Football Heros and Cheats

In my twenties, I was not such a nice young man. In fact, I was a right bastard. I had little respect for others and even less for myself, and I did many things that I look back on and cringe.

But, if any of it was changed, I wouldn't be here and now...and really, who knows where I would be. And pondering a future that might have been is a total waste of time...and time is all any of us have, so we should value it by not regretting our regrets, but simply learning from them.

I was twenty years old and had been in a steady relationship for around three years. I was happy with her and our love was strong. But me at twenty didn't know what it was to truly love another human being, and so I didn't feel how I should have...but that was all about to change.

I played rugby league in the under 21's division. We were a pretty good side until Sam came to join our team around midseason. Sam had never played a game of rugby league until he played his first game for us, so he could be forgiven for the few errors he made. But along with those errors, he also scored two tries and kicked four conversions...giving him sixteen points on debut. Not a bad effort for a debutant and more points than I have scored in my entire playing life.

Although Sam had never played rugby league, he had played rugby union. In fact, he had been selected as a schoolboy All Black (New Zealand) and once he got used to not placing the ball on the ground whenever he was tackled, he became our best by far. The saying was “Pass it to Sam”...coined by our hooker Jacko, and so, that's what we did, and he became a try-scoring phenomenon.

We were unbeatable and went from fourth to first position on the table, and a premiership beckoned. From the first game Sam joined us, we won every game. Then, in the second last fixture match of the season, Sam, while stretching out to score yet another try, with two opposition players desperately clinging onto him, placed the ball onto the ground scoring the try. As he did so, he rolled onto his side when his ankle was fractured. He was stretchered from the field and didn't play another game for us. We were in disbelief, and the shock of losing Sam became our downfall, not winning another game, and getting knocked out in the semi-finals. I believe we could have made the same season if Sam had never joined our team, but if he had not been injured, we would have won the premiership without a doubt.


At the end of the season, the team and coaching staff hire a bus and take a trip to somewhere far away and preferably with lots of pubs, as drinking alcohol was what real men did. Wanting to fit in and be one of the boys is an important thing to do in a team setting...and along with the drinking came the bad behaviour.

The town we headed for was Bundaberg, in North Queensland. Where there is a pub on every corner in the town centre and at least one in between. It was at one of these pubs we were to spend the weekend. Friday night saw us being louder than the rest of the hotel guests but not much more happened other than a few mistimed and misplace vomits. Saturday night, however, was not going to be so easy going. There was a lot of drinking, bonding, fighting and crying, but in the end, nobody was any worse for wear...nobody that is, except for me.

Early on Saturday evening, there were a couple of young girls around our age who had somehow found this rowdy lot. They, like a large percentage of people in Bundy, were fruit pickers...an itinerant labour force who followed the season's harvest year after year. These girls had a look that was both appealing and revolting all at the same time . Rough would not do them an injustice, but friendly and loving the attention from drunken footballers who were hundreds of kilometres from home, and the partners who waited there for us. I remarked to one of my teammates that one wasn't wearing any shoes, and the bottoms of her legs and feet were black and dirty, and how disgusting it looked.

Later that night, my best friend and I were out on the verandah when from a distance we spotted two people walking towards us...obviously drunk, arm in arm, and I assumed they were a couple on their way home from an evening on the town.

It was only when they were closer that I realised the girl was one of the girls we had met earlier that evening...the one with the dirty feet. I stood up and made some comment to the effect she should come up and have a drink.

I watched them pass us by below, and when they were about twenty meters past us she suddenly broke free from her friend and returned to our pub...coming up the stairs, and within minutes was in my bed and I was having sex with her.

I never even knew her name...and if you asked her she would have told you it was the worst fuck she had ever had...and I would have to agree. The few moments it took was soon replaced with regret, shame, guilt and an incredible sadness and remorse that continued into the next day. On the bus trip home, all my friends had heard of my 'achievement', and knowing that I had a girlfriend waiting for me at home, were giving me a really hard time, as is the way with men who didn't get 'the prize' and have mixed feelings about that fact.

I had no mixed feelings during those hours coming home...I felt physically sick, somewhat from the alcohol, but I believe mostly from guilt and the thought of facing my girlfriend. How I was going to act and if I was going to confess...along with everyone knowing, and the possibility of one of them telling her if I didn't, all came down upon my hangover and I was surprised I didn't actually throw up.

It is much to my shame that I faked everything once I arrived home...to her, to my friends and to myself. I had only ever felt such remorse one other time in my life, and back then I was determined to turn myself around and become a better person because of it...but, in the end, I never did tell her.

I hear of so many men who cheat and then confess...which only serves to relieve their own guilt, yet puts so much pain on their partners...then expecting forgiveness and everything to go back to the way it was before. And once the dust has settled the cycle continues...much like abuse when you think about it. And the reality of just how much pain infidelity causes, it really is a form of abuse. There are no winners and I know this from experience.

This was one of the real positives I believe I took from this experience...it opened my eyes and made me think. About what it is we search for in another when we decide to cheat...the damage we cause and the pain felt by all involved. And it changed me and my attitude. From the moment I was done with that girl, in my heart, I knew I would never cheat again. It was my way of saying sorry to my girlfriend without putting her through what would have been a very hurtful experience.

But karma has a way of evening up the wrongs we do in life. My girlfriend and I eventually became engaged and things after I cheated, although initially fine, began to unravel, and we broke up around six years later. It wasn't long after this I discovered someone had already replaced me, and they had been friends for some time. It was hard to face that my girl was with someone else, but I had a sense of deserving this feeling, and the memory of what I did has stayed with me and is still with me today...no matter what...it is not worth it to cheat.