135 STEVE ALLENDER – Country move a new beginning for Allender

Steve’s story begins as a highly promising young footballing talent and evolves into a tale of incredible resilience amid more than his fair share of pain and heartbreak in adulthood. The 194 centimetre former ruckman is a big man in stature but has absorbed quite a few knocks in life. Not that you’ll hear him grumble or dwell on any sort of misfortune that he has encountered along his interesting journey.

Three significant events over the past decade conspired to change the course of Steve’s life forever and ultimately led him from Melbourne to East Gippsland.

The first was the breakdown of his second marriage, which saw ex-wife Liz and their two children, James and Amy, move to Lake Tyers Beach ten years ago. Steve also has an elder daughter, Jessica, from his first marriage who remains in Melbourne, but the separation from the two younger children was difficult to bear for so long.

Then on 30th August 2015, Steve suffered severe burns to his upper body in a mishap at his home in Melbourne. He spent close to two months in an induced coma and was extremely fortunate to survive the ordeal.

The final blow for Steve was the tragic death of his 85-year-old mother in a car accident early last year. He had already previously lost his father and two of his five siblings.

“After the loss of my mother I finally made the decision to move to Bairnsdale to be nearer to James, who is now nineteen and Amy, who is fifteen,” Steve says.

“It’s something I really should have done a decade ago. I’m loving it here and it seems to be having a very positive effect on Amy in particular, who is Year 9 at Nagle College in Bairnsdale. It has been great to be able to see the kids more and do things like getting to spend Christmas with them last year.

“Amy has hockey training on Wednesdays and her and Liz drop in when going past. Although James has this year gone up to Melbourne to focus on his auto engineering degree at RMIT, he and I usually catch up about once a month when I travel up there and we recently went to a Swans match together. I also still get up to Melbourne to see my eldest daughter Jessica and all my other friends and family based there. Jessica is thirty two now, lives independently and doing very well in her career. I’m very proud of all three of them.”

Family and sport were always a big part of Steve’s life growing up in the northern Melbourne suburb of Lalor.

“Dad only built a two-bedroom house. I don’t think he realised at the time they were going end up having six kids! Growing up in the 1960s, we spent a lot of time playing footy or cricket in the street with our neighbours,” he remembers.

Football was very much in Steve’s blood, with one of his uncles being South Melbourne champion Peter Bedford, who won the Brownlow Medal in 1970 and also happened to be blessed with enough sporting talent to play Sheffield Shield cricket for Victoria.

Steve supported Collingwood until he was ten years old and wore Peter McKenna’s number six on his back.

“I switched my allegiances to South Melbourne after my uncle won the Brownlow,” he reveals.

“Ironically, less than ten years later, I was playing at Port Melbourne and wearing the number six when Peter McKenna came to coach the club. I refused to give up the number for him,” he laughs.

After just two senior games in 1979, Steve’s football career at Port Melbourne in the VFA competition skyrocketed as a 20-year-old in the 1980 season, with fate playing a major hand in his rise to prominence.

“I started that season at full back and played in that position for the first five games until Rex Hunt kicked nine goals on me against Sandringham. I went home that day thinking my football career was finished then and there,” he recalls. “But our ruckman Vic ‘Stretch’ Aanensen got injured late in that game, so instead of dropping me the following week they threw me into the ruck and resting in the forward pocket. I loved the freedom and everything just seemed to click for me. I got on a roll from that point on.”

Steve went on to win the J.J. Liston Trophy for the VFA’s Best and Fairest player that season and crowned an incredible year with a stirring premiership victory over Coburg.

“The premiership is my favourite memory. We kicked against the wind in the last quarter and somehow got over the line to pinch it,” he says.

On the strength of his 1980 season at Port Melbourne, Steve became the hottest young property in football. No fewer than twelve VFL clubs made enquiries about securing his signature. A zoning system was applied back then rather than the draft mechanism that is in place in the AFL competition today. Having played his junior football with Lalor, Steve was tied to Carlton through the zone system but had no intention of playing for the Blues.

“I stonewalled Carlton,” he recalls.

“I was working as a mail clerk with Telecom at the time and one of the regular mail drop offs I made in the building was to the desk of Carlton captain Mike Fitzpatrick who worked there up on the 20th floor as an economist. One day he left a Carlton kit in my tray in a bid to try to persuade me to join them which I promptly gave away at the first opportunity. There was only one club that I wanted to play for and that was South Melbourne.”

Carlton finally relented and allowed Steve his wish to join the Bloods. The cost was a $20,000 fine to South Melbourne for player poaching. Despite wanting to wear number six, Steve was given the distinction of being handed the number 14 jumper made famous by triple Brownlow Medallist, Bobby Skilton.

“I played my first game for South Melbourne on 3rd May 1981 versus St.Kilda and my opponent was Grant Thomas,” he recalls.

Age 21, Star Sign Leo. Forward Pocket, Stephen doesn’t mind his nickname “Stretch” (because of his tall thin build). But he does eat four large meals a day in an effort to put on weight. Stephen’s ideal woman: a good cook. She would also share his love for outdoor life. Stephen is a clerk but eventually would like to own a pub by the beach.

But a career that promised to reach great heights didn’t really ever take off at VFL level. Injuries held Steve back in his time at South Melbourne. His career there finished at the end of 1983 and amounted to just 28 games. He had remained in Melbourne when the club transitioned into the Sydney Swans in 1982.

