Fev: In My Own Words Page 21

  After the quick chat with Juddy and a fearful spray from Alex, I started to suspect that I was in a bit of trouble. Still, after Alex went home with the girls, I dusted myself off and went to have lunch with a group of people at Silks restaurant in the Crown complex. The people I met there had bought a lunch date with me, Wayne Carey and Jonathan Brown at the Kinglake fundraising auction. I had a few beers while we were having lunch, told a few stories, and then the phone started ringing. One of the first calls I took was from Greg Swann. He told me that every important person in the football industry had seen me carrying on like an idiot the night before, adding that everyone at the club was bitterly disappointed with my behaviour. At the very least, he said, I was going to be slapped with a $10,000 fine for breaching the players’ code of conduct. I apologised to him, but that wasn’t enough to douse his anger.

  Many journalists had seen me in full flight, so it didn’t take long for a number of stories about my wild night to emerge in the media. It was Grand Final week, which meant that everyone should have been talking about the competing teams, Geelong and St Kilda. Instead, all the footy talk was about me. AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou was among a host of people to publicly condemn my behaviour:

  Brendan has got some good qualities about him. When he’s not intoxicated, he can be charming and funny and quite generous and kind. But he knows by his own admission that he doesn’t handle alcohol well, so he has got to start listening to his own advice. That is the first thing. I don’t think Brendan covered himself in glory.

  When I arrived home, I found TV news cameras and reporters camped outside my house. I ran inside, drew the curtains and didn’t leave for a few days. Alex was terribly upset that I had brought such shame on our family. She was also upset that the people surrounding our house were going to make the kids anxious. It was all my fault. At 6 pm, she tuned all the TVs in the house to the Channel 9 news so that I would have to watch the vision of myself being an idiot. I felt sick when I saw the ‘Street talk’ vision for the first time. My behaviour was disgusting. Alex felt ashamed that hundreds of thousands of people had now seen her husband acting like a lunatic.

  I knew I had to do something to counter the barrage of negative publicity, so I agreed to do an interview with the Herald Sun’s Mike Sheahan. I told him that I was really sorry for my actions, which was absolutely true.

  I don’t know what I was thinking or doing. I don’t understand how I let myself get like that, especially at such a big event. It was just behaviour that you wouldn’t expect to see from anyone, I suppose, especially a footballer at a function that’s for them. It’s embarrassing for the AFL, for me, the club, especially my family. Mate, I rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way; I don’t think I missed anyone. It was just stupid, immature behaviour, just disgraceful. When I watched it back on the news, it was like I didn’t care about anyone.

  The Footy Show decided to ban me from appearing in its pre–Grand Final show, although the producers had seen fit to air four minutes of my drunken ‘Street talk’ vision. Both Mum and Dad and their respective partners thought it was extremely hypocritical of Channel 9. Mum was particularly bitter about the whole thing. But I don’t hold a grudge against Channel 9 for what they did. A TV station is a business, and a bloke acting like an idiot never fails to attract viewers.

  On the day before the 2009 Grand Final, I was supposed to take part in a motorcade through Melbourne’s CBD because I had won the Coleman Medal. But after talking about the situation with my management, I decided to withdraw from the event and stay at home. I’m pretty sure the AFL was very relieved when I did that. They wanted people to finally start focusing on the big game between the Cats and the Saints.

  As I sat at home, it began to sink in that my Brownlow night antics had jeopardised my entire career. People from Carlton were making noises in the media about the possibility that I would be traded. Although I was the Coleman medallist and All Australian full-forward, there was a chance that if the Blues chose to get rid of me, no other club would risk picking me up. During the footy season I had been at the peak of my powers, but now, at the age of twenty-eight, I faced the possibility of being thrown out of the game.

  The public outrage about my behaviour went on for more than a week. The papers were filled with letters to the editor and the talkback radio stations discussed me at length. Most people seemed to think I needed to be taken out the back and shot.

