Recently I bent down to pick up my kids. My hip ached as I lowered myself and when I pushed upwards a sharp pain attacked the joint of my left big toe – it was arthritis caused by playing football.
I know because during a foot X-ray for a suspected break the doctor pointed out a small area he said was the first sign of the condition. It has been fifteen years but it’s now taking hold.
It should have been in the right foot – my preferred kicking one.  But as I was long sighted in the left eye, blurring my peripheral vision on that side, I would often, in the helter-skelter of a contest near goal, swing the other way, on to my left foot; unwittingly damning it with the trauma of impact.

And then there is my back.

Some time ago my brother told me of an outing he made with some friends. They stopped the car on arriving at their destination but one of them, a recently retired Melbourne player, was so stiffened by the journey he couldn’t get out of the car. He was in his early thirties.

Aaron Moule retired from rugby league when he was only twenty six so he could be physically capable of playing with his kids when he was older. He began playing again shortly after, however, because it was the only way he could support those same children.

A professional footballer knows the harsh truth about the balance of nature. In order to look, feel and perform like a god he punishs his mortal body. And then later, after retirement, it reminds him what he put it through -a forty year old ex-footballer has the limited mobility and insistent pain of his seventy year old father.

Barry Humphries recently boasted that he had outlived most of the macho sporty types that attended Melbourne Grammar during his time there.  As if a contact sport was a way of keeping healthy.

It’s the midweek excitement over the upcoming game that makes you forget the pain of the previous one. The adrenalin-induced feeling as you prepare to run out can’t be replicated in normal life.

But there is also a moral imperative that leads you to torture your body. Grasping his own chest the coach would scream: “You’re playing for the jumper!” And he was right, of course,  whether you liked it or not. You weren’t just a sportsman or someone plying a trade, you were representing a club and its people.

There is a psychological legacy too. If you’re not an aggressive person to start with you  soon become one. Often you would find yourself despising an opponent. Less skillful but stronger and more experienced defenders would give a you a quick elbow to the stomach if they thought you were going to lead.

A celebrated captain of a VFA club once held me down while play continued around us and hissed: “If you move I’ll kill you”

And most shocking of all, there can be your own teammates. I got to play alongside one of my idols in an AFL reserves match. He was returning from injury and keen on impressing. I was free on the half forward flank with a good chance of kicking a goal. He was about to be tackled so I called for the handball. “F*ck off!” he screamed before being tackled and giving away a free kick.  I bent down towards him and found myself saying – to a Collingwood legend –
“And you f*ck off!” 

Psychologically I was never quite the same again. 

“You’ve got to ask yourself: ‘Do you want to play League football?”, Leigh Matthews asked the playing group after catching me smiling during a thrashing on a horrible day at an underwater VFL Park. He assumed I didn’t want to play but he was wrong. My smile had been an obliging response to a joke made by a more senior player (who would later play in the 1990 premiership team). Of course I wanted  to play AFL football,  if only a single game so I could be immortalised in the Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers.

I chose to walk because nothing about the place seemed right, and so I wasn’t immortalised. I have regretted it ever since… I think.

I’ll soon be crippled too.

According to the QI Book Of The Dead, your chances of being famous are enhanced significantly if your father is dead or absent.

Growing up in the middle of nowhere helps too – only three members of the current Test team were born or raised anywhere near one of the major cities. In fact the birthplace of each member (Phillip Hughes as 12th man) is on average 274 kms from the CBD of a major city. And this is despite the fact that two thirds of the population live in the major cities and a greater number of city kids play cricket than their country cousins.

Admittedly, I listed Ricky Ponting as being 165kms from Hobart because Launceston, his birthplace, isn’t classed as a major city (the Cricket Australia  National Cricket Census doesn’t even rate it as metro). On the other hand Hobart isn’t really a major city either so he could easily have been listed as 429kms from Melbourne. 

What is it about living on a banana plantation or in a combine harvester that makes country boys overrepresented in elite ranks? Is it the good weather and endless space , there not being a decent beer, coffee, or cinema in sight to distract them from meticulous continous practise and dreams of Test match glory? Or is it just kids desperate to escape a tedious hellhole?

Either way they’re out the front of a country fish and chip shop in a Boags singlet chewing on a greasy piece of flake one minute;  lunching at Doyles in a Cricket Australia suit the next.

The greatest ever batsman was born in Cootamundra, 400kms inland from Sydney and then raised in Bowral. Young Donald, living in his parents home ( lace curtains, bone china tea sets and a religious silence broken only by the ticking of an antique clock echoing off the polished furniture) passed hot summer days among creaking windmills belting golf balls into a brick wall. There are Bradman museums in Bowral and Cootamundra and a plaque attached to a Stringybark by the Hume Highway proclaiming: “Young Donald Bradman moved his bowels here during his family’s move to Bowral”.

The writer P L Travers, bored senseless as a child in Bowral, avoided insanity by  creating Mary Poppins. Apparently the town has become more lively in recent times but that’s going to change now that Bryce Courtenay has moved in.

A  place called Wondai is 250kms from Brisbane and a good book. It has a population of just 1400 but has still produced two Test cricketers: Carl Rackemann and Nathan Hauritz.  There is also a good chance of inbreeding hence why Chad Morgan was born there too.

Marcus North was a relatively close 56kms from Melbourne in the “regional” suburb of Pakenham which marks “the end of the suburban electrified train service”. It was the end of the line alright –  desolate flatlands and an abbatoir.  As soon as he was able Marcus left town on the back of a Steggles Chicken truck. 

Travel 100kms further east and you come to Peter Siddle’s brown coal town of Morwell. Its name comes from the aboriginal phrase ‘more willie’, the catchcry of the local women since all the male sporting stars left for the big city.

Phillip Hughes was spawned on the banks of the Nambucca River, spending his teenage years on the John Deere stand at the Macksville Show. 

Are city players discriminated against by rural-type selectors, or do trust funds and shopping for hair straighteners undermine their development? 

Simon Katich was dropped when the selectors found out he was born too near (27kms) to Perth and was only reinstated after he pointed out Middle Swan was a ”rural suburb”.

Stuart Clark (Sutherland, 26km) appeared to be unpopular despite his excellent Test record. It may have been his urban roots; or his reading material.

Ponting:   “Hey Stu, what are you reading?”.

Clark:         “Refinancing and High-Yield Bonds” 

Ponting:   “Hey Sidds what have you got there mate?” 

Siddle:      “Zoo Weekly. Hey Punter there’s a great piece here on ‘Laura’s Norks and Crannies’!”

Peter Siddle in. Stuart Clark out.

Stuart MacGill was an inner city product (2 kms) and was only ever selected reluctantly. Admittedly it could have been because he can be a bit of a knob sometimes. Also the neglected Brad Hodge was conceived just 18 kms from Melbourne. 

We often hear: “He hails from the high country” or “The kid was raised in the Northern Rivers”. Will we ever hear: “He grew up in the Shangri La Hotel while his dad was CEO of Rio Tinto.”?