TONY MODRA once went for a movie in the city but never got to watch the end of it. The cinema had to stop playing the movie halfway through due to others in the audience repeatedly expressing their love for Modra rather loudly and rather unabashedly.

It's one of the many incredible stories doing the rounds about Adelaide's incredible footy superstar over the last week or so. But this one stuck with me the most.

Firstly, because it was narrated by an emotional Mark Ricciuto on his radio show the morning after his great mate's scary truck accident. But also, because the only other time I had heard about a famous sportsperson shutting down a cinema was every time Sachin Tendulkar wanted to watch a movie in Mumbai. What is considered as part of my original hometown's lore.

This is not to directly compare Modra to Tendulkar in anyway. But more for my own comprehension of just how massive a figure the former full forward was at his peak around Adelaide, around South Australia and the entire footy world. In my eight years of living here, I've of course experienced the endless fascination with Modra that continues to this day. It's only in the last few days though that I've really come to grips with Modramania and how he transformed into 'Godra'.

For, he continues to capture the imagination of a state that yearned for their own footy hero and got a superhero instead, decades after he last laced his boots.

A man who took their collective breath away every week on the footy field, and a man for whom an entire state and the nation held its collective breath a week ago, as he fought back from a life-threatening situation like everyone prayed that he would, even if they quietly expected their Mods to do so.

So, what was it about Modra that he's still worshipped like a footy deity to this day, so much so that you can get away with comparing him to Bradman, that too in Adelaide? I've spent the last few days figuring it out myself and done so by quizzing a wide assortment of people around the city about their Modra love. If you've bumped into me since Sunday, chances are you’ve been one of them.

It was prudent to start with those who were fortunate enough to call Modra a teammate and witness his magic first hand, if not contribute to it themselves. And the adoration from them is as unbridled as what you hear from those who only had the privilege of watching him hold court.

"This is a guy who had aura before aura was a word. He did things on the footy field that nobody else could, along with the movie star looks and this mystery about him off the field," says Mark Bickley, former Adelaide premiership captain. "Your wife wanted to be with him, and you wanted to be him."

Andrew Jarman, who played with Modra for most of his AFL career at the Crows, meanwhile, can't stop gushing about how much he means to him.

"I just love Mods, mate. I just love him. And when he arrived on the scene, he just shook Adelaide and he shook the AFL and we're still feeling it," says Jarman.

Like with the arrivals of most overnight sensations, Modra's meteoric rise in the early 1990s also had a lot to do with timing. South Australia was coming off a recession, there had been a State Bank collapse and Adelaide was about to lose the Formula One Grand Prix. And the Crows, the sole representatives of the state in the new national league called the AFL, hadn't started in great fashion either, barely making a mark in their first two seasons. Enter Modra, a country kid from the Riverlands about whom very little was known, except that he had some talent.

"None of us senior players really made much of him when we first saw him. Scott Hodges, who would go on to play for Port Adelaide, was his main competitor. But, then I remember a training session where Mods just exploded with the footy and I remember walking up to Cornesy (Graham Cornes) and going 'who is this kid?'," Jarman recalls.

It was in the lead up to the 1993 season, one which would mark the start of Modra magic that gripped the footy universe. Bickley still can't help but talk in pure awe about what he witnessed from this relatively unknown full forward, who kicked 129 goals, during a year where the Crows made finals for the first time.

"If the Tony Modra story happened today, you wouldn't believe it. Here's a guy who played 3-4 games in his debut season in 1992, and the next year kicks 10 goals (against Richmond at the MCG) and then seven in his second and another nine a couple of games later. It would be like if Mitch Marsh (the Crows' recent draftee, not the cricketer) were to do that this year. And then we beat Hawthorn in front of 70,000 at the 'G to win our first final. There was this excitement capturing the state on the back of the most spectacular player I'd ever seen," the former captain turned media expert explains."

"He put us on the map. Mods was the guy who really made us the team that everyone wanted to watch," Jarman chips in.