  Carlton held its best-and-fairest count on the Monday night after the Grand Final. I chose to miss the event and instead go on a holiday to Queensland with Alex and the kids. I made that decision largely because the function was being held at Crown Casino and I didn’t want to go back there. It meant that I wasn’t able to receive, in person, my seventh consecutive award for being the club’s leading goal kicker. Alex’s dad went to the function—I think he had the table we’d booked all to himself—and he kept me in the loop about what was happening there. He sent me one text saying that every time I got a vote, people cheered. I think I ended up finishing fourth in the count. I swear they changed the votes and demoted me from the top three.

  Juddy won his second club champion award, although none of the reporters present were interested in that. All they wanted to do was ask Stephen Kernahan and Greg Swann about what the club was going to do with me. ‘Anything is possible, anything could happen,’ Sticks told them. ‘We’ll deal with Brendan in due course in a few days. We all want Fev to be there next year, but we’re just getting over what happened the other night.’

  Getting such backing from the man who was now the club’s president had me thinking that everything was going to be okay, that I was going to stay at Carlton after all. But by the end of the week, the Blues had announced that they were going to trade me. Sticks, Greg Swann and Brett Ratten had indicated they would meet with me before any decision was made, but in the end they had the discussion on their own, then rang my manager and told him I was on the market. Basically, I’d been sacked. Rumours circulated that many people at the club had wanted to keep me but that Juddy had ordered that I be given the boot. But once that rumour started to be treated as a fact by the media, Juddy rang me and assured me that it was untrue. I trusted his story. In fact, I gained even more respect for him after he did that.

  My sacking triggered a whole new reaction from the public. Hundreds more letters to various newspapers were published, like this one:

  Fev had to go. I’ve always been a huge fan but he’s a dog. He has no respect for anyone and after what he did I hope he goes to Brisbane and does his knee.

  However, there were a few letters that supported me, like this one:

  After 60 years as a loyal Blues supporter, you have now lost me, Carlton. I am sure that if Richard Pratt were still there, Fev would have got the help he needed. Fev does not deserve the persecution he has endured over the past two weeks by some in the media. And to some of the sanctimonious people at Carlton, you have selective memories.

  Trade week began only a few days after Carlton sacked me. I desperately wanted to stay at a Melbourne club. There was talk that St Kilda was interested, but I knew the Saints had no room in their salary cap. I was subsequently linked with Collingwood. I hoped and prayed that the Magpies would get a deal done. I spoke to Eddie McGuire, the club’s president, and he was really keen to get me across. Eddie had been very supportive of me in the preceding weeks, and I had done a couple of exclusive interviews on his Triple M radio show to pay him back. I was encouraged when the Magpies’ football manager, Geoff Walsh, rang me to say that he and coach Mick Malthouse were going to fly up and meet me in Queensland, where I was still holidaying. But the Carlton people soon made it clear that they didn’t want to deal with Collingwood under any circumstances, so the Magpies decided to wait for a couple of days and see how things panned out.

  A day or so into trade week, it emerged that the Brisbane Lions were very keen on me. And they knew they had the inside running because my management group, Velocity Sports, w
as based in Brisbane and was run by Lions champion Alastair Lynch and the club’s former media manager, Peter Blucher. The thought of playing for the Lions was pretty weird. A month earlier they had broken my heart. But their coach, Michael Voss, believed his ageing triple-premiership teammates Jonathan Brown and Simon Black had another flag in them. He thought that if he had me working in tandem with Browny, he’d have a team good enough to go all the way. As such, Vossy was prepared to pay a heavy price to get me. Amazingly, he offered up Daniel Bradshaw, who was not only a premiership teammate of his but had kicked the brilliant winning goal against us in an Elimination Final only a month before. Vossy was also prepared to part with talented young midfielder Michael Rischitelli. Although Bradshaw’s knee was stuffed, I thought Carlton would be prepared to do a deal that included him and Rischitelli and the Lions’ first-round draft pick.

