What did Mick want?

When I was only about 21 I was caught up in a peculiar and embarrassing situation involving Mick Malthouse. 

At that time I played with venomous snakes and rode motorbikes (not much has changed). I didn't care much for football and I was actually really quite crap at it. In relative terms, I would not have known Nic Nat from Andrew Fyfe.  

I also looked like a bit of a 'unit' as I was a 'wannabe punk' with a disastrous mop of tangled mange on my head and more piercings than was aesthetically practical. Why a stranger would want to talk to me I will never know as, based on first principals, anyone's first impression of me would be that I must be a bit of a dickhead.

Whatever the case, I was at the launch of a new 'high end' real estate development in Maylands (an inner suburb of Perth, Western Australia) where, during the land reclamation, remediation and development process I had been responsible for the capture and relocation of long-necked turtles. I must have earned an an invite to the swoiree only to boost numbers. That being the case they must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel because I was hardly the pin-up boy for inner-city urban executive living.

During the day this chap sidles up to me (perhaps because I was looking a little out of sorts) and starts shooting the breeze. He was really very pleasant and really trying hard to make conversation; he was so damn personable it was not funny - like he had known me for ages but I had not one clue who he was. Whilst talking to him I was certain that he was the owner of the environmental consulting group (Alan Tingay of Alan Tingay and Associates) that I was under contract to, so our conversation was a little disjointed and quite confusing. 

He was asking me (someone who clearly had barely two cents to rub together) whether I would consider buying a house in this estate?????? I was asking him how business was going and what the prospects of future land development projects were. It was a little awkward to say the least, but he must have known in an instant that I had confused him for someone else. But he did not break stride and was not put out one iota. He just kept being nice to me - a nobody. 

When he wandered off a colleague asked me "what was I chatting to Mick about?". 

So with all the pressure that this poor guy is under now, I want him to remember two things: 1) I dont give a stuff about football and 2) he is a bloody nice guy and I don't care how bad his footy team is because I will remember him for his humility not his ability.