Speaking of timing, the launch of the Modra spectacle also coincided with advent of the sports celebrity. The early 90s was when Michael Jordan became a global sensation and was on every hoarding and endorsing every major brand and product in the world. Closer to home, Modra became the footy star at the centre of sports commercialisation, whether it was him sipping on a West End Draught or sporting the latest sportswear.

"He was the biggest star of his time but was also a star before his time," says noted cricket journalist Daniel Brettig, who along with fellow journalists, Adam Collins and Shannon Gill, paid ode to the 1993 season - and Modra - with their The Greatest Season That Was podcast.

"As a young kid growing up in Adelaide, we would go to Football Park and wanted to see the Crows win, but were almost keener on seeing Mods kick a bag, which he did most times."

A rockstar was born. He had blonde hair, blue eyes and could do anything with the ball. It was the same year that Australian sport also welcomed another blonde-haired megastar who could do anything with the ball. Just for the record, Modra kicked seven goals twice in big wins for Adelaide — against Brisbane and Footscray respectively — in consecutive weeks on either side of Shane Warne's ball of the century on June 4, 1993.

The parallels between Modra and Warne aren't lost on Bickley, and he can see why the two could be spoken of in the same breath. For all their genius on the field, they also shared a mass appeal that cut across generations and genders like few others have in the history of Australian sport.

Every kid growing up in the 1990s, not just in South Australia but across the country, after all wanted to be Modra. At least when it came to playing Marker's Up.

"Oh, we would just shout 'Modraaaaaaa' every time it was our turn to jump for the spectacular mark," says Tyson Baird, a proud Adelaide local and occupational therapist, who adds Port fans would counter with 'Hodges' in tribute to Scott, a legend of that club in the SANFL.

While this was also the era of Jason Dunstall and Gary Ablett Snr, who were revered and celebrated by everyone watching the sport, Modra was the player through whom you could live out your footy fantasies.

"We didn't really practise high marking a lot back then. I see them jumping on bags now. But back in the day, if the opportunity arrived in a game, you jumped at the footy a bit. But not like Mods. He'd get nominations for Mark of the Year almost every other week. It was an innate talent, and he was incredibly consistent with them," says Bickley.

"He could lead. He would put two metres of separation on anyone within about the first 10 metres. So, as you're coming out of the centre of the ground, you just looked up. And Mods was always sort of in front of his man. It was pretty easy if you're a midfielder. And if he wasn't leading, you just kicked it as long in his eye as he could, and you knew he was going to stand on someone's head."

Bickley also remembers Modra's freakish talent when it came to bench-pressing more than anyone else, even if he never liked training in the gym much, or even how far he can hit the golf ball these days.

There was a reputation around Adelaide fans, but because of Modra, they became a cooler team, one with spunk. Those who remember watching them in action at Football Park also recall how Modra allowed even the most prudish of Adelaide fans to "live a little" vicariously through his unhinged genius. And then, there was the female attention, the likes of which Jarman says you wouldn't generally associate with footy and footballers.

"It was unlike anything I've ever seen. He looked like a supermodel. And there would be times we'd finish training, and Mods would run back from the parking lot saying there were 40-50 screaming girls blocking his car. I would room with him often for away games, and every morning when I'd open the door, there'd be hundreds of roses and phone numbers for him. We once went to a pub in Sydney after a game and within minutes, word spread. It felt like a Harry Styles concert. There were so many people came from nowhere. The pub owner, I think, gave him a lifetime credit there," says Jarman with a characteristic chuckle.

Bickley recalls how often Modra, who had a penchant for driving, would get his vehicles exchanged, almost weekly at times, but always get a good deal.

"You'd drive past the car yard from where he'd have picked up a Jeep or caravan and there'd be his previous vehicle with a sign reading 'Tony Modra's old car, which meant a few extra thousands for the dealer," he says.

The Bradman comparison came courtesy then coach Graham Cornes, but some argue that he may even have been bigger than the greatest cricketer to have played the game.

"It was more like when The Beatles came to Adelaide (in 1964). That was the kind of outpouring of love around Mods during that period," says Brettig.

Both Bickley and Jarman insist though that none of this overwhelming attention ever changed the 'Mods' that they knew and if anything, it only made "the painfully shy" Modra want to hide away from it even more.