  The negotiations progressed to the point where Bradshaw and Rischitelli both visited Princes Park to have a look at the Blues’ facilities. But the deal fell over when Rischitelli said he wanted to stay at Brisbane. At that point, I thought I might have been able to get Collingwood involved again. I rang Eddie McGuire, with whom I’d been exchanging text messages all week. I’m certain he would have loved to see me playing for Collingwood. I had known Eddie since I first worked with him on The Footy Show and I’ve still got a great relationship with him. He’s always looked out for me; he’s always been there when major things have happened in my life—not as a media person but as a mate. He’s a great man and he’s put his hand out to help me a lot of times. But even Eddie couldn’t get the Blues to do a deal with their arch-rival, so the Magpies’ football department decided to focus instead on Sydney Swans ruckman Darren Jolly and St Kilda midfielder Luke Ball.

  Amid all that, a group of 200 Carlton supporters gathered at Princes Park to protest my sacking. One man brought along a sign that said ‘Pratt Loved Fev’, while a young girl held up a sign that read ‘No Fev No Membership’. One bloke had even hung a placard around his dog’s neck. It said ‘Paw Form!!! Bring Fev Back Home!!!’ And maybe the club listened to them, as in the middle of trade week I was surprised to get a phone call from Stephen Kernahan. He wanted me to come back to the club. In that very deep voice of his, he said:

  We’re not going to trade you. Things are forgotten pretty quickly in footy. Let’s just be men about it and move on. When you kick your first goal next year it will be all forgotten.

  But it was too late. I wanted to go; I had to go. I needed a fresh start.

  With Collingwood out of the picture, I had to resign myself to the fact that I was heading north. I knew by then that Vossy would not be denied. After a flurry of phone calls, text messages and meetings, the Lions and the Blues settled on a deal, the financial side of which was too good to be true. The Lions were prepared to pay me more than Carlton had, and they were happy to give me a new three-year contract (my deal at the Blues had only two more years to run). The agreement was finalised on the Thursday, the second-last day of the trading period, and it worked out like this: I went to the Lions and in return Carlton received Lachlan Henderson, a top-ten pick in the 2007 national draft, along with Brisbane’s first-round selection in the national draft (pick 12).

  The Lions wanted Vossy and me to hold a press conference straight after the deal was done. I was still in Queensland, where I’d been planning to take the kids to the Wet’n’Wild theme park. I offered to drive up to Brisbane, but in the end the media turned up at Wet’n’Wild. It was a pretty funny setting. ‘I’m twenty-eight now, so I’ve got to grow up a little bit,’ I told the assembled press pack, before adding that I was delighted the Lions and Vossy had shown so much faith in me.

  October 2009: Brendan and Michael Voss announcing his move from Carlton to Brisbane. (AAP/Dave Hunt)

  Despite my footy career having been salvaged, for the time being at least, I was still very upset at having to leave Carlton. I had been at the club since I was seventeen. My dream of playing 200 games for the Blues, and getting my picture on the wall at Princes Park, was now over. I had played 187 games for the club—in which I’d booted 575 goals—and had fallen thirteen games short.

  The day after the trade, the front page of the Herald Sun featured the headline ‘Good Riddance’. Dad was so incensed that he cancelled his subscription with the newspaper (though he has since restarted it). However, I had no time to sit around and get angry. If I wanted to save my footy career and my reputation, I needed to get up to Brisbane and get on with my new life.

  15 ON MY OWN

  The early days in Brisbane were really positive. The weather was warm, everyone at the Lions welcomed me with open arms, and Alex and I were getting on well. By the time pre-season training got into full swing in late November, Alex and I had even bought a nice house up there. Even though she was heavily pregnant, Alex was happy to move Queensland. She thought the change of scenery would be good for me. We both knew that AFL footballers were able to fly under the radar in what is a Rugby League–dominated state, and after all we had been through, that was a major positive.

  Mia and Leni thought the warm weather and the beaches in south-east Queensland were great, and they were even happier when we welcomed another little girl into our family, Lulu, who was born just prior to Christmas. Alex gave birth back in Melbourne so she could be cared for by the obstetrician who had overseen the majority of her pregnancy. When we all returned to Brisbane, we had some funny family moments as we settled into our new surroundings. Leni, who was now nearly four, kept wanting to wear her Carlton jumper around the house and she often walked around singing the Blues’ song. She even told me one day that she thought I would play for the Lions when I was in Brisbane and for Carlton when I went to Melbourne.

