Chapter 12
BAD GUY
HAMMER
The way I get reamed, you’d think I’d murdered football itself.
After my shitshow interview on Fox Footy, Tessa bundled me onto the flight back to Perth and ordered me not to make any further comments, no social posts, no doubling-downs, no apologies, no interviews.
Then Roo pulled me aside at the airport lounge and told me the same, but with double the swear words. ‘Fucken lie doggo until the club works with you on a statement,’ he growls. ‘Do not make this fucken worse. You’ve let the whole fucken club down.’
By the time we land in Perth, my socials are lit up like a Christmas tree.
I got notifications streaming out my arse.
Mostly people slamming the living snot out of me for being a homophobe.
A smaller chunk of people are praising me for not being afraid to speak my mind; instead, they slam the AFL for being deviants and ‘groomers’ for supporting Pride.
Some footy journos DM me asking for comment, a chance to ‘tell my side of the story’, which I ignore.
I have seven missed calls from Wookie. While I’m waiting with Tank and Kingy at the baggage carousel, he calls an eighth time, and I answer.
Wookie blasts me even harder than Roo did.
‘This’ll blow over, won’t it?’ I ask when he eventually takes a breath.
Wookie laughs. ‘Blow over? You’re kidding?
The alphabet people are batshit insane and out for blood whenever someone like you says something like this.
You’re gonna have to do the full humiliation ritual.
Apology video, mandatory diversity training, shitty photo op.
We have a contract renegotiation for you in six months, and you just made your value plummet.
Do not say a single thing on social media. Do not make this worse.’
When Wookie hangs up, Tank and Kingy clap me on the back. Everyone’s phones are pinging now we’re off flight mode, and the news has raced through the playing group.
‘Proud of you, bro,’ Tank says. ‘You stuck to your guns. You fired back. Legend.’
That day is a conflicting mess of people both yelling at me and praising me.
Dad calls and tells me he’s glad I stood up to the AFL’s woke agenda, then says to keep my head down from now on cos it’s not worth losing my career over. ‘Play the game, son.’
Mum calls and tells me to take care of myself and not let the trolls get to me.
Doug messages me. Told you not to kick the hornet’s nest, fuckwit!
Even Richelle pops up. Hey, I know u didn’t really mean to be offensive babes, but I warned u: u can’t really say stuff like this anymore.
Get the club to do an apology for u, then lie low for a bit.
I know some PR crisis management people in Melbs if u want their deets.
Hope ur holding up ok, DM me if u need xx
Most people online hate me, but lots are rushing to my defence. It’s the same tug-of-war you see in the media every day. I just happen to be today’s rope.
The weirdest thing is the temporary relief I feel. People are so convinced I’m homophobic, nobody suspects I’m into guys.
But I have this sense the relief won’t last. I keep deleting my DMs in bulk, but I’m still scanning them first, waiting for the anonymous account to message me again.
I’m sure he will, and he’s the only one who could make this worse.
I get yanked out of training on Tuesday to meet with the club CEO, Roo, Wookie and Tessa.
The club already released a swift, cautiously worded statement soon after my interview, reaffirming its commitment to inclusion, diversity and the Pride Round. The lack of an apology from me led to that statement being torn to shreds in the media.
Roo tells me the AFL has delegated this matter to the club to sort out, rather than suggesting any league-level fines or suspensions should apply. Phew.
‘Right decision,’ Wookie booms. ‘The AFL doesn’t need to get involved. Hammer was expressing a personal opinion, off-field, without any slurs or hate. Not a crime or a sanctionable offence. In my playing days, we had a term for that: free speech.’
‘My view is Hammer should make a public apology, and show his contrition by playing in the Pride Game and wearing the Pride Guernsey,’ Roo says. ‘However, the club board has taken a different stance.’
‘We feel the optics of having Kade play in the Pride Round will cause another wave of hurt to the LGBTQIA+ community, given his stance,’ the club CEO explains to me and Wookie.
‘We have made the decision to avoid the issue flaring up further. Kade will be managed out of the team for next week’s Pride Game. ’
The fuck.
