SA Weekend: How Port Adelaide’s Charlie Dixon survived the dark times and learned to love footy again

Port Adelaide’s Charlie Dixon may be the most intimidating man in football but he has survived some dark times and emerged stronger on the other side.

It was before last season – the one which would turn out to be the best of his career – that Port Adelaide’s Charlie Dixon called the players together. He had something to tell them. Dixon was nervous. Who wouldn’t be?

He was about to divulge his innermost secrets. That, for a time, he had fallen out of love with footy, that he had battled depression, that he felt ashamed during a long injury lay-off that he wasn’t contributing to the team. That he was struggling.

Dixon had kept it all to himself for a long time. He had missed almost a year with a broken leg and dislocated ankle suffered at the end of the 2018 season, and when he finally made it back on the field, he appeared a shadow of the player he had been, only playing a few games before being dropped. Dixon thought his career could be done.

But if the physical injury was tough, the mental challenge was even bigger. Especially when you shut out those who want to help.

“You’re fighting with yourself, and then you push the rest of the people away around you who are trying to help you,’’ Dixon says.

“You isolate yourself and end up on, you know, on antidepressants and thinking you  can  handle  this,  this  stuff  yourself, and then you pull yourself off to the antidepressants and then you spiral down.

“There was a two-year period where I just hated football, hated coming into training and, and like it had nothing to do with the boys or anything; I just was disinterested in it and didn’t want to do it.’’

Charlie Dixon breaking his leg and dislocating ankle at Adelaide Oval Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

Dixon wouldn’t even let his parents come and see him. He had also been through a relationship break-up. “I wouldn’t let anyone know that I’m doing bad or anything like that,” he says.

“And, they think I’m going OK, but clearly there was, you know, I just wasn’t doing as well.’’

But Dixon was aware he needed to speak to someone. Hugh van Cuylenburg is the co-founder of The Resilience Project, which aims to improve mental health through focusing on gratitude, empathy and mindfulness.

Van Cuylenburg has worked with schools all over Australia, as well as many professional sporting clubs, including Port Adelaide. Dixon had seen van Cuylenburg present to the Port players and asked if they could catch up the next time he was in Adelaide.

They talked over a coffee and Dixon laid out his whole story, and for van Cuylenburg, the answer was straightforward.

“Charlie had lost sight of who he was as a person,’’ van Cuylenburg says.

“He had become very focused on his identity as a footballer. For Charlie, his self-worth and validation was all tied up with him as a footballer.’’

And the footballer wasn’t playing. He was injured. And then when he wasn’t injured, he wasn’t playing well.

“He felt ashamed that he wasn’t playing, that he wasn’t kicking goals, he wasn’t winning games of football for them,” van Cuylenburg says. He says a lot of his approach centred on helping Dixon realise he was more than just a footballer. And for Dixon to accept himself for who he was – imperfections and faults included. And for him to find a focus away from football.

“He established a purpose for himself that was separate from Charlie Dixon the footballer, which was really important, because he had lost sight of that,” van Cuylenburg says.

The purpose Dixon found was cars: building them, racing them, buying them and selling them. But more of that later.

Charlie Dixoncompete for the ball during the 2021 pre-season match against the Crows. Picture Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

The time came for Dixon to tell his teammates what he had been through. He wasn’t sure at first. Worried he would be seen as weak for admitting to his troubles.

“It took me to last year’s pre-season, where I sort of opened up to the group to let them know exactly what was going on in my life,’’ Dixon says of the meeting, which took place at Port’s pre-season camp at Maroochydore on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

“(It was) sort of like a weight off my shoulders and literally set me up for a year where I could just relax and could just be myself again around the group, and move into just training and loving my football game.’’

Van Cuylenburg witnessed the reaction of Dixon’s teammates.

“It was unbelievable, the love and empathy and support in the room when he sort of took the mask off, for want of a better term, and just said ‘this is who I am and this is what I’m struggling with’; it was unbelievable,’’ he says.

“I have visited every NRL team in the competition, most AFL teams, but I would have to say the moment Charlie got up and spoke to the group was the most extraordinary thing I have been part of in a sporting club. I have never seen anything like it.

“The raw emotion and vulnerability from this guy – he’s six foot six (201cm), covered in tattoos, strong, the quintessential tough guy. For him to go out on the football field and do that stuff is second nature.

“What is really tough is standing in front of room full of men and saying, ‘I’m struggling and I need your help’.”

The reaction was overwhelming. There were hugs and pats on the back. The support and love for Dixon was obvious. “The entire club showed up for him that night and in the coming weeks to say ‘we have got your back, we are here for you’,” van Cuylenburg says. It was a beautiful moment.’’

Dixon is attended to by a trainer after falling awkwardly during the round 21 AFL match between the Port Adelaide Power and the West Coast Eagles at Adelaide Oval on August 11, 2018. Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images.

When you meet Dixon, naturally, the first thing you notice is his size. There is no other way to put it: he is enormous. You quickly understand why he is such an intimidating presence on the footy field. But off the field, not so much. The “love” and “pain” tattoos on the knuckles of those bucket hands are immediately obvious, but there’s a friendliness there, maybe even a gentleness.

He arranges a couple of chairs at the Welland garage he rents to fix up his cars, and he speaks honestly about the dark times, and enthusiastically about everything else: cars, obviously, Adelaide life, his relationship with partner Madeline Cowe and the season ahead.

