BULLETPROOF?

What a difference a week makes. This time last Friday it was Footy Fever time. The Cats trying to bring the Premier’s Cup home to Geelong after a 44 –year famine. And the Melbourne Storm trying to nullify last year’s crashing disappointment when the minor premier’s lost the Grand Final to the Brisbane Broncos.

Both were successful. But in the euphoric aftermath came the news that shocked the sporting world. West Coast Eagles championship player Christ Mainwaring was dead. Seemingly from an overdose of legal or illegal drugs. Although, unless the Coroner holds an inquest and releases a toxicology report we may never know. Also overnight came news that Mainwaring was being sued by a former friend over a $3 million property deal.

With the mention of illegal drugs ( by Mainwaring’s own father) the murky netherworld, the ugly side of football, was in the spotlight again.

One shocked former Eagles player said: ‘The bloke seemed bullet-proof’.

It could well have been Chris Mainwaring’s epitaph.

That was the problem with the West Coast Eagles. Like the American eagle they were not only seemingly bullet-proof – they were a protected species.

Illegal drugs, booze buses, associating with drug dealers and bikie gang heavies. The rules didn’t apply to them. And now one of them was dead.

Actually the quote that sticks in my mind about a lot of sportsmen comes from the 1947 novel Knock on Any Door. ‘Live fast, die young and have a good looking corpse’. It applied to Darren Millane, David Hookes and now Chris Mainwaring.

In Mainwaring’s case there were drugs involved – cannabis and ecstasy tablets he told medics when they first visited his home Sunday night – and when they returned about an hour later he was unconscious and near death.

Once again the name Ben Cousins features in the mix. He was with Mainwaring at times in the hours before he died. Apparently Mainwaring had been there to support Cousins as HIS drug-crazed life and career spun out of control.

It’s fair to speculate if things would have been different for Mainwaring and Cousins -- and other West Coast players that the club finally admitted were illegal drug users-- if the club administrators had not played ostriches for so longer. If the media had been tougher on the footy heroes. If the Police had been tougher. The club (not our problem, if there is in fact a problem). The media (everybody knows about Benny and Mainy and drunken Duncan, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. They’re just footy’s bad boys). And the Police (quietly drive them home and let them sleep it off. No real harm done).

Remember when Chad Fletcher nearly died in a Las Vegas hospital after some sort of booze and/or drugs binge trip following last year’s Grand Final. He flat-lined in hospital.

The club said it was a private trip and nothing to do with them.  Daniel Kerr was caught on Police tapes chatting to a known drug dealer. He was caught forging a drug prescription several years ago and faced several drunken assault charges against a taxi driver and at a party.

Aaron Edwards, now at North Melbourne, was caught in phone taps talking to a drug dealer. Michael Gardiner socialised with a convicted heroin trafficked and allegedly bought illegal drugs. The ones they call ‘recreational drugs’. He wrapped his car around a light pole while pissed last year.  He and Cousins refused to answer questions about a nightclub brawl and conversations they had with the man who fired a gun.

The last time Mainwaring appeared on Channel Seven in Perth to read the sports news he was slow, stumbling, and slurring. The station sent him on leave. That was September 22. A week later he was dead.

Mick Malthouse in a column this week that would have been hard to write described the talented footballer he had coached as ‘a jolly rogue’ and it was well-known ‘he was no angel’.

Dennis Cometti knew him well. He said ‘I always found him a terrific young fellow’.

They seem to forget he was a 41-year-old man. Married with two kids. Eventually you have to take responsibility for your own life. And realise that you are not bullet-proof. No matter what the myth-makers say.

Friday, October 5, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007