Seeing as we're all seemingly prone to doing a Bruce McAvaney in Barcelona on these sort of things and listing every bloke since Bob Chitty to play for us as being a reasonable sort of bloke....who've you met that you've thought "Yep, ripper bloke."
From when I was a kid attending the coaching clinics and what not during the school holidays, toss up between Ang and Brad Pearce. Ang was great with kids, always had time for them, and a really enthusiastic bloke. Pearcey, well, the bloke always had time to sign just about every piece of paper/photograph/memorabilia/trading card that I had of him, which was an absolute shitload.
Being a bit older, one of the most decent people I ever encountered was Callum Chambers. Was really gutted that he didn't make it. I remember when I was working for Foxtel, and I remember him somehow getting through to my department, wanting to send back his Foxtel box before they sent the debt collectors after him, although the thing was still in Perth, and he'd just got down to Victoria for pre-season training. So of course, knowing who he was/is, I'm trying to remove every debt/red light on his account possible, and halfway through the call, I get this "Oh shit,....oh shit! Just hold the line, mate. I'll be right back!", and I'm sitting on the end of the line, listening to what sounds like a massive scuffle going on, shitting myself thinking that the new recruit is going to get himself put in hospital before the season starts. Few minutes later, Callum gets back on the phone out of breath...
"Sorry mate, I'm in a back alleyway in Lygon st on my mobile, some junkie's just pulled a knife on this other bloke, was getting a bit hairy there."
Took me about 2 minutes to close my mouth and before I could reply with anything. "That's insane." was hardly the most insightful thing I could have ever came up with, but why it never made the papers that a Carlton footballer broke up a scuffle with a knife weilding assailant is so indictive to how shit our PR was at the time.
Shit, I miss Parko too. No wonder we did so shite in 1997, he spent most of the pre-season camp at Sorrento helping me with my homework.
