FORMER St Kilda and Carlton defender Val Perovic has never been married, has no children and spends much of the year travelling around Australia and the world.
"I'm a bit of a free spirit," Perovic says in the latest episode of Life After Footy.
When he's not on the road, the 58-year-old, who was born in Croatia, can be found doing a building job in the central Victorian city of Ballarat, where he has lived for almost all his life.
"I've always been an outdoors sort of person," he says. "Being indoors wasn't my go.
"I basically took over my dad's business 28 years ago, and I've been in the building game ever since."
Perovic's footy career took off when he joined North Ballarat as a teenager.
The club was then in St Kilda's zone, which is why he was recruited by the Saints at the age of 19.
Perovic ended up playing 77 games for St Kilda, all of them while he continued to live in Ballarat.
"It was hard in those times," he said. "I was working in the building business, getting up at 6 o'clock every morning.
"Twice a week I'd go down to training and get home at 10pm.
"The trip to Moorabbin was pretty taxing, and I did that for seven and a half years."
When St Kilda's then-president Lindsay Fox decided that Perovic needed to move to Melbourne if he wanted to continue with the club, he quit the Saints.
After travelling around Australia for a year he was traded to Carlton in late 1979 as part of the exchange that took Blues champion Alex Jesaulenko to St Kilda.
"I've still go a really soft spot for the Saints," Perovic said. "I was just a young kid when I went there.
"They were wonderful times, because you did play for the love of the jumper in those days."
But Perovic will be forever thankful that he was forced to move to Carlton.
A key defender, he became a cult hero at the Blues, and the supporters used to shout "woof" whenever he kicked the ball.
Not surprisingly, the favourite memories of his career are the 1981 and '82 Grand Finals.
Perovic played in both of them.
"It doesn't get any better than that," he said.
