Best Experiences meeting Freo players?

[MadMundy]

Anyone got any funny stories meeting any Freo boys? I've met a few but I remember being 10 meeting RTB at a WAFL match back in 2012 and he took the piss outta us the entire time. He seems like a nice bloke.

 

[Inveigh Slang]

I dutched out my car with Phil Matera once. We used a jacks n cola can.

Can't say I had the same pleasure with any Freo guys

 

[Roy Chook]

Went to the local shops and Dave Mundy and Will Schofield were both there. Dave was really interactive and chatted with my 4 and 8 year old and hand balled back and forth.

Schofield showed little interest. Perhaps because my kids were all draped in purple. My kids are 18 and 14 but still remember when they got to handball with Dave Mundy.

 

[Seppo]

Don’t think ill ever beat this interaction with a player:

 

[Bastyy]

I've had pictures with plenty of Freo players, but I still remember when Jack Riewoldt asked me to move out of the way in the Melbourne Airport

I was star struck

 

[Square Peg]

Well there was this time in a kebab shop when MJ decided to drop his trousers.....

 

[Belnakor]

I've had pictures with plenty of Freo players, but I still remember when Jack Riewoldt asked me to move out of the way in the Melbourne Airport

I was star struck

Jack is a tosser. I got into a bit of a verbal stoush with him when Richmond was over for game in about 2015 - I saw him walking through the city in the morning - I was wearing a dockers polo and got into a bit of a back and forth with him. Like he was literally arguing with a punter in the street.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

So we were holidaying in France one October (probably 2008)

We had booked a wine degustation lunch and winery tour of a well known winery near Dijon.

We turned up on time and the girl at reception said we are waiting for one more couple ..bugger me it was The big Pav and Lauren. Could have pinched ourselves

Hung out with the big fellow and wife-to-be for the tour and lunch. Had a great time . They are a lovely couple who are passionate about their wines. Not at all aloof .We told them we were members but didn’t talk footy at all after that…the man was on holidays

Got a great thrill being able to send our Pav-mad 25 year old daughter an email with pic of us with the Pav and a table of empty wine glasses…apparently she was at work when she opened the pic and screamed!

 

[freo1997]

I had a kick to kick with Modra when he came down for a footy clinic in 99. That was pretty sweet.

Nearly hit one of Benny cousins kids during a kick to kick during half time of a wafl game. He said sorry about my kids getting in the way or something like that. Real smiley, Down to earth guy. Too bad he couldn't stay away from it.

Said "good game" to Chris Connoly when we were both walking to millennium cinemas after a Dockers win. He just ignored me.

 

[jimboslice]

It’s a tie for me

Back in the day they used to do a fan thing at Adventure World, I went down one of the water slides with Pavlich

Or

I grew up on the same street as Brett Peake (Scribbly Gum in Willetton). Eventually he moved into my friends Aunty’s place (on the same street). I went around with my friend in year 8/2006 and Aaron Sandilands was over. He made us ham and cheese toasties! Let me tell you - Sandilands feels even bigger when you’re stuck in a tiny kitchen with him

 

[Spirit Level]

I remember getting absolutely ****-eyed with Stephen Hill one night at the Cundy pub.

 

[Retzlaff]

I delivered a pizza to Jess Sinclair and he asked about the price with some obscure slang - “What’s the buffalo?”

 

[Purple dynamite]

I use to live in the same complex in North Freo as Sandy and Crowley. Both legend blokes, but Sandy is massive when sharing a lift. Crowley had a different girl nearly every day. I was a jealous young man at his ability with the ladies.

 

[Freo_4eva]

While ago i use to work with Sandi's mum, Aaron and Chad would drop in from time to time.. very down to earth family. Fair to say the height was equally shared between the three of them.

 

[Okinakashi]

Let me tell you - Sandilands feels even bigger when you’re stuck in a tiny kitchen with him

I know what you mean. I've been on a small ish boat with Luc Longly. He's a big lad.

 

[summerthebat]

I had a fairly firm 'no interaction with celebs/athletes' policy... however,

I saw the Wizard at the Cloud Street (TV) premiere (his son was an actor in it) and it was a fairly casual affair and he was standing by himself and he was my primary favourite Freo player so I had a chat to him.

It was pretty awkward.

I live in Sydney now so all my player sightings are Swans/Giants players, here's a few anecdotes.

- Coniglio did the sign of the cross before he got into the pool at the local aquatic centre. The water was really cold but he looked like a twit.
- Heath Shaw buying powerade because he was drunk (Coniglio was with him, sober)
- Coniglio & Josh Kelly sharing a slice of cake
- Nick Haynes (lives near me) committing a unforgivable sin, by listening to a podcast as he was walking through his phone speakers, no headphones.
- Cam Sinclair looking weird

 

[gaskin]

Dardy back at Sowfs after the WAFL GF last year was quite interesting. Anyone that has seen a drunk Cam can attest to the fact that he is hilarious and as much of a fool as you would expect him to be when intoxicated.

