I saw only a few minutes of the Ben Cousins documentary. The grabs that preceded the screening left me believing it would only serve to romanticise Cousins’ plight and that I would learn little.
My sons aged 12 and 17 did watch it and while quite favourably disposed, understood my point that unless you have well-placed friends and an abundance of disposable income, drug addiction will leave you in the gutter.
Regrettably, for some young blokes the moral of the documentary might be that drug use and addiction is no impediment to a footballer winning the Brownlow, playing in a premiership side and leaving Etihad Stadium a hero.
After Sunday’s game, Ben Cousins told a respectful Matthew Richardson he appreciated how “non-judgmental” the Tiger supporters had been. Such words misrepresent my concerns.
Drugs were everywhere when I was at university in the ’70s and of course I smoked a joint of marijuana from time to time, once before a practice game at Preston in 1977 where I banged through a hazy five goals. Moralising is for the sanctimonious.
For every Ben Cousins – who still has a battle ahead of him – there is any number of drug users in or close to the gutter. That’s what really matters.
The charismatic Port Melbourne champion of the ’70s and early ’80s Fred Cook is a graphic reminder of the damage drugs really do. At that time there was no bigger name in Victorian football.
After walking out on Footscray in 1969, Cook became the glamour boy of Channel 10’s live telecasts of VFA football. It’s hardly surprising he amassed 1336 goals from 300 games – 258 games at Port for 1238 goals – and became a cult figure. He was in a class of his own.
Although Cook was only 21 when he left Footscray for the VFA, he’d already played 33 games and was on track for selection in the Victorian team. So disappointed was coach Ted Whitten he wrote to Cook saying he had been grooming him for the captaincy of the Doggies.
In 1969, Cook received votes in the Brownlow and the JJ Liston. In 1970, he won the Liston with Yarraville before crossing to Port.
So heroic was Cook in the 1976 bloodbath grand final, the Kangaroos tried to entice him to Arden Street to replace Doug Wade. Similar in stature to the sometimes, troubled Kangaroo Wayne Carey, Cook was a beautiful player to watch. Blessed with hands that gloved the football with the certainty of a world-class wicket keeper, he was the reason Port won six premierships between 1974 and 1982.
Inherently narcissistic, Cook’s descent into amphetamines after his career ended at Port in 1984 made perfect sense. Indulged and indulgent, he understood only one world, his own.
At second division VFA club Moorabbin in 1985 with the glory days over, he often used “speed” before a game. Whether it helped or hindered him, he says he can’t be sure. What is sure and certain is that drugs ruined his life.
Among his associates was the murderous Dennis Allen, whose family would be implicated in the Walsh Street murders of two constables in 1988. It was Allen who introduced Cook – one night in his Port Melbourne pub – to speed.
Visiting Cook in Pentridge Gaol in the mid-90s brought the whole sorry tale into stark relief. I was a federal MP; he was a fallen star, a sad figure, destitute and trapped in petty criminality.
If the documentary on Ben Cousins took us to the dark, sordid underbelly of life where addiction breeds drug lords, violence and the destruction of lives, I’d have watched. If it had shown what drugs did to Fred Cook, I’d have watched.
If the VFA had been “non-judgmental”, its goalkicking award would surely have been the Fred Cook rather than the Frosty Miller Medal.
A humble but brilliant goalkicker, Frosty was as beguiling as Fred Cook. But there was only one “Fabulous Freddie”.
The sight of Cook kicking goals was as mesmerising as watching him weave a path through adoring supporters in a crowded social club.
We still reminisce about those wonderful days when the VFA was proud and defiant. And of course we talk about drugs and the damage done to his life and how he can’t give any guarantees about whether they’ll ever afflict him again.
The drugs might be part of the mystique but it’s a crying shame.

– PHIL CLEARY