First, Ford decided to set up its Australian headquarters in the city.

Then, the first Aussie-built Model-T rolled off the production line.

Come October, the Cats won their first VFL premiership.

In a barnstorming season, Geelong lost only two games.

Five goals from captain-coach Cliff Rankin secured the grand final win over Collingwood.

After 29 years in the VFL, the drought was broken. Meanwhile, Ford was quickly becoming Geelong’s largest employer.

It seemed more than a coincidence.

Locals suspected the city’s thriving economy had buoyed their footy team.

Certainly, Ford’s arrival was good news for the club.

Ford Australia’s first managing director, the shrewd American Hubert French, quickly got behind the Cats, converting his love of ice hockey to Aussie rules.

He recognised Geelong’s passion for football, and his own need for fit young men to work at the Ford plant.

The Cats could suddenly offer potential recruits not just a job but a lifelong career in a thriving new-age industry.

The two Fs — Ford and football — became cornerstones of life in Geelong.

“At first the partnership solely involved players being employed on the assembly line,” Cats chief Brian Cook explained Thursday.

“That’s how the sponsorship actually started and that arrangement continued right through until, I think, the 70s … and then it built into all sorts of other things.”

Ford’s sponsorship of the Cats will stretch to at least 100 years. That was confirmed Thursday when Cook and Andrew Birkic — the car maker’s president and CEO in Australia and New Zealand — extended the deal by five years.

The claim that it is the longest-running corporate sponsorship in world sport is yet to be disputed.

Both Cook and Mr Birkic noted it had endured good times and bad.

There was good in 1963 when Ford’s flagship Aussie vehicle, the Falcon, was flying out of showrooms in record numbers at the same time the ‘Geelong Flyer’ — Bobby Davis — led the Cats to their sixth premiership.

But things were grim when Cook landed at Kardinia Park in 1999.

“When I first arrived the club’s finances were very poor,” he recalled.

“The cashflow was poor, and we had quite a big debt. It became obvious to me we needed to find some millions of dollars to survive.

“I went to Geoff Polites at the time — the Ford president of Australia — I told him our plight, and said to him ‘I need your sponsorship in advance, I need a full year’s in advance, I need two years in one day basically’.

“At the time their sponsorship was about $1 million a year and Geoff Polites and Ford — to their absolute credit — provided us with that money back in 1999 to keep us alive, as did the Bendigo Bank.

“It’s been a great partnership. It’s like having your best friend in the room … (and) hopefully Ford will be with us for another lifetime or two.”

MORE NEWS

ICE-SMOKING NORLANE DAD WREAKED HAVOC ON MOTORISTS

REVEALED: HOW BIG IS GEELONG’S YOUTH CRIME PROBLEM?

AUDIT EXPOSES BELLARINE AGED CARE FACILITY’S FAILINGS