WE now have the memories.

Each will be different. All will be special. And not all of them are based on unforgettable moments of Russell Ebert the master footballer who symbolised the Port Adelaide Football Club for decades after his treasured arrival at Alberton from Waikerie in 1968.

"We all remember the day we met Russell Ebert," said Port Adelaide Football Club chief executive Matthew Richardson in closing the State funeral at Alberton Oval on Tuesday.

Be it the day we asked "God" for an autograph while he walked back to the changerooms during his club record 392 SANFL league games with Port Adelaide or, with a man loved well past Alberton, those 29 in the South Australian State jumper. Or that extraordinary (and often understated) 1979 season in the VFL with North Melbourne.

Or the day Russell appeared at a charity function, in particular for the Novita campaigns that became the public image for a man who never flagged in his eagerness to do good for anyone and everyone in need. Nor did he seek the limelight nor live off the publicity from his good deeds.

Or when he put his initials in the old Savings Bank of South Australia passbook after counting all the copper in your metal tin "piggy bank".

Or at an outside broadcast as a radio show panelist or in the classroom with his standard-bearing community campaigns or, as team-mate Max James recalled, as the caring humanitarian who cut the lawns of an elderly man who kept his account at the Royal Park branch of the Savings Bank.

Or the legend who was never pinned to his hard-earned - and richly deserved - pedestal. How many visitors to Alberton Oval - while Port Adelaide drew national attention as an AFL club - found themselves on an unexpected tour of the club's spiritual home with Russell Ebert as their guide?

Or with the volunteers in Dad's Army who had Ebert regularly join them for a beer on a busy Friday afternoon after setting up Alberton Oval for a weekend of football events.

Or just the Russell Ebert we met in the streets, always willing to say more than just a simple "Hello".

We all have our memories. They are part of the rich legacy that lives on while Russell Ebert takes to the Elysian Fields to be introduced by another god as the greatest player in the Port Adelaide Football Club's 151-year story. And he was so much more than a great footballer.

Bill Ebert, one of Russell's four brothers, remembered the country upbringing from the Mallee to the Riverland where their father Albert instilled life values clearly taken and held close to heart by Russell. Such as the concept of doing "at least one good deed each day".

And if you wanted to know how the four-time Magarey Medallist was so perfectly balanced while scooping up a Sherrin or Ross Faulkner football there is the image left by Bill's tales of when Russell would chase rabbits "flat out" during the 1950s. Not even farm fences would stop Russell; no wonder taggers struggled to mute him on the football field.

Russell's three children - Tammie, Ben and Brett - treasure how they remember with "everlasting memories" the man "we knew as Dad". The man, as Ben recalls, "was always there with a shoulder to cry on, always there to help the less fortunate, always making people feel comfortable" while in the presence of the "Great Man".

And Brett was so right - and true to everyone's thinking - about that awful day on December 23, 2020 when the man "who has done so much was dealt this (undeserving) card" was diagnosed with leukemia. "Where is the fairness?" asked Brett, as we have all asked during the past 11 months.

That crushing day last year when Ebert learned of his life-threatening illness was the time, as Brett noted, for Russell to finally and "for the first time put himself first". But he did not. "He went out," added Brett, "on his terms - devoted to others."

In those last 11 months, Ebert insisted he had no reason to complain. It has been a superb 70 years, he repeatedly responded to those who questioned why he had been dealt such a card. He had absolutely nothing to lament, nothing to ask for, nothing to address or redress. He had been, in his words, "blessed" for 70 years - and his close contact with many who had been so less fortunate certainly made Russell appreciate just how lucky he had been since his birth on June 22, 1949. Albert Ebert would be proud of how his son carried those charitable ideals he set out in Russell's teenage years.

"That peace of mind," said club chaplain Brandon Chaplin of Ebert's strength amid personal adversity to keep thinking of others, "transcends understanding".

Indeed, where everyone else think of themselves first, Russell Ebert kept adding to the treasured memories that mean more and more to so many others today.

The footballer who was Port Adelaide was remembered - appropriately with humour - by Ebert's vice-captain and fellow Magarey Medallist Peter Woite and the man who stood alongside Ebert while he accepted that treasured 1977 SANFL centenary premiership flag, Max James.

"I had a front-row seat and an unbelievable experience playing alongside Russell," said Woite, the 1975 Magarey Medallist and commander in defence at centre half-back. "The perfect kicks, the high marks, the player who was never beaten, the strong physique, the quickness and those over-head handballs ... and the (centreman) who always came back to help us backmen.

"The captain who led by example - and what an example that was.

"I always thought Russell was bulletproof ... He was a champion in every sense of the word."

James remembers the Ebert who "excelled at everything he did" and adapted when challenged in golf, such as carrying an axe in his light bag of clubs to deal with his adventures off the fairways.

"Russell meant to much to so many people," noted James while Alberton Oval was filled with the greatest gathering to honour Russell Ebert since 6005 were there on August 24, 1985 for his 390th game - and last at home - as a league player in the black-and-white bars with a 49-point win against Sturt.

Premiership captain Tim Ginever, who was part of the 1970s generation of schoolkids who grew up idolosing Ebert in schoolyard games across the LeFevre peninsula, remembers how Ebert set up a critical dynasty - one that delivered an AFL licence - through difficult times at Alberton.

"Russell gave us our starts - 17 of us went on to play premierships," Ginever recalls of the Ebert disciples who celebrated premierships in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995 and 1996 before the AFL chapter began in 1997.

"Spiritually," added Ginever, "Russell lives here (at Port Adelaide and Alberton) forever. No. 7 has gone to heaven. But our favourite son always will be No. 1."

In an era when so many superstars measure each pound of flesh taken from them, "Russell never said no" added Richardson. "He loved interacting with people. Football was his first gift. (His devotion to others) was his second ... he was a great friend to all of us. He had time (for everyone). He loved to give back (while appreciating) what a life I have lived; how lucky am I?"

We will all have our memories. They will mean more and more each day.

The one that will never fade for all those who lived through a then club record 12-year premiership drought from 1965 was how Russell Ebert summed up the hard-earned triumph of that grand 1977 season that marked the SANFL's centenary (12 months after the pain of defeat to Sturt in the supposedly unlosable 1976 grand final at Football Park).

 "It has taken us a bloody long time," Ebert said while he and Max James unfurled the premiership flag before a throng of delirious Port Adelaide fans, "but by geez it is worth it."

Russell Ebert leaves us. But the spirit lives on. His legacy stays with great inspiration to honour all the Great Man stood for, not just as a great footballer but as a great man.

Go well, Great Man.