Footy trip tradition under scrutiny

Adelaide Crows stars, from left, Tom Lynch, Ricky Henderson, Shaun McKernan and Taylor Walker enjoy a spa in Las Vegas during an end-of-season trip. The tradition is now being viewed as the ugly underbelly of football. Source: adelaidenow

FOOTBALL clubs used to love the footy trip, an end-of-year celebration and compensation for players who gave up a lot of money and didn't derive much from the game. Football clubs now hate footy trips, because it is the ugly underbelly of the game.

An investigation by The Advertiser can reveal the seedy side of football trips, which are no longer sanctioned by clubs as official trips but still undertaken by groups of footballers.

One senior football official was concerned when he learned of a group of his players were planning to take a trip to Las Vegas in the off-season, a town known for drugs, sex and gambling.

The club tried to convince the players to rethink their off-season plans, but when they couldn't, convinced the players to have a club official accompany them on the trip.

Similarly, the Crows sent club staffer Paddy Steinfort to accompany the Crows to Thailand this off-season.

This is what concerns the clubs so much;

EXCESSIVE alcohol and everything it can lead to. "Drinking to excess when they have hardly had a drink all year is a recipe for disaster," Adelaide football operations manager Phil Harper said.

BEING introduced to narcotics for the first time. Wayne Carey, the greatest player of this generation, spent his career being strong in his stance against drugs, but was first caught in the web of cocaine after a footy trip.

WOMEN - party girls who flock to fit, young men who are clearly splashing their money around.

In Carey's book, The Truth Hurts, he details how he was first introduced to cocaine. A dealer offered him a "key".

Carey was confused. "What do you mean, do a key?" Carey asked.

It was his introduction to the beginner's way of doing cocaine, in which first-timers dip a key in a bag of the substance because that is about the right amount for a novice, and then snorts it off.

Carey has since beaten his demons and speaks openly about his ordeals.

Well-known in football circles is an attempt by a group of players to create a line of coke in the shape of Australia during a footy trip in Vegas and snort their way around it. It was said to have taken up the table.

The exercise ended when one player collapsed and had to be taken to hospital.

Club officials, who seek to minimise the risk of the unofficial footy trips, are also concerned about money.

Senior players are known to budget and drop as much as $1000 a night.

That is within the reach of a senior player on a lucrative contract, who has decided to reward himself after a long season with the best meals, fine wine, and a bit of gambling.

The younger player, the one on minimum wage still trying to make his name, finds himself with a difficult choice when around the senior player: on one hand, he'd love to spend time with the star, pick his brain about football and life.

On the other, he is worrying about how much money he is racking up on his credit card.

Then there's sex. To a young footballer who has restrained himself for a full season, there's nothing like Las Vegas.

One former player told The Advertiser about the lure of the place.

"Everything is right there. If you go to New York or Los Angeles you have to suss it out, find out were the good places are.

"Vegas just keeps going all the time and it's easy to find where the action is."

The consolation about footy trips, or the new, unsanctioned version of them, is this. Football staff know that players can only go crazy for so long, or they drop behind in their training and jeopardise their careers.

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