I don’t know how many of you know this, but in my everyday life I somehow regularly have run-ins with AFL players from many clubs. Dunno why, perhaps it was the way Buddha designed the universe. I tend to keep quiet about it because the majority of the encounters are not that remarkable, but are nonetheless quite irritating. Given the season is about to start, I thought I might start sharing some of these stories about players that Essendon are about to play against, just in case you needed any more reason to dislike the opposition.
So, first one…
I was on a flight a while back when Adam Tomlinson was seated next to me. He was nice enough to introduce himself but still had his headphones on so was just shouting at me. I was going to ask him what he was listening too but saw the severed and frayed cord hanging off his headphones so just let it be (later on I realised that the Beats logo clearly drawn on with whiteout should have been an even bigger giveaway). When they did the first PA announcement with the whole “this is captain Leonard Dwyer” or whatever, can’t remember his first name, Adam let out a massive “UUUUUGGHHHH NOT CAPTAIN DWYER, THIS GUY’S THE WORST” before looking around to see if anyone laughed at that. No one did, so he yelled it again even louder. Still no one laughed, so he sulked for a bit. He then put on an episode of that old cartoon Bangers & Mash on his phone at full volume and laughed like a maniac for the entire duration. He then immediately fell into a deep sleep for the rest of the flight, until the landing when he woke up clapping and cheering and singing the national anthem but getting every single word wrong.
I was in a shoe store once and Heath Shaw was there at the same time. He was holding up the shoe (a left-foot Adidas trainer) that was on display and I heard him ask the shop assistant if he could get a discount if he bought the right-foot shoe as well.
All of mine are either very very boring or libellous.
Oh except I kinda know (through a mutual friend) Cam Petersen from Melb/Nth. First time I met him he tagged along to a function for a mate after the Box Hill B&F, within about 2 minutes of getting to the pub he and our mutual friend had shouted everyone shots, stolen some girl’s hat, taken off his pants and started doing the worm on the D floor.
Circa 1997 I worked in a Safeway, a strung out Darren Gaspar approaches me wondering where the rat traps are. There were none in store, checked out the back, none there either. Apologised to him and he departed even more strung out.
Not an opposition player, but…
Tony Elshaugh ran a training session for us when i was in junior footy.
Very good of him.
He started by asking us who our favourite player was. There were a lot of us.
And he kept asking, one by one.
The unspoken thought we had after he got past about a dozen of us was…‘He’s waiting for one of us to say him.’
It was very awkward.
What did you slip him Simmo?