GARRY Wilson, the courageous former Fitzroy rover, was knocked around so much that he played the final years of his career wearing a helmet, which was unusual in the early 1980s.
He says he was knocked out five or six times and, on about 20 occasions, finished a match with blurred vision.
But the repeated blows have done nothing to dampen his talent for figures.
During an interview in his apartment in Melbourne’s Docklands precinct near Etihad Stadium, Wilson, 57, recalls with great clarity how much he was earning as a Board of Works clerk when he made his debut with Fitzroy in 1971, aged 17.
He knows the number of finals he played (seven). Most of all, he knows the number of chickens he housed in his sheds outside Melbourne, chickens that helped make him a wealthy businessman.
Wilson was earning $38 a week as a clerk in 1971. His footy earnings were $35 a week.
He won his first best and fairest award in 1972, when he was 18. In all, he won five best and fairests in his 268-game career.
He finished third in the 1978 Brownlow Medal and second the following year.
It’s not hard to glean that he would have liked a little medal in his trophy room.
"Everyone would like to win one," Wilson says.
Away from statistics, it’s notable Wilson played the last few years of his career as a professional. He spent his weekdays swimming and going to medicos to enable him to get over injuries. He wanted to milk as much as possible out of his career, which finished in 1984 when he was 31.
"I probably worked as hard as anyone," he says. "I think I got the most out of myself."
Towards the end of his career, Wilson struck up a friendship with David Lurie, a solicitor who was a member of a Fitzroy coterie group. Wilson was interested in property and had an ambition to move into real estate at the end of his career.
Lurie introduced Wilson to the merits of negative gearing. "By 31, I had built up a reasonable property portfolio," he says.
Two years after his footy career had ended, Wilson was offered the chance to go into a chicken-meat business on the Mornington Peninsula. He took his willingness to take risks on the property market into his new business venture.
He started with two sheds on his property at Moorooduc. Those sheds housed 80,000 birds. Then he built another two sheds. His sheds gave him the capacity to house 140,000 birds.
Wilson bought two properties in West Gippsland and kept increasing the number of chickens he housed. By 2003, he had sheds with the capacity to house 332,000 chickens. More than five batches of chickens are turned over in those sheds every year. Wilson was selling a lot of bird.
He sold out of his business in two steps before moving into semi-retirement in 2008. When asked how much he made, Wilson revealed only that he "did well" out of chickens.
His current job is project-managing a 20-apartment development on the old St Macartan’s school site in Mornington.
"I don’t think of myself as some sort of genius in business," he says. "The degree of difficulty in playing footy is much greater. I nearly killed myself playing footy."
Wilson and his wife Roslyn have two adult children, Lee and Shaun. The couple lives in Frankston South and has an apartment at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast. They use the Docklands apartment mainly during the AFL finals and the spring carnival.
Wilson plays golf at The National club in Cape Schanck on Saturday afternoons. For several years, he played golf with ex-teammate Bernie Quinlan.
His most enduring friendship from footy is with Alan Thompson, the 1970s Fitzroy wingman, who lives in Warrnambool.
Wilson credits footy with teaching him discipline and a work ethic. He is grateful the game provided a path to a happy and successful life.
