diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/1034-error-msg.yml b/changelogs/fragments/1034-error-msg.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6b19124fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/1034-error-msg.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+bugfixes:
+  - "vendored Docker SDK for Python - do not assume that ``KeyError`` is always for ``ApiVersion`` when querying version fails
+     (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.docker/issues/1033, https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.docker/pull/1034)."
diff --git a/plugins/module_utils/_api/api/client.py b/plugins/module_utils/_api/api/client.py
index 8ad7c09e9..5ae7e2058 100644
--- a/plugins/module_utils/_api/api/client.py
+++ b/plugins/module_utils/_api/api/client.py
@@ -202,7 +202,14 @@ def __init__(self, base_url=None, version=None,
 
     def _retrieve_server_version(self):
         try:
-            return self.version(api_version=False)["ApiVersion"]
+            version_result = self.version(api_version=False)
+        except Exception as e:
+            raise DockerException(
+                'Error while fetching server API version: {0}'.format(e)
+            )
+
+        try:
+            return version_result["ApiVersion"]
         except KeyError:
             raise DockerException(
                 'Invalid response from docker daemon: key "ApiVersion"'
@@ -210,7 +217,7 @@ def _retrieve_server_version(self):
             )
         except Exception as e:
             raise DockerException(
-                'Error while fetching server API version: {0}'.format(e)
+                'Error while fetching server API version: {0}. Response seems to be broken.'.format(e)
             )
 
     def _set_request_timeout(self, kwargs):