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Western Australian Indigenous great Bill Dempsey has stolen the show at the Australian Football Hall of Fame with an engaging acceptance speech.

As talented a footballer as Bill Dempsey was, the Indigenous great is an equally gifted storyteller.

An icon in Perth, the 80-year-old lit up the room at Crown Melbourne after being inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday night.

Dempsey survived tremendous hardship as a member of the Stolen Generation as a child to become a football great in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

There was no such thing as an off-season for Dempsey.

The athletic ruckman played 343 games across 17 dominant WAFL seasons for West Perth, but returned home to Darwin in summer to star in 10 NTFL campaigns for his beloved Buffaloes.

Arguably Dempsey's finest hour as a player was the 1969 WAFL grand final as he combined with the legendary Graham 'Polly' Farmer in leading West Perth to premiership glory.

Dempsey was awarded the Simpson Medal as best-on-ground for his dominant performance.

However, his medal was lost during the devastation of Cyclone Tracy hitting Darwin in 1974.

But Dempsey recalled the bizarre chain of events that led to his beloved medal being returned to him.

After winning the medal, Dempsey's mother had proudly, but incorrectly, been telling friends about her son winning the "Simpson Desert Medal".

But Dempsey's mother knew something he didn't as the medal was found years later by gold prospectors in the South Australian town of Andamooka, located in the Simpson Desert.

"She told me 'thank you for bringing it back," Dempsey said in his speech.

"She said 'what is Andamooka?' and I said 'it's in the Simpson Desert'.

"She goes 'silly boy, I told you it was the Simpson Desert Medal!."

It has been a big 2022 for Dempsey after he was a key part of Sir Doug Nicholls Round in May.