The 39-year-old won a Dellar Medal winner in 2011 awarded to the Horsham District Football Netball League's football best and fairest and is a multiple HDFNL premiership player and coach with Kalkee.

It was in his other passion though - basketball - that Wade reached a significant milestone on the weekend; some 24-years in the making.

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In their CBL loss to Portland on Sunday, Wade became the third person (behind Tim Pickert and Cam Bruce) to reach 200 appearances for the Horsham Hornets.

The game was his sixth of the 2021/22 season, which incredibly is his first season with the Hornets in 17 years.

"It was a good weekend," Wade said.

"It's been sitting on the backburner for a while due to football and all that sort of stuff. I haven't played for 17 years so it's good to finally get there, not that I was ever planning on doing it.

"My young fella's just gotten into the squad basketball and stuff now, so I just wanted to help out with the men's side and that.

"And then Scotty (Benbow) approached me and said 'you know you've only got six games left, would you like to play?' And I started training and it felt alright."

Wade's journey with the senior Hornets began when he was around 15 before first finishing up in his mid-twenties after 194 games.

He said during his first three years he "barely touched the court" until he grew into it and then started to get a game.

Wade won four Big V championships with the side in the early 2000s , two of which were in Division One.

"They were the big ones, they were sort of the standouts," he said.

"We couldn't go much higher than that. It was pretty high for a town of 15, 000 people."

As the mural inside the Horsham Basketball Stadium can attest to, Horsham has produced a plethora of elite basketball talent, a lot of whom have shared the court with Wade in his time.

Some of the quality players Wade pointed to were former NBL players Shane McDonald and Aaron Bruce, Hornets 200 and 300-gamers Cam Bruce and Tim Pickert and former Hornets' stars Brett Goodgame and Ben Dumesny.

"You could reel off about 20 or 30 of them," Wade said.

Despite waiting the best part of two decades to return to the Hornets, Wade has rarely missed a beat and has played an important role in the young Hornets season so far.

The Hornets currently sit fourth in the South West men's CBL with a record of three wins, four losses, while Wade averages just under five points a game playing in a variety of roles.

"I've come on better than I thought I would," he laughed.

"I'm not disgracing myself and I'm contributing the best I can and doing the team things and then on the weekend I had to play 35 out of 40 minutes on the Saturday night and 30 out of 40 on the Sunday.

"It's is a young team and I'm real happy with the way they've progressed.

"We're sitting fourth on the ladder at the moment and if we can jag two out of three wins out of the next three games then we get a finals berth and who knows what happens then."

Looking back at his career so far, Wade admitted that playing for the Hornets has provided him with some influential relationships, that he otherwise may not have formed.

"Scotty Benbow who's coaching now, that's how I met him, we formed a relationship for the last 20-odd years," he said

"Owen Hughan was my head coach from when I was under 12s all the way through until I left in 2004. He was pretty influential on my whole basketball career."

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As for what the future holds for him, Wade isn't entirely sure how long he will continue to play for the Hornets, but confessed that he will stay involved in some capacity.

"I'm 40 this year. You just never know," he said.

"I still love my sport, football and basketball and still like being involved.

"It's an old cliche but I literally have to take it one week at a time at the moment."

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