  When I left the Blues, I was on good terms with just about all of my former teammates. Most of them sent me text messages in the days after the trade went through, and that helped me overcome the embarrassment I felt about my drunken antics on Brownlow night. Greg Swann also sent me a text, saying that I was welcome back at the club anytime.

  I really enjoyed my first few training sessions with the Lions. They were a great bunch of blokes and they gave me plenty of good-natured stick. When I met Luke Power—a three-time premiership player and gun midfielder—he gave me some shit about the documentary The Draft. Luke said that he still laughed about my comment that footy would be heaps better if you didn’t have to run. Jonathan Brown and I got along very well right from the start. Browny invited all the players over to his house for a barbecue not long after I arrived, which gave us all a chance to get to know each other. There were a lot of new blokes from other states because the Lions had been very busy during trade week—Xavier Clarke and Matt Maguire had come north from St Kilda, Amon Buchanan had arrived from the Sydney Swans, Andrew Raines from Richmond and Brent Staker from West Coast—and Browny had taken it upon himself to support them all as they settled into their new environment. The barbecues at his house were just one small example of why the big fella was such a brilliant captain. Even now, he remains the heart and soul of the Lions.

  As Browny and I became good mates, the newspapers started talking up the likelihood of us forming a matchwinning duo up forward. The first reason for that was obvious: we had finished first and second in the Coleman Medal the year before, kicking almost 200 goals between us. The second reason the Fevola–Brown combination seemed like such a good idea was provided by Champion Data, the official AFL statistics keeper. They released information that showed Browny usually led to the left pocket while I usually led to the right. ‘It really is the match made in heaven,’ wrote Herald Sun reporter Mark Stevens.

  That may have been true, but I knew that I had to win over the Lions supporters. Many fans were shattered when Vossy got rid of Daniel Bradshaw, who was one of their favourite players. The fact that he had been replaced by me, a bloke with a terrible reputation, made the supporters even more unhappy. With that in mind, I did heaps of school visits and hosted a lot of fo
oty clinics for youngsters. I did everything the club asked of me during our community camp on the Sunshine Coast, and the local kids, most of whom had no idea who I was, seemed to warm to me. A couple of times I did some things on the spur of the moment that endeared me to the young Lions supporters. At one clinic I hosted, a boy was standing next to our merchandise stand, looking at the Brisbane guernseys on display. He desperately wanted one but he had no money. I really felt for him, so I bought him a jumper. He thought it was Christmas and his parents thought I was a legend.

  I played my first game for the Lions, wearing number 5, when we took on the Western Bulldogs in a NAB Cup match in Canberra. Torrential rain had fallen the night before the match, which meant that Manuka Oval was covered in water. I booted the first goal of the game, but the conditions, combined with some close attention from Dogs defenders Dale Morris and Brian Lake, meant I had few other chances to get among the scorers. We lost by 8 points, which resulted in us hitting the practice-match circuit.

  Seeking to spice up the pre-season a bit, the AFL scheduled us to play Carlton at Princes Park on a Saturday afternoon. I was really keen to play because I wanted to get my first game against the Blues out of the way. The match was built up in the papers like some sort of grand final, with one story suggesting that Carlton had to order in extra food to cater for the big crowd that was expected to attend. In the end, around 10,000 fans came along, with plenty of kids wearing the number 25 on their backs. I was really nervous before the game started. I wondered how the crowd would react when I went near the ball. As it turned out, about half of the Carlton fans booed me and half of them cheered. I played mostly on Michael Jamison. I kicked two goals, spat the dummy a few times, then shook the hands of all my old teammates once the contest was over (we lost by a couple of goals). It was a strange old day. Although I was enjoying life in Brisbane, there were moments while I was in Melbourne when I wished I was back at the Blues, preparing for another assault on the finals.