"He never enjoyed it. He'd escape to the beach and surf or go and fish, anything that could give him some space away from all this. If anything, he'd be embarrassed by the kind of attention he's getting currently post the accident," says Jarman.

Speak to any footy fan who has come across Modra over the years though, and they insist that he was the kind of hero you wanted to meet. This was a hero who was happy to meet you. The common thread being how special he made everyone feel. An unassuming superstar who never quite understood the hype, which only added to his allure.

Whether it was someone meeting him at a corporate event or when he would be called to be a chief guest at a public barbecue or even in a pub. He's always remained very approachable, much like the late Warne was during and after his career.

"I remember a representative junior football competition that Modra made a guest appearance at. It would have been 1993. The young footballers, me included, left the games they were playing or watching to scramble for an autograph. He was mobbed like a forward kicking their 1000th goal," recalls Baird. And now a father of two boys, he still considers Modra's autograph from that day as one of his prized possessions.

Nobody who knew Modra well during his heyday is surprised by the fact that he retired back to the country once his footy days were done, considering how he never forgot his roots. Mark Taplin, who lives in Victor Harbor and has run multiple businesses there over the years, would meet Modra quite regularly while dropping off gas cylinders at his house.

"And he'd be sitting there talking to me about surfing, local affairs, and just generally about anything to do with the region. He just loves living here," he says.

Maybe it's one of the reasons Modra's aura grew so tall that he evaded the much talked about tall poppy syndrome when it comes to celebrities in Australian sport. And also why unlike other infamous transfers, nobody in Adelaide ever held his move to Fremantle post the 1998 season against him.

"Nah, we always blamed Blighty (Malcolm Blight) for that but now we know he had good reason for it. We forgave him eventually. But it was something to see how loved Mods was even in the west, despite him being from Adelaide," says another diehard fan from that era.

The one question that had lingered in my mind for some time and intensified over the past week was where Modra fits into the mix of the three Crows players who get spoken about the most from the 1990s.

The iconic Mark Ricciuto - who has a stand named after him at the Adelaide Oval, Andrew McLeod - who seems to be everyone's favourite player in Adelaide - and Modra himself. I thought it was best to ask the man who captained all three of them.

"McLeod was like a scalpel," Bickley says. "He was so smooth, and he cut through. It was just so silky to watch and everything he did was classy.

"Roo (Ricciuto) was more like a sledgehammer. Would barge through the opposition. Both of them played over 300 games too, so there's the longevity factor as well.

"And then you had Mods, who played only 118 games, but was a high-flyer and was spectacular. You were guaranteed a highlight if you went to the game. The excitement factor was next level and he literally dragged people through the gate to watch him play."

The outpouring of love that's come Modra's way has meant that Jarman, meanwhile, is convinced that Modra in some ways has outshone even McLeod and Ricciuto as being the most loved footballer the state has ever produced. The fact is there is a consensus around Modra's standing in Adelaide footy.

"There might have been other players that you liked, but you still loved Mods. From little children to their grandparents. What can you say about Mods; he was just breathtaking. He was just Mods," says another fan.

It's the kind of reverence and adulation that's tough to describe. But you can sense it in the way so many of Modra's ardent fans start running out of words and start repeating themselves almost in garbled tones when asked to put their devotion for him into context.

Donna Hill is a swimming instructor in Norwood, and she admits that that there's never been another player like Modra in Adelaide, nor will there ever be.

"We have Tex (Walker) these days, who's wonderful to watch, but Mods was like Tex with wings on," she says. Donna also scoffs at the idea that there might be a generation of young fans in the city who might not quite know the Modra story too well.

"If you know footy, you know about Modra. It is part of family lore here in Adelaide and is passed down from generation to generation. My grandkids were born long after he stopped playing but they know all about Modra and still shout his name if they’re jumping on someone's head to take a mark," she says, visibly annoyed at the suggestion that the Modra legacy needs revisiting.

In many ways, her reaction is a window into simply how everlasting the impact of Modramania and the Godra phenomenon will be on Adelaide and the state of South Australia. About a man who once held the keys to the city, and according to most, still has a copy on his keyring. And will keep it forever.