Tweet
Todd Carney saves himself from future
Paul Kent
From: The Daily Telegraph
April 08, 2011 12:00AM
MY NAME is Todd Carney and I am an alcoholic.
These nine words have saved Todd Carney. Not from a jail term, the first consideration when he fronted court on Wednesday, but from something far more taxing, more brutal.
They have saved him from his future.
This admission is the opening to Carney's letter to the court, where he faced a low range drink-driving charge and where magistrate Jacqueline Milledge was moved just enough by the sentiment in the letter to call him to his feet to answer a few questions.
Beautiful.
Carney saved his hide, and when he left Waverley Court some minutes later, having avoided jail which Ms Milledge corrected several hours later, when she realised the law did not allow a jail term for his offence there were quick cries of celebrity justice.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Carney ultimately received a 24-month good behaviour bond.
Another one had got off lightly.
The courts seem to swing this way far too easily when somebody whose employment calls for a number on their back appears before them.
How Carney swung the judge I had no idea. The bloke in court couldn't have been the bloke I was hearing about all summer.
After perhaps the greatest comeback season in the game, where he returned from banishment not just as a quality player but as one who would win the Dally M player of the year and go on to be picked for Australia, Carney fell off the wagon.
No, he didn't fall off. He catapulted.
A swan-dive from up high.
He was picked in the Australian squad and before his studs hit the ground he was back on the booze.
He went willingly, happy to celebrate a good season, a Dally M, a new tattoo, whatever you wanted to call it that particular night.
This is the game's dirty little secret.
Carney's problem again highlights the culture in the game called in to camp and unable to resist the culture of booze they call bonding which is becoming increasingly harder to defend because the players aren't willing to defend it themselves.
Instead of showing it can work they abuse it. It only needs some.
Carney went all season without a drink and the Roosters, who had the most to lose, made sure of it.
Yet before the first weekend was over in the Kangaroos camp Carney, a confirmed alcoholic, was back on the drink.
Then when the tour was over no-one was there to grab his shirt-collar and tell him to pull it in. They'd done their jobs. Don't be late for next year.
So Carney just kept going, his own summer of fun.
Never mind the delight from his great comeback was disappearing through a haze of hairy hangovers.
Soon many of us began hearing of Carney acting a mug at this place. A mug at that place.
More often he had a couple of offsiders with him, men of the red, white and blue persuasion, and with each weekend it seemed last season was an aberration.
He was no longer celebrating anything. He was just drinking, this bloke who can't handle the drink, and wherever he was heading it was a miserable place.
It almost certainly would end in loneliness. Probably suffering. The surprise was that when it finally came he was arrested for drink-driving, pinched for an offence at the lowest end of the scale.
So given his recklessness all summer, I was sceptical of his free walk in court after his plea to the judge. I did not hear. I have since spoken to people who have.
Carney hasn't had a drink since he was caught. He attends Alcoholics Anonymous and has committed to charity work.
With all this in his letter Ms Milledge, the magistrate as tough as a three-day march, called him to his feet. He trembled when he stood. His hands shook.
Ms Milledge looked at his mother in court and told him that if he continued this road she might be one day sitting just like that, but in a church listening to his eulogy and not in a courtroom.
Carney acknowledged as much.
She asked him would his late father be disappointed that he was here in court, once again. He acknowledged he would.
"You do know that you have a problem?" she asked.
Carney conceded he had. He conceded so much, and it might be all that brings him back, and so you wish him well.
Paul Kent
From: The Daily Telegraph
April 08, 2011 12:00AM
MY NAME is Todd Carney and I am an alcoholic.
These nine words have saved Todd Carney. Not from a jail term, the first consideration when he fronted court on Wednesday, but from something far more taxing, more brutal.
They have saved him from his future.
This admission is the opening to Carney's letter to the court, where he faced a low range drink-driving charge and where magistrate Jacqueline Milledge was moved just enough by the sentiment in the letter to call him to his feet to answer a few questions.
Beautiful.
Carney saved his hide, and when he left Waverley Court some minutes later, having avoided jail which Ms Milledge corrected several hours later, when she realised the law did not allow a jail term for his offence there were quick cries of celebrity justice.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Carney ultimately received a 24-month good behaviour bond.
Another one had got off lightly.
The courts seem to swing this way far too easily when somebody whose employment calls for a number on their back appears before them.
How Carney swung the judge I had no idea. The bloke in court couldn't have been the bloke I was hearing about all summer.
After perhaps the greatest comeback season in the game, where he returned from banishment not just as a quality player but as one who would win the Dally M player of the year and go on to be picked for Australia, Carney fell off the wagon.
No, he didn't fall off. He catapulted.
A swan-dive from up high.
He was picked in the Australian squad and before his studs hit the ground he was back on the booze.
He went willingly, happy to celebrate a good season, a Dally M, a new tattoo, whatever you wanted to call it that particular night.
This is the game's dirty little secret.
Carney's problem again highlights the culture in the game called in to camp and unable to resist the culture of booze they call bonding which is becoming increasingly harder to defend because the players aren't willing to defend it themselves.
Instead of showing it can work they abuse it. It only needs some.
Carney went all season without a drink and the Roosters, who had the most to lose, made sure of it.
Yet before the first weekend was over in the Kangaroos camp Carney, a confirmed alcoholic, was back on the drink.
Then when the tour was over no-one was there to grab his shirt-collar and tell him to pull it in. They'd done their jobs. Don't be late for next year.
So Carney just kept going, his own summer of fun.
Never mind the delight from his great comeback was disappearing through a haze of hairy hangovers.
Soon many of us began hearing of Carney acting a mug at this place. A mug at that place.
More often he had a couple of offsiders with him, men of the red, white and blue persuasion, and with each weekend it seemed last season was an aberration.
He was no longer celebrating anything. He was just drinking, this bloke who can't handle the drink, and wherever he was heading it was a miserable place.
It almost certainly would end in loneliness. Probably suffering. The surprise was that when it finally came he was arrested for drink-driving, pinched for an offence at the lowest end of the scale.
So given his recklessness all summer, I was sceptical of his free walk in court after his plea to the judge. I did not hear. I have since spoken to people who have.
Carney hasn't had a drink since he was caught. He attends Alcoholics Anonymous and has committed to charity work.
With all this in his letter Ms Milledge, the magistrate as tough as a three-day march, called him to his feet. He trembled when he stood. His hands shook.
Ms Milledge looked at his mother in court and told him that if he continued this road she might be one day sitting just like that, but in a church listening to his eulogy and not in a courtroom.
Carney acknowledged as much.
She asked him would his late father be disappointed that he was here in court, once again. He acknowledged he would.
"You do know that you have a problem?" she asked.
Carney conceded he had. He conceded so much, and it might be all that brings him back, and so you wish him well.
Comment