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ALLEN had no choice either. He was in his second year, had signed a new three-year deal and been called up for St Kilda's 2008 semi-final against Collingwood when he was hurt. He can picture it all: where he led, how Robert Harvey looked for him, how suddenly the boundary line appeared, how, after landing at first on his right leg, his left didn't bend, the force rushing up his leg. In that moment, he fractured his hip socket and shredded almost all the cartilage lining it.
For almost a year he tried to get back. He spent weeks on crutches. He learnt about how all the little muscles around his hip worked. He started running in straight lines and felt good, like the impossible was going to happen.
Then he woke up one morning in pain, and needed a third operation. Allen was drifting in and out of sleep when the surgeon came to see him but knew what he was saying: no new cartilage had been generated; that if it were him, he would never play football again.
Welcome litle Mikayla
STARTING out in landscaping is hard, especially when you have a bad hip. Allen might go back to it one day, when he's ready to start his own business, but for the past six months he has been working for his older brother, driving excavators around building sites. He wants to help his new hip last, and needed a change anyway. He's an assistant coach at St Mary's Salesian, an amateur side, but what really got him through his darkest times was the birth last year of his daughter, Mikayla.
''She's changed my life,'' he said. ''Even waiting for her changed me. She gave me something to look forward to. On the weekends when I finished, I wasn't really doing anything. I was sitting around, and when your weekends have always been about playing footy and then you stop and there's nothing, it was something I found hard and my motivation wasn't there, for anything. So she helped. She took me forward a bit. I started to see the positives.''
What is really dissapointing reading that article is reading this:
What didn't help was the trouble he then had with St Kilda: bills that weren't paid until Allen starting receiving legal letters and had to chase the club up two or three times; calls that came only after his own lawyers requested his medical files and began looking into whether he had a case against the Saints.
Technically he was still a St Kilda player in 2010, having agreed to be on the rookie list to help the club manage its salary cap and his final payment. But the only person who called to check on his surgery was the club doctor. The rehab left him out of pocket more than $5000 and he couldn't help but feel bitter.
''I think it just made a pretty bad time in my life worse. That's all. I don't want to name names, but at that time the last thing I needed was to be getting letters from lawyers about bills that weren't paid,'' he said. ''It just felt a bit harsh to me and it was a bad experience, but I look back and that's just footy. While you're there, they care and they'd do anything for you, but then you're of no use. I'm still out of pocket a fair bit, but it's more the feeling that no one really cared or even wanted to know about it.''
Surely the clubs not that ruthless? The guys was a player (had talent I thought too). Dont like hearing that.
I'd be interested in hearing the club's response to this. On face value he's been treated very poorly, and frankly I expect better of my club than that.
On the radio in Perth Tim Gosich interviewed Emma and she elaborated on this some more .. Basically the club once they found out he was done and dusted as a player forgot he existed making life hard for him .. In contrast the young Collingwood boy was very well looked after with the Pies giving him a job at the club to keep him involved ( they had him as the runner in the G/F )
It's storys like this that I feel sick about our club .. It doesn't cost anything to treat people decently yes it's a cut throat industry but a bit of care compassion and support go's a long way ..
"The team that wins in the most positions and makes the least amount of mistakes, usually wins the game." -- Allan Jeans
"I think, 'You kick a footy mate, you kick a footy. It's not like you've got a cure for cancer. You kick a footy, stop thinking you are so special'." - Samantha Black
It's embarrassing whatever the club's side of the story is. Agree with other posters. No matter how much we despise them, it wouldn't happen at Collongwood.
Wonder whether Roo gets treated the same when his knee has finally had enough.
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"Don't argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
st_Trav_ofWA wrote:It's storys like this that I feel sick about our club .. It doesn't cost anything to treat people decently yes it's a cut throat industry but a bit of care compassion and support go's a long way ..
i reckon this one might be not so much about lack of compassion, but good ol' fashioned incompetence.
I think it is a lot about lack of compassion Emma said in the interveiw the only person from the club to contact or vist him while in recovery (while he was still listed) was the club doctor ... I mean come on you can't tell me the CEO , the coach , the captain can't take 5 mins to pick up the phone and say how's things going ... Good thing is the club has come out promoting the new mental health program being run at the club helping the players recognise if their team mates are in a bit of a bad olde mentally .. Sadly for Allen it's come too late , I would imagine he would have been struggling during that time , finding out your dream is over in pain from the injury having uncertainty about the future , out of pocket financially ... The club should have been in constant contact with him not just dropping and running ...
"The team that wins in the most positions and makes the least amount of mistakes, usually wins the game." -- Allan Jeans
It a real negative from our club. At Auskick in the last 2 years we had Cloke, Pendles, Reid and Goldsack, the Pies send out elite talent the Saints sent some info about a clinic with some Sandy players that the kids didn't know. The difference in what they put back is why they build their brand and bad publicity from incidents like this mean we will lose the extended family of Jarred allen and potentially more from word of mouth.
gringo wrote:It a real negative from our club. At Auskick in the last 2 years we had Cloke, Pendles, Reid and Goldsack, the Pies send out elite talent the Saints sent some info about a clinic with some Sandy players that the kids didn't know. The difference in what they put back is why they build their brand and bad publicity from incidents like this mean we will lose the extended family of Jarred allen and potentially more from word of mouth.
Teflon wrote:What is really dissapointing reading that article is reading this:
What didn't help was the trouble he then had with St Kilda: bills that weren't paid until Allen starting receiving legal letters and had to chase the club up two or three times; calls that came only after his own lawyers requested his medical files and began looking into whether he had a case against the Saints.
Technically he was still a St Kilda player in 2010, having agreed to be on the rookie list to help the club manage its salary cap and his final payment. But the only person who called to check on his surgery was the club doctor. The rehab left him out of pocket more than $5000 and he couldn't help but feel bitter.
''I think it just made a pretty bad time in my life worse. That's all. I don't want to name names, but at that time the last thing I needed was to be getting letters from lawyers about bills that weren't paid,'' he said. ''It just felt a bit harsh to me and it was a bad experience, but I look back and that's just footy. While you're there, they care and they'd do anything for you, but then you're of no use. I'm still out of pocket a fair bit, but it's more the feeling that no one really cared or even wanted to know about it.''
Surely the clubs not that ruthless? The guys was a player (had talent I thought too). Dont like hearing that.
glad he's got lawyers....i'd sue
.everybody still loves lenny....and we always will
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