My dad used to have lawn mowing round on weekends and back in the early days, he used to mow Andrew Wills' lawn (he lived up the road from us). I would have been about 3 or 4 and I used to follow behind my dad with a toy plastic lawnmower. Willsy used to always have a chat with the old boy about the footy. Good bloke he was.

A family friend was in a car accident with a heavily intoxicated Graham Polak who then bribed said family friend with footy tickets to not tell the cops.

 

[beelzebob]

Matera gave me some socks he was wearing when he kicked a goal and now I wear them to home games SK that's pretty sick

On Pixel 4 using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[ImperialPurple]

Long time ago now, like early to mid 2000s, but a few stories.
It was a weekly ritual to take the kids to Tuesday night training, then onto the Mex for half price nachos.
Hardly anyone used to go to training in those days (and a testament to how bloody long I’ve been here, I used to provide the weekly training reports the next day), so the players got to know my kids a bit.
My eldest daughter was in love with Hase, and he used to wave and say, Hi Gabi, when he saw her. My son loved Pav, and he’d call out to him, and Pav would come over and ruffle his hair and ask him how he was doing.
My youngest (about 3-4 at the time) loved ‘Chenny’ - Trent Croad - and one morning I took her for a babycino at the cafe at the Cott Hotel. It was pretty much empty, and about 2 tables away Pav and Croad were having a coffee. She wanted to say hello, so we went over and I explained to ‘Chenny’ that he was her favourite. He was so nice - he bent down to her level, shook her hand, and talked to her about her day, and did she go to the footy (she did), and a few other things. I thanked him and he said ‘no problem, always time for the fans’, then said to her - especially the cute ones who love the Dockers. She was almost apoplectic with excitement after that. Same kid had Luke Ryan try to crack onto her at about 1am at Nick’s Place kebab shop about 2 years ago. He was with Duman, and she knew exactly who he was, but they just said they’d moved over from Victoria for work. Cool not to pull the footy player card.
AND, finally... We had this weird thing where we used to bump into JLo around the place outside of training. My son used to always go up and say hi, and he was really cool about it. Then one day we took the kids up to AQWA at Hilarys, and then went to get some food. JLo was sitting at a cafe, outside right up against the fence. So my son went up to him, and JLo cracked up and said, ‘you again! Are you following me around?’ They had a brief chat and JLo said, ‘see you next time’.
Ah the simple times when footy wasn’t a multi-billion dollar business.

tl;dr
Hase was always cool with eldest daughter.
Pav was great with son.
Croad chatted to then 3yo and was really really sweet. Luke Ryan tried to crack onto same kid at 1am in Freo one night about 16-17 years later.
Used to bump into JLo everywhere. Very weird, but he would always have time for my then 8yo son.

Sightings from living in South Freo area
Fyfe, Cam Sinclair, McPharlin, Lobb, Neale, Crowley. Probably others, but have never spoken to any of them - leave them in peace, especially because I don’t have my (now) adult kids as an excuse to annoy them.

 

[Okinakashi]

One of my favorite memories relates to two of our "villans" - Crowley and Ballaz. They were both running laps of Freo oval - either pre-season or they were in rehab. The drill was to run a lap, then stop for a set amount of time, then head off again. They both had stopwatches to measure their rest times. I'd taken the kids down to watch and they both figured out that the boys would stop at the same place each lap, so they went and stood by the fence to watch. Next lap around Ballaz grabbed a ball and handballed it to them and each lap for the next 20 or so minutes, both boys would play kick to kick with an ever expanding group of kids standing on the concrete terraces. Ballaz in particular was adding commentary and generally having a great time with the yunguns.

Neither of them had to do it and both were completing a fairly strenuous session, pounding out lap after lap. It was a nice morning for all the kids involved and my oldest still talks about when she played footy with Ballaz...

 

[Okinakashi]

Also - Every AFLW game we've attended. The lady Dockers are great at fan interaction and my daughters love the time they spend with the fans at the end of each game.

 

[TheMcManusNose]

Alex Pearce and I synchronised piss schedules at Subi for about 3-4 games in 2014. I ran out of things to talk about after about the 5th time. Very awkward.

 

[Taylor]

...and that's why they call him Moose

 

[Puregold]

Bumped into son son at the pool at the crown. Both of us had our children with us. Came up to us because my eldest had a dockers hat on. He sat down to talk to my 7 and 5 year old boys for around 10 minutes. My 5 year old was a port supporter at that stage. Had a port hat on and all. When he saw sonny coming he hid it and has supported Freo whole heartedly ever since. Such a lovely guy. Bumped into him a couple of times since and he pretends to remember the boys.