back from the brink
JORDAN DE GOEY was in hot water. Again. Less than 12 months earlier, the highly rated Collingwood youngster lied to the club about how he broke his hand, telling club officials it happened while he was playing with his dog. Star Collingwood player turned coach Nathan Buckley told reporters “you won’t believe me” when recounting the false story about how De Goey “caught his hand on the edge of a door”. Buckley was yet to know, but this was pure fiction. De Goey eventually came clean about a bar fight and was hit with a three-week suspension, to be served after his injury had healed, and fined $5,000.
It was after this incident that Salvation Army Major Brendan Nottle would first encounter De Goey, a young man who immediately struck him as “a pretty grounded, down-to-earth sort of guy that wasn’t really affected by the whole AFL bubble”.
“We’ve seen different players come through and you get this sense that they’re really affected by it, but he wasn’t. He’s very relaxed … and very engaging with people,” Major Nottle tells Inside Sport. An eight-week stint helping the Salvation Army at its Magpie Nest Cafe on Melbourne’s Bourke Street – an establishment that provides free meals to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness – struck a chord with De Goey, so much so that he remained involved after the terms of his suspension ended in 2017.
“THE IMPLICATION WAS CLEAR.DE GOEY WAS WELL AND TRULY IN THE LAST CHANCE SALOON.”
More trouble was around
