The interview: Mark Geyer
After a career in the headlines, most for the wrong reasons, Mark Geyer is forging a second life as a rugby league media personality. He speaks with Dan Ginnane in Penrith on the early years.
This is your town, has it changed much in the last twenty years?
Dan, in 1991 it changed for the better when we won the comp. The emotions spilled over for a decade. The culture is young. The club is only forty years old. The town though will never change. It’s a bit like other satelitte cities, Newcastle, Canberra, etc. A city unto itself.
Could you ever in the east?
If anything I could move up to mountains, but the east? No. I tried to live in the city once, in Newtown with Brian Smith (former halfback who famously dated Kate Fischer) in my Balmain days. We had a bloody mansion. But I just couldn’t do it. Something about the city and me don’t mix.
When we go out to do games on Monday Nights, you are enormously popular. That doesn’t astound me because I know you, yet when you think about your career - you admit you were a thug, you were caught using drugs. The history was full of red flags, so why do you think you are so popular?
To tell you the truth, I think I’m the voice of the people. With my media commitments, I seem to say a lot of things that people are thinking. I’m not a polished performer, and I don’t try to be one. Even in our broadcasts (for Triple M), I probably make 30 or 40 goofs! That’s my niche. I don’t have any fear of repercussions. It doesn’t worry me what people may think.
Where did the fire come from? You had it from day one, yet your brother didn’t…
I often get asked this, and I still don’t know. I was a pretty placid kid, growing up in the fibro shack in Mount Druitt. Dad worked two jobs, mum worked two jobs. I looked after my brothers.
You were the oldest?
Yeah, oldest of four. When I was twelve I was looking after my brothers and sisters until 6.00 each night, and I suppose in that time I learned to toughen up. As far as football is concerned, I think Ron Willey turned me into the volcano I became, by giving me free reign. He identified how big and strong I was, and realized under Tim Sheens I was trying to be a five eighth. He wanted me to be the player everyone else was scared of. That’s where the Geyer mandate was born. Search and destroy. I was one of those blokes in the dressing rooms that couldn’t sit down before the game. Lots of nervous energy. So when I got on the field I was ready to go.
Did he (Willey) have to convince you to be like that? Did it take much?
There was an underbelly of aggression, mainly because of where I grew up. I used to fudge my postcode when I went for job interviews, because as soon as they saw 2270 (Mount Druitt), they’d throw the application in the bin. A couple of times I wrote my Nans’ postcodes (one lived in the east, one on the central coast) and both times they called me in for an interview. So without knowing it, I think that made me a bitter person. But to answer your question - no - I didn’t need any convincing at all!
Did people think poor Matt was nuts, because you were?
They did, and he suffered because of it. I think because he was a back helped him. Matt was such a placid kid. When he came to Perth to live with me(to play for the Western Reds in 1997), I told him he had to toe the line. I told him to do watch what I did and do the opposite if he wanted to make it.
A little known fact is that in the under 12 NSW team, he played second rower and eight years earlier I was on the wing!
Page 1
| > | The interview: Anthony Mundine |
| > | The interview: Mark Ricciuto |
| > | The interview: Tadhg Kennelly |
| > | The interview: Craig Bellamy |
| > | The interview: Brian Waldron |
| > | The interview: Mark Geyer |
Subscribe to The Serve by Email
No comments yet.