Nicky Winmar and I are in Ivanhoe, half a dozen train stops from Victoria Park, sitting under an old river red gum, talking about dreams. He still dreams about playing football. In his dreams, “the footy tingles in my fingers”. In his dreams, there is no sound, no abuse, no way the opposition can catch him. Sometimes he wakes up with tears of joy streaming down his face. The football field was the one place where he was fully at ease, where his demons were at bay, where his pulse would slow. “Footy without thought,” he calls it.
We’re at an amateur ground in Melbourne, a world away from the MCG, his favourite ground. We talk about his new book, which begins with a gun, a locked house and a conviction to end it all, and ends with healing and hope. As we speak, his gaze never leaves the empty oval. He surveys the space, the slope and the ancient trees surrounding it. He shakes his head: “Geez I miss it.”
