestled with his future in the sport.
"After my incident, I walked away from the game for about four or five weeks. I didn't want to come back," he said.
However, Winmar wasn't done contributing to the game he loved and, in 2022, following a stellar 341-game career, the man born Neil Elvis Winmar was inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame.
On Sunday, Winmar was celebrated by the AFL for his contributions to the game, tossing the coin for the Round 4 St Kilda-Collingwood match in a perfect nod to his football life.
Ahead of the game, Collingwood officially apologised to Winmar and McAdam and acknowledged it still had work to do on "real and lasting cultural change".
"Racism is never ok — it wasn't then, and it isn't now," the club said.
"To Nicky Winmar, to Gilbert McAdam, and to their families, we say sorry."
A day of healing at Victoria Park
Around 40 past Indigenous AFL players, including Winmar, will join together at Victoria Park on Tuesday as part of a healing ceremony.
Hosted by former Essendon player Nathan Lovett-Murray, the event will, in part, aim to be a cathartic experience for Indigenous players such as Winmar.
"Part of this ceremony is coming back to this ground where he was racially abused," Lovett-Murray said.
"It's that circle of life, and it's taken us 30 years for Nicky to come back and here and go through this ceremony and be at peace with what he went through."
For players who came after Winmar, such as Lovett-Murray, one courageous act on a sunny Saturday afternoon 30 years ago proved that standing up to racism was possible if the community was willing to be brave.
"He wasn't scared, he called it out," Lovett-Murray said.
"I believe everyone can be a Nicky Winmar and call racism out."