‘You what?’ Wookie roars. ‘Wrong fucking decision! Have you forgotten you’re a pro football team? That you’re playing in a competitive league? For fucking points? You can’t voluntarily wipe your full-forward out of selection for this rubbish! Has all common sense left this sport?’
‘Kade’s comments, made while representing the club in the media, have caused harm to the club’s reputation at a delicate time when we were relaunching our diversity and inclusion campaign,’ the CEO says.
‘It’s sheer luck we don’t have a game this weekend because of our bye from that opening round debacle, so Kade will thankfully be kept out of the spotlight.
He only has to sit out one game next week, and he should count himself lucky that it’s only one game.
Perhaps, as a key forward, Kade thought his value to the team meant he was above the law.
This might serve as a good reminder he isn’t. ’
Roo’s arms are folded over his polo shirt.
I can tell he’s pissed to lose a key player for a game, but his hands are tied.
I feel genuinely bad now. I’m letting the team down.
I won’t be able to help win against Sydney.
I’ve been in trouble before, but never anything like this, where the club itself seems to hate me.
Pretty shit that trying to protect my career ended up with me torching it.
‘Even with the bye, and the susp—er – being managed next week, you’ll still need to supply a public apology,’ Tessa says, holding up her phone. ‘We can record it now.’
‘My client will need time to prepare a statement,’ Wookie intervenes.
‘We’ve written one already,’ Tessa says, sliding a piece of paper across the table.
Wookie immediately gets out a pen and starts taking out his aggression at this situation by vigorously crossing words out for me.
‘Fine, I’ll apologise,’ I say hoarsely. ‘But I’m still not wearing the Pride Jumper.’
‘Fucksakes, Hammer, know when to shut your mouth,’ Wookie mutters.
Tessa records me speaking for fifty-nine seconds. I say all the stuff every homophobe has to say in a public apology video, including the phrases ‘listen and learn’ and ‘educate myself’, and excluding the word ‘sorry’.
Thanks to Wookie, I don’t have to say I’ll commit to wearing the Pride Guernsey in next year’s Pride Game. I just say, ‘I apologise for any hurt I caused – it was never my intention to upset anyone.’
Which is true. I wasn’t trying to upset anyone. I was trying to say I personally don’t want to be forced to wear a rainbow, ever.
And I’d say it again, no matter who it offends.
Wednesday’s training ends up being called off due to a protest against me; my apology video hasn’t gone out yet.
Tessa arranges for me to be visibly whisked away by a club staffer and escorted by the cops, in the hopes this will dissolve the protest and make the losers go home.
When I’m walked out the front of the club, I see them all gathered on the grass. There’s a collective boo as I appear, then angry shouting and chanting through a megaphone. My sense of hearing fuzzes out once I see a familiar face in the protest crowd.
It’s him. Charlie Goth. Skinny little emo bitch with not a pound of muscle on him. Right there at the front of the pack of protestors.
I knew it. He sent those DMs. He’s using what he knows to torture me. Probably thinks he’s getting me back for how I treated him at school.
‘You …’ I start to say, but then I get shunted into the car and lose sight of him.
As the car speeds away, I peer behind me through the tinted windows. Charlie is in a black band T-shirt watching me leave. Unlike the other protestors, he’s not shouting, just watching. Does he feel bad for me, because he knows the truth?
Or is he gonna send me another DM tonight?
When I get home, I do the one thing I never do during footy season.
I crack open a bottle of hard liquor – Jack Daniel’s – and pour a triple serve into a big CU in the NT pint glass I got on a footy trip to Darwin.
I splash full-sugar Coke on top and knock the entire thing back in one go.
Forget my physique. Forget discipline. Forget everything.
I pour another drink and take it out on the balcony to look out over the Perth CBD skyscrapers and the Swan River. It’s glistening in the arvo sun, which is nice until it becomes too bright and hurts my eyes.
I try not to look at my socials, but after a few drinks it’s hard to resist. There’s a pulsating artery of hatred out there and my name is its lifeblood. I need to know what’s being said about me, how bad it is.
