Ellinbank and District Football League senior premiers, Bunyip. From back, left to right – Zac Vansittart, Mitch Davies, Ben Jostlear, best-on-ground winner Michael Whyte and president Darrell Wilkinson. Fourth row – Jack Fitzpatrick and Stewy Edwards. Third row – Marc Jolley, Tom Papley, Brent Heus, Michael Davies and Michael Laszczyk. Second row – Dean Bassed, Brad Wolfe, Marc Rotunno, Andrew Henwood. Front row – Nathan Lieshout, Jake Buckingham, captain Brad Walker, coach Callum Pattie, Jeb McLeod and Shane Smith. 87311. Pictures: STEWART CHAMBERS
By Russell Bennett
BRAD WALKER stood tall, clasping the 2012 EDFL premiership cup on Saturday afternoon. The Bunyip captain’s football career was complete.
The image couldn’t have been further removed from a freak on-field accident in 2006 that left him with a broken neck and within millimetres of having his football dream, even his life, taken away forever.
Brad’s Bulldogs had just won by 29 points on enemy soil at Garfield’s Beswick Street Oval in front of 12,000 raucous local footy fans – a league record.
But it was a “life changing” moment six years ago that helped put his finest sporting moment into real perspective.
“It was in Round Two (2006) against Nar Nar Goon – I was basically just picking the ball up off the ground in the middle,” he recalled, sitting on a massage table on Saturday in the victorious Bunyip change rooms.
“I’ve gone to try and burrow my way through and a guy’s quad has come through and hit me in the top of the head.
“Because I had my head over the ball, I was thrown backwards and I landed on my back.
“I went all numb down my left side, which I later found out was part of my vertebrae going into my spinal chord.”
But at the time, Brad just brushed the injury off as a possible dislocated shoulder. The tough utility remarkably even returned to the field. It was only when he started experiencing blurred vision that he knew something was desperately wrong.
The incident ultimately saw him spend a month in The Alfred.
“They fused my C4 and C5 vertebrae and I’ve got two artificial discs in there now,” he said.
“I was told I’d never play again… it was pretty horrible.
“What (Leongatha Football Club’s) Beau Vernon is going through now… I guess I can say I’ve been in that position, probably not as severe, but in essence if that bit of vertebrae had have stayed in my spinal chord, I would have been in the same position.”
Brad, now 25, missed two-straight years of football and admits he isn’t the same player he once was.
“I like to go in hard and win the footy but the injury probably taught me a lot more about the game – having to just watch for two years,” he said.
But he played a crucial role off the half-back line on Saturday, keeping his direct opponent goalless.
In a reflective mood in the rooms after the game, the glint in Brad’s eye could not be extinguished. With the beer flowing and team mates’ smiles as wide as an ocean, he said: “All I’ve ever wanted to do is play with mates like these in a premiership for Bunyip.
“Now that I’ve done it, I guess you could say my footy career is complete.
“I’ll continue playing but this is what I came back to do. Mission accomplished. “Words can’t describe how I’m feeling right now.”
