Albert Kelly became a cult hero in the Red and White side of Hull and then on the Black and White side of Hull as he left his native Australia for six years.
The electric halfback spent two seasons at Hull KR and then four at Hull FC, but following his third season at the MKM Stadium, Kelly returned home, witnessing the passing of his grandfather.
It was from then on that the 30-year-old made a promise.
“You need to come home … You need to come home,” his grandfather Lewis Kelly told him.
That let out a great pang of homesickness within Albert, and he knew he had to come home.
“They were the last words he said to me; he also said I had more heart than any other bloke playing (in the NRL),” he said.
“After that I really wanted to come home, I just really wanted to come home.”
Kelly went to a barbecue where the likes of young gun David Fifita and former Leeds Rhinos man Rob Lui were present, and it was there where the halfback broke down in tears.
“I was really down at the time, I wasn’t playing that much footy and I was a bit lost. I said to them ‘boys you are the first ones I will tell that I’m leaving to come home’,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
“The tears started coming, we were all tearing up”.
It was there and then that he made his mind up to return to Australia in honour of his grandfather.
“I’m going to go home and give it one last crack and I’m going to make the All-Stars.”
Kelly did just that against the Maori All Stars, with Lewis Kelly sure to be looking down on him with immense pride.