It’s pretty fucken bad.
Firstly, my apology video has dropped via the club’s social accounts, with the comments turned off, but people are sharing it everywhere and tagging me in their posts.
The apology seems to not be enough; everyone’s now demanding why it took so many days for me to say it, and dissecting every part of it as being insincere.
What do they expect when you’re forced to say stuff you don’t believe with a gun to your head?
Some famous dude called Xander Sullivan makes an angry video ‘calling me out’. It’s got tens of thousands of likes. The commenters hate me.
Lots of activists and journalists – and even a few fellow players – have tagged me in similar posts. One St Kilda player denounces me. That post has a lot of aggro comments about how I’m a grub who should be sacked.
There are also people gently defending me. Some more old-school footy journos, some Liberal Party MPs. They say free speech has been attacked, the AFL is too woke, and I am an innocent victim of hardcore activists.
Then there are some others who are fiery in my defence, full-on standing up for me.
I feel better each time I see one like this, but worse when I check their feed and it’s extreme posts about Christian values being under siege from sodomites.
Cooked cunts. The only people left supporting me would burn me at the stake if they knew the truth.
I focus on my DMs instead.
Tank messages me and Kingy in our group chat: Bro these protestors are a legit bunch of unfuckables. Sorry they’re coming after ya. It’ll blow over.
Kingy adds: I told my manager I wanna boycott the pride jumper too, but my contract is under negotiation so we can’t risk it. But good on ya man. Sniper’s pissed at u tho.
I send a message to Sniper. Sorry skip. Never wanted to hurt the team.
Sniper leaves me on read for ten minutes, then comes back with: You got some real growing up to do. Selfish prick.
I tap back into Insta. Oshy’s posted a new photo of himself. It’s professionally taken by the club photographer, with the Pride Guernsey tight over his pecs. His arms, compact and bronzed, are folded over his chest in a classic footy player pose.
His caption reads:
Such an honour to play in our inaugural Pride Round match next weekend.
Thank you to our LGBTQIA+ supporters for your bravery and resilience.
I know I speak for a lot of the boys when I say if there was a gay man in our playing group, he would be welcomed with open arms. #nothingbutlove #loveislove #AFLPrideRound #inclusion
And.
Everyone.
Fucken.
Loves.
Him.
For.
It.
When we were in high school, at recess and lunch we would blow up our juice boxes and stomp on them in the middle of the quad, making them go BOOM, leaving the juice boxes flattened and blown apart and making everyone else in the quad yip.
Oshy’s post is a boot, and my brain is a juice box.
A lot of mean things have been said about me, and maybe I deserve them, but Oshy’s post is what ruins me.
I made a decision a long time ago to protect my footy career. Now that decision has set fire to my career anyway. Worse, some new kid has come in, done what I’ve spent my whole life denying myself, and got love and acclaim for it.
BOOM. My brain is splattered all over the balcony. Does not compute.
I go into a trance.
I walk into my bathroom, grab my clippers and run them straight over my head. Chunks of blond hair fall to the bathroom tiles. I shave until I’ve given myself a complete buzz cut. It makes me look like a robber or a drug addict.
I take off my shirt and shave my chest clean.
I take off my pants and shave off my pubes.
‘No matter what I do, everyone hates me,’ I tell my reflection.
I was told by the club not to post anything until the apology video went out. It’s out now, so that rule doesn’t apply anymore, right?
I take a selfie of my new buzz cut, flipping the camera off with my middle finger, and post it to my Insta stories saying: NO RAGRETS.
Biggest lie I’ve ever told.
DM #3
No ‘ragrets’, Big Dog?
I can think of one big-arse regret you SHOULD have. Imagine letting your club lose a player instead of growing a pair and coming out. Ur hypocrisy is worse than ur bigotry.
A one-game suspension isn’t enough. Your pathetic non-apology video isn’t enough either.
You need to tell the truth in public, so everyone knows what u really are.
Your Worst Nightmare