Hawthorn great and media commentator Dermott Brereton has graphically described how he cannot put his shoes and socks on, and struggles to walk down stairs or shake hands on some days, due to the severe physical toll of playing football.
In a powerful speech at the Melbourne Cricket Club, Brereton, who played in a famously combative style, detailed how his present life was impacted by injuries, how he struggled to sleep due to shoulder pain and that he was still feeling the impact of taking anti-inflammatory medications for four decades.
“Some mornings my beautiful partner Julie has to put on my shoes and socks for me. With the pain in my spine, where they put in a cage inserted there, I can’t reach. I just can’t put on socks and shoes,” Brereton, a five-time premiership centre half-forward for Hawthorn and one of the AFL’s most visible commentators, told the function at the MCC dining room.
Dermott Brereton’s 1980s battles with Essendon are the stuff of football legend.Credit: AFL Photos
“Some days I have to walk down the stairs sideways because I haven’t any cartilage – bone on bone, that is – for 40 years,” Brereton said in his “Ode to football” for the Norm Smith Oration at the MCG.
“Some days I can’t shake hands with other men, and if they do so, I fear they’ll re-open some of the broken bones in my hands from defenders’ spoils and from when [an opponent] jumped on my hand deliberately.
“Some days I have to crab my way down the stairs because my often half-a-dozen times reconstructed ankle will not flex any more.”
Brereton’s description of his physical ailments came in the final minutes of a speech – a mix of humour and pathos – in which he detailed his journey as the son of immigrants in Frankston to footy stardom as Hawthorn’s centre half-forward.
Tim Watson’s Essendon and Brereton’s Hawthorn had a unique rivalry.Credit: John Woudstra
He was followed by another champion of that era, Tim Watson, whose light-hearted recollections were highlighted by humorous accounts of his recruitment by Essendon, his family in Dimboola and the eccentricities of legendary coach Kevin Sheedy.
“To be honest with you, Tim, Essendon and our [mid-’80s] battles took you to the edge of safety, and, for me, that is always where you get the best view of life,” Brereton said.
The Hawks legend explained his use of anti-inflammatory medications thus: “Some days I double up from rancid heartburn from the endless dosages of – remember [Indocin]… Timmy, that used to rip the guts out of you, Brufen, Voltaren, all taken for over 40 years,” Brereton said.
“Some nights I sleep very little because of the arthritis in my shoulder joints. That’s from decades of lifting as heavy weights as I could, purely because the position I played required it.
A scene from the famous brawl in the 1985 grand final between Hawthorn and Essendon.Credit: Fairfax Photographic
“Some mornings, I pathetically allow myself to become melancholy and even teary over the degeneration and the physical toll that football has taken on my body.”
Brereton said he had often questioned himself on whether, given the toll on his body, if his career had been worth the price.
“I often ask myself, in that moment of true misery, when I can’t move, that moment of weakness, I’ll ask myself – was it worth it?
“And the answer’s always the same. I’d do it all over again, exactly the same again. Maybe next time, though in the next lifetime, I might go a little harder.”
Brereton told of how he had regularly been treated with epidurals at the height of his playing career.
“[In the years] ’86-87, ’88-89, those 22-game seasons, three times a year, on average, after a game on a Saturday, on a Sunday morning I’d go to Vimy House, I’d have an epidural at 8am and lie in bed until four, then the cab would come and pick me up and take me home. And I kept doing it.”
Brereton had said that football had given him so much – discipline, “A lifetime of employment, it’s given me a small dose of fame, occasionally given me romance. It’s given me a small amount of wealth – that’s gone, I know where it went, actually.
“It has given me great friendships. It’s given me my life’s greatest mentor – Allan [Jeans, his Hawthorn coach]. And it has given me a purpose.
“But it’s also taken away something very dear to me.”
Watson’s speech drew constant laughter, as when the Bomber great recounted how he left Dimboola for Melbourne, aged 15, after Essendon officials assured his mother that he would be housed by a church-going, non-drinking, non-smoking family in Niddrie.
“We went about two miles, [chairman of selectors] Teddy Fordham went to the boot, got an esky out, each of them had a can, [and] Teddy lit up a cigar. Then, I heard [official] Kevin Egan say to the other two, ‘Where’s the little prick going to stay?’”
Brereton’s revelations about his physical struggles are in line with La Trobe University research – cited by the AFL Players’ Association – that 76 per cent of past players had experienced serious injuries in football while 64 per cent of those who reported serious injuries are still affected in daily life.
Since 2017, more than 1150 past V/AFL and AFLW players have been reimbursed for costs from joint surgeries and dental injuries.