“I was part of a group that stayed and trained in Melbourne, whilst other members of the team relocated up to Sydney,” he explains.

During the summer of 1983/84, Steve was honeymooning with first wife Annette in Perth when his VFL career was offered an unexpected lifeline. “I was actually training with West Perth when I got a call from Hawthorn,” he says.

Steve elected to sign with the Hawks, who were the reigning premiers from 1983 and they too allocated him the number 14 jumper for the 1984 season. However, it proved difficult for him to break into what was a starstudded side and he had managed only two senior games with them before injury in a reserves match late in that season curtailed his career at football’s top level.

“I got a knee in the back and fractured two vertebrae. That was basically the end of me as a VFL player,” he reflects.

It was a career that with better luck and perhaps different timing would have extended way beyond his 30 games – 28 at South Melbourne/ Sydney and the two at Hawthorn. He retains great affection for the Swans as a loyal supporter and considers the Hawks his second team.

Although hampered by his back injury after finishing at Hawthorn, Steve returned to Port Melbourne and played for a few more seasons until the end of 1988.

“I could only do skills training and swimming. I couldn’t do all the running. I could only run in a straight line,” he says. In 1989, Steve went up to play for South Bendigo, which was being coached by his former Port Melbourne team mate Peter Bradbury.

“I had probably my four best years of football with them,” he states.

Steve then enjoyed the opportunity to play alongside his younger brother Ross at Mornington for two years, before switching to Super Rules football in the Diamond Valley competition.

“I finally hung up the boots at the age of forty,” he says.

Life after football wasn’t straightforward for Steve, who maintained a working career in the IT field but struggled at times like many players have done after the siren sounds for the final time.

“With football you’re on a big high and then you have to leave it. There is a letdown that comes with that,” he notes.

“You probably see a lot of ex-players suffer depression and anxiety which I have gone through myself and have been able to successfully manage with medication. You do become a bit lost post football. It’s important for players to have an exit strategy and I think a lot of them do now. It affected my two marriages for sure, but I’m the one at fault and consider myself very fortunate to still be friends with both my former wives, Liz and Annette.”

It is not surprising that Steve still carries scars, both physically and mentally, from his shocking burn injuries. Mercifully, he can only remember parts of the terrifying incident six years ago.

“It was a very cold Friday night, about one degree, and I had been watching the footy on television in my home in Preston,” he recalls.

“I had fallen asleep in front of the heater and my body must have tilted over and leant into it and I’ve gone up in flames. My whole upper torso, or thirty eight percent of my body, got burnt.

My next door neighbour, Vaughn must have heard me screaming. All I remember is water being thrown over me and Vaughn putting me on my chair before the paramedics arrived about ten minutes later. They put me under straight away and the next thing I knew I woke up seven weeks later at The Alfred hospital. While I was in the induced coma they did a number of skin grafts on me.”

Steve counts himself very lucky to have survived and remains thankful for the quick actions and skills of those who responded to the emergency.

“My life was saved twice in that incident, firstly by my neighbour Vaughn and then again by the doctors at The Alfred. Unfortunately, Vaughn has since passed away from cancer at the age of just forty seven which was terribly sad. I owe him and the team at The Alfred my life,” he comments.

Understandably, Steve describes the episode as a life-changing event for him.

“You do alter you outlook on life after something like that,” he says.

Six years on and retired from work, Steve is still dealing with the lasting effects from his burns.

“My movement is restricted around my neck area and under my arms,” he reveals.

“All my hair was burnt off but grew back and my face wasn’t affected. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing! But the main issue is that I’m now intolerant to heat. I can’t regulate my body temperature because I don’t sweat any more. Half of my skin is made up of grafts from my legs and I was also the first recipient of a new graft treatment method using a synthetic skin which requires me to have yearly follow-up appointments at The Alfred to monitor it.”

Despite the obstacles that have been thrown in his way, Steve continues to look to the future with optimism.

“One of the best things I’ve done is get out of Melbourne and come here to East Gippsland. The main difference you notice straight away between city and country is that country people are so welcoming. I first found that out when playing footy in Bendigo many years ago. You don’t see the smiles on people’s faces in Melbourne.”

Steve is also looking forward to one day getting the chance to properly celebrate his 60th birthday, which he reached last July.

“We were in lockdown for my 60th and the same again for my birthday this year,” he laments.

Whenever freedom allows, Steve says he loves the country air and the tranquility that now surrounds him.

“I enjoy getting out on my bike and have ridden the East Gippsland Rail Trail. I even took up lawn bowls at Bairnsdale and had two lessons but then my back started playing up and I had to give it away unfortunately.”

After fifteen months in Bairnsdale, Steve has just made the short move into a new residence across the other side of the Mitchell River in Wy Yung. He is looking forward to broadening his involvement in the local community in the years ahead.

“I would put my hand up to help at any football or cricket club,” he states.

“I’m also considering taking up cricket umpiring in the summer. I umpired A Grade cricket in Melbourne for five years after I finished playing at Heidelberg. I would also be willing to lend my football intellect to any club who’d be interested next season.”

Given Steve’s football pedigree and playing experience at the highest level, there should be no shortage of clubs keen to secure his services.