From prison to premiership glory; this is Marlion Pickett’s extraordinary story.

Belief is a true fairy tale. The tale of a man who came back from the brink to triumph on Australian sport’s biggest stage, a long-held dream come true.

Marlion’s resilience and strength is inspirational. His is an unforgettable Australian story of triumph over adversity.

Below is an edited excerpt from Pickett's chapter on his senior league debut for Richmond in the 2019 AFL Grand Final triumph over Greater Western Sydney at a packed MCG...

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The black guernsey with the yellow diagonal stripe bearing a big white number 50 on the back has been neatly folded, ready for the ceremony. Goodwill abounds, and there is a collective sense of history in the making. The jumper presentation is a big moment in the life not just of the player preparing for his or her first league game but in the lives of all those who have guided them to this achievement. For the recipient, nothing can ever be the same. To have played a game at the top level of the Australian Football League gives you status for life. Even one miserable game sets you apart from all of us dreamers who have stood on the terrace, the hill or behind the goals in glaring sun and driving rain. One game and you are baptised into a rare fellowship Today’s ceremony is special. For a start, it is taking place in the bowels of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the basilica of the game. It’s such a privilege to debut here, like starting your Test cricket career at Lord’s or making your music debut at the Grand Ole Opry. But today, 28 September 2019, is even more singular. Other footballers have made their debut at the ground, just not on this special day in the football calendar: the AFL grand final. It’s like a jockey having their first ride ever in the Melbourne Cup. You have to go back sixty-seven years to find a precedent, when Collingwood’s Keith Batchelor made his debut in the 1952 VFL grand final.

Today is unique, however, not so much because it’s the first time in sixty-seven years a player has made his debut in the season’s biggest and most important game but because of the incredible journey that player has made. In the lexicon of sports writing, there are few more overused words than redemption. Yet in this case, there’s no word more appropriate. This presentation publicly signifies the redemption of a man who might so easily have been lost not just to football but to his loved ones, society and himself. Standing ready to receive his jumper is not some young gun schoolboy footballer but twenty-seven-year-old Marlion Pickett, a Noongar man from Western Australia, father of four children. Convicted as a teenager of burglary and assault, Marlion has found himself in some dark places, with despair and shame his only companions. He had a choice: give up and accept the fate that life seemed to have mapped out for him, or change course. He chose to change.

It’s unbelievable he’s made it here. Especially to him. He admits he has felt like giving in many times. Marlion Pickett’s story is not one of a superhero but of a flawed human being, who just kept coming back. And here he is. He’s standing to the side, excited and more than a little proud as great Richmond clubman Shaun Grigg, who retired in order to set up a place on the team for a new recruit, picks up the jumper and looks over to him, ready to present it. Yes, Marlion, it’s coming your way. You have earned this. Nobody has ever earned his chance more.

He’s not the least bit anxious about what awaits him out there. ‘It’s just a game of football. Only thing different is it’s a big crowd.’ There’s not much light filtering through the player race. Out there, that’s the future, and soon he will step into it and complete the public fairytale. But every fairytale needs a beginning. And so it is with Marlion Pickett’s.