Robert Lane was the first Carlton senior footballer to wear the No.46 on his back. That happened 50 years ago last month, when the budding ruckman from Kerang took to the old Princes Park ground for the 13^th round match against St Kilda.

That game was the first of only two senior appearances for the then 19-year-old 'Rocky' Lane. The second came the following week with Fitzroy at home, meaning Lane pitted his skills against players of teams that would ultimately finish first and last that year, 1966.

A two-game senior player under Ron Barassi’s watch, Lane would later represent Williamstown in a premiership. But within 10 years of that VFA triumph, Lane’s life would tragically be taken – the one and only League footballer killed in the line of duty representing the Victoria Police.

Lane’s legacy is not lost on Matthew Wright, Carlton’s current keeper of the No.46.

“The word ‘hero’ is bandied about too easily in football, but in life Robert Lane was a true hero,” Wright said this week.

“Robert died trying to protect his fellow citizens. In learning more about him, his life and his death, I have come to understand why Robert is remembered with such pride and affection, not only by the wider community but by all those in the force who wear the badge today.

“At Carlton, I am proud to wear Robert’s No.46 . . . and I too wear it as a badge.”

Robert Lane was born at Kerang on December 12, 1946, one of five sons and five daughters reared by George and Jean Lane. The Lane siblings would be blessed with strong sporting genes, with Robert excelling in football and basketball and younger twin sisters Jeanette and Helen each captaining Victorian basketball teams.

In a previous interview with this reporter, the retired policeman Gomer Davies, who lives in Lalbert, near Swan Hill, said Lane was stationed in Carlton when he embarked on his League football career. “Carlton (Football Club) got Bob down at the time he joined the police force and he played a couple of games there,” Davies said.

Ian Collins, the former Carlton president, chief executive and premiership player, remembered playing alongside Lane in 1966.

“He was a handy, but not great, footballer and he seemed to be a fairly quiet type,” Collins said. “I remember that he used to turn up to training in his police uniform.

“He was solidly built, but not overly tall. He was a key-position player and I played with him in both of his games in 1966.”

Lane was named 19th man on debut against St Kilda, with Jim Pleydell joining him on the pine. Dick Vandenberg (a distant cousin of the former Hawthorn captain Richie), also made his Carlton senior debut that day, opening up in a forward pocket and exchanging roving duties with Adrian Gallagher.

Lane and the likes of fellow country recruits Ian Nankervis, a namesake of the former Geelong player who hailed from Mildura Imperials, and Gil Lockhart from Mansfield, were turned over by Barassi during the ’66 season. According to Vandenberg, later a chartered accountant in Swan Hill, the die might have been cast for Lane with the arrival of the lanky Tasmanian ruckman Peter 'Percy' Jones.

In April 1967, Lane was cleared to Williamstown and duly savoured premiership success. Not long after, he opted to combine policing duties with a stint as captain-coach of Lake Boga, just south of Swan Hill, in the then Mid-Murray Football League.

Then in 1973, 'Rocky' returned to the big smoke, renewing acquaintances with Davies at Russell Street. “He was a senior detective at that stage and he was also playing for ‘Willy’ at centre half-forward in the old Channel 0 days,” Davies recalled.

“Three years later, he returned to take on the job as captain-coach of Lalbert. He got Lalbert to a premiership in his first year, (in) 1976, when they beat Woorinen by a point.”

Davies said Lane eventually relinquished the Lalbert coaching role to Chris Drum, the brother of former Fremantle coach Damian Drum. “Bob just wanted to continue as a player in 1979, but unfortunately he was killed that July.”

On that Friday morning, Lane made a routine trip across the border, to Kyalite, to question a man suspected of stealing a car. Tragically, the move would cost Lane his life, as the suspect turned a rifle on him and fired three times.

Robert Lane was 32.

Davies was left with the terrible task of recovering his mate’s body from a roadside camp by the Wakool River.

“Bob went out to do a little job which would normally have taken him about half an hour,” Davies said. “He left Swan Hill station at half-past 10 in the morning and by half-past 11, he was dead. Val was waiting for him back at the station. One of their girls was not quite three at the time and the other girl was six or seven.”

Lane’s senseless murder on the morning of Friday, July 13, 1979, made front-page news, which resulted in the swift apprehension of the perpetrator. Lane was laid to rest at the Swan Hill cemetery after a service attended by more than 1200 mourners who paid their respects.

Detective Senior Constable Lane is amongst the 159 men and women of the Victoria Police who, since 1863, have died upholding the law. His wife Valerie and daughters Dana and Chelsea were left to grieve.

But Robert Lane has not been forgotten.

At Swan Hill Hospital, by way of a joint venture with the local community through the Swan Hill Branch, the Resuscitation Unit was also dedicated as a Police Memorial to Lane not long after his death.

Then in 2006, during a graduation ceremony at the Victoria Police Academy in Glen Waverley, the then chief commissioner Christine Nixon presented the Victoria Police Star medal to Val in memory of her late husband. The medal, introduced the previous year, recognises members killed or seriously injured in the line of duty.

Next month, Swan Hill will again serve as the backdrop as thoughts turn to the fallen policeman. On Tuesday, September 20, ten teams set out from the town in the Blue Ribbon Day Council’s March2Remember walk. The walk, which involves each team completing a 50-kilometre leg, ends in Melbourne on September 29 – Blue Ribbon Day – and is held to raise funds for emergency equipment for Victorian public hospitals like the Robert Lane Resuscitation Unit.

On a day in which Blue Ribbon Day is held in conjunction with National Police Remembrance Day, the Blue Ribbon Foundation has gone to great lengths to ensure Robert Lane’s legacy endures amongst members of the community for whom he commanded the utmost respect.