Tom Bellchambers originally told his manager he was quitting football before returning to Essendon
LAUREN WOOD, Herald Sun
November 27, 2016 7:00pm
TOM Bellchambers picked up the phone and quit.
No more AFL. No more life as a Bomber.
Emotion got the better of him — he’d played just 18 games in 18 months and then been slapped with a doping ban that would sideline him for the entire 2016 season.
The ruckman weighed it up. He had endured his fair share of injuries. He hadn’t played since Round 10, 2015 and certainly wasn’t harbouring the love for the game he once had.
And then once the ban came, how close did he come to walking away?
As it turns out, pretty close.
“I rang my manager and told him I definitely wasn’t coming back,” Bellchambers says.
“So I guess I got pretty close.
“He was the one who told me not to make decisions when I’m emotional. So I’m here, but I was pretty close to pulling the pin (on football).”
It wasn’t until he mapped out the year — a bit of travel, an operation on his troublesome ankle and then some training — that he realised that a return to football wasn’t entirely out of the question.
But first, there was dealing with the ban.
Bellchambers and 33 of his past and present teammates — including captain and good mate Jobe Watson — will never forget January 12, 2016.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport deemed it was “comfortably satisfied” that the players had been administered banned substance thymosin beta-4 during 2012.
Not that the ruckman and his fellow Bombers ever thought a season on the sidelines was even in the vicinity of what they would be hit with.
So when it came, it hit Bellchambers like a tonne of bricks and forced him to question his football future.
“It was a bit of a struggle early on for me,” the 27-year-old admits.
“For the first couple of months, everyone was really emotional when it first happened. I had to really consider my options and whether I was going to come back and play football again or (retire).
“Having only playing 17 games in the previous two years, I’d almost lost the enjoyment and the fun out of football. Being in rehab and being injured, you don’t really enjoy yourself that much.
“I definitely wasn’t enjoying my football as much as I would have liked and as much as I did early on in my career. I had to make that decision early on.
“I was fairly emotional and the thoughts go through your head that ‘nah, that’s it, I’m done with football’. I had that pretty good advice never to make decisions when you’re emotional, so I took my time and made the decision — with the help of a lot of other people — to come back to the footy club which I’m really excited about.”
Having shrugged off the doubt, he signed a contract extension in June that sees him through until the end of 2018.
Soon after, he shipped out abroad with a crew of his teammates including housemate and Bombers swingman Cale Hooker for stops including New York, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Croatian paradise Split, party mecca Ibiza and later, a stint in Bali.
Getting away helped — who would say no to a European summer? Especially after years of slogging it out in Melbourne winters. You can’t exactly take mid-year leave as a footballer.
But it’s the company of Hooker that Bellchambers credits with dragging him out of the mire.
“Having him there made it a hell of a lot easier for me,” he says.
“That’s probably another reason why it made it easier to come back to the football club.
“If I didn’t have Cale there, it would have been that I felt like I was on my own a lot more and to have him there and to help each other through the tough times definitely made it a lot easier.”
The feeling is a mutual one.
Hooker, who fielded offers from as many as five other clubs before re-committing, said it was “healthy” to share the experience.
“We all knew what we had been through so it made it a bit easier to talk to each other,” he recently told the Herald Sun.
Now that the ban is behind them, attention has quickly turned to 2017.
The “comeback story”, as it has been dubbed by the club, has begun, though Bellchambers knows his work is cut out.
If he lines up in Round 1 against Hawthorn, it will be 658 days since his last appearance at AFL level.
Since then, Matthew Leuenberger has held down rucking duties in fashion that has left Bellchambers feeling like he has plenty to prove.
“I have to earn my position back,” he says.
“I’m the first one to admit that 2014 and ‘15 weren’t great years from an injury and form point of view. It’s really up to me to have a solid preseason and work out where fits best for me in the team, whether that be as the first ruckman or as a forward and helping Leuey out in the ruck.
“I’m really keen to start a relationship with Leuey in the ruck and get a good bond going there. I think 2013 was probably my most successful year when I played more up forward, so for me to have that ability to mark and kick goals is going to be crucial for me to slot into the team.”
He’s trimmed down, though not through actively trying, saying finally being able to get more kilometres in his legs after ankle surgery and not hitting the weights nearly every day at the club has had its effects.
“It’s nice to be going into a preseason feeling good,” he says.
“It’s been a long wait for me.
“To be back at the football club now and be able to mentally freshen up and physically freshen up I’m really excited to be back. It almost felt like my first day at school, walking into the football club again.
“It’s very exciting and I’m really optimistic.”
The ruckman admits to be back into the routine of driving from Port Melbourne to Tullamarine each day, sitting in meetings and hitting the track with his mates is “a bit weird”.
While he says the suspension provided an opportunity to freshen up mentally and physically, he is enjoying feeling the excitement build as he anticipates the long-awaited return to football.
And, most importantly, enjoying it again.
“The younger guys progressed really well last year and in coming back to training in the last couple of weeks, you could feel out on the track how much they’ve progressed,” Bellchambers says.
“Guys like Orazio Fantasia, Zach Merrett, Kyle Langford — they’ve really come on in leaps and bounds in that year which is really pleasing.
“There is a really good feeling amongst the club at the moment and we need to keep that going. We need to take that on into 2017, have a really strong preseason and get excited about football.”
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