It was in this garage that he found, if not salvation, at least that other purpose in life that van Cuylenburg spoke to him about. Dixon had always been a bit of a car nut, but now he really threw himself into it.

“I’d come home and I’d be able to just switch off from football and then dive into this stuff, and sort of get that stuff rolling,’’ Dixon says.

In the garage sits his 2003 Monaro. When he turns the key to start the beast, the fuel pump whines and the turbo-charged V8 rumbles into life with a thrum you can feel in the pit of your stomach. He bought it for $20,000 and the rebuild– with the help of his mates at Paul Pavlou Motors – took 18 months and somewhere above $50,000 to complete.

It’s easy enough to believe Dixon when he says he has had it up to 260km/h on the racetrack at Tailem Bend. And he’s just changed the manual gearbox for an automatic because it means the car will reach top speed quicker.

Charlie Dixon with his 2003 Holden Monaro at the Welland garage where he restores cars. Picture: Tom Huntley

“I have always loved the Monaro and I grew up wanting one,’’ Dixon says with the glee of someone achieving a childhood dream. At the back of the garage sits a Ford F100 in pieces, another project ready to go.

Dixon documents his adventures with cars on his YouTube channel Drivin’ With Dixon, which has about 4500 subscribers, and from which he sells merchandise.

When  the  coronavirus  stopped  the football  season  last  year,  he  threw  himself full-time into his car passion and loved it so much he didn’t want the season to start again.

“I spent all my time in here; I had the best time ever,’’ Dixon says. “I am just loving waking up, coffee, exercise, training and then coming in the shed, spend a whole day in the shed here and just work on my cars. I had a ripping time.’’

But not only did the season restart, but Dixon and all the Port players were sent to a hub on the Gold Coast, because South Australia’s COVID-19 border restrictions meant interstate teams could not come to the state.

“I was like: I don’t want to go back to football,’’ a smiling Dixon says.

But it worked out all right. Port would have a thrilling season, losing only to eventual premiers Richmond in a tight preliminary final contest at Adelaide Oval.

Dixon would have the most influential season of his career, establishing himself as one of the AFL’s premier forwards and earning his first All Australian selection.

It was a long time coming. Dixon is now 30 and last year was his 10th at AFL level. Many times before it had been predicted this would be his year, but injury and maybe a reluctance to work hard enough in his early days to be a standout AFL player had held him back.

A Cairns boy, Dixon grew up playing basketball and soccer. Footy was a game he played but in which he had no great interest. His parents, Helen and Gordon, ran a tourism business in Far North Queensland. His older brother, Jesse, would be the inspiration for Dixon to finally take the game seriously.

“I always looked up to my brother. He would always smash me in anything I did, whether it was waterskiing or playing basketball down in the backyard.

“He made sure he beat me every time. It’s what I put my career down to, is that he made me better, toughened me up.’’

The brothers headed to Brisbane when Dixon was 17 to play for the Redland Bombers. He was also playing under-age footy for Queensland and became the first player to sign with the new AFL club, the Gold Coast Suns.

The first few years life was pretty basic at the Suns. Demountable change rooms, cotton training tops with stick-on logos which never seemed to be dry, and the gym was a shed. But there were compensations: the weather, the beach and the surf. Dixon admits he took a while to understand “what the footy world was about’’.

“I probably got sucked into that lifestyle, where it was just pretty cruisy, pretty laid-back,’’ he says.

Dixon experienced the highs and lows. Early predictions were made: he would be the player the Suns could build a team around. But then he slipped back a bit, overtaken by the next crop of bright young things that came along. Dixon did establish himself eventually but being a forward at a club that rarely won was a tough gig.

By 2015 he was looking for a new football home. He was feeling a “bit stagnant”. He knew Port coach Ken Hinkley from his time at the Suns and decided a move to Alberton would be a good fit. After his time with a start-up club he also wanted to experience life at an established club in a footy state.

There were a couple of shocks. One was the weather.

“My first winter, it felt like I was waking up every day and it was raining, it was cold, and I was like ‘Holy hell – what is going on? I’m gonna do my five years and go straight back up to the Coast after I retire’,’’ he says.

The other shock was the attention footballers receive in Adelaide. And when you look like Dixon it’s hard to be inconspicuous. “It’s good, but then also, you know, getting yelled at and giving you views as cars drive past and stuff like that, as you’re walking down the street sometimes,’’ he says.

“And if you’re not playing the best footy, you become a bit of a target.’’

The odd random idiot in the street is one thing. Another is the dark world of social media. A topic that makes Dixon shake his head.

None of the abuse is creative. He is called a flog or overrated or a f..kwit. Certainly nothing anyone would be brave enough to say to Dixon’s face.

“You wouldn’t say it to a person to their face, so why say it behind a phone, or behind keyboard – a keyboard warrior,” he says. “People are weird. Very weird.’’

But the constant abuse does leave a mark and not just on Dixon.

“My parents see all this stuff; my family see this,’’ he says. “And the people that do this, they don’t actually understand the impact it has on people and people’s mental health.

“I don’t understand how you can be nasty and just hurt people and think it’s okay. It’s just like, that’s just the way it is apparently these days. It shouldn’t be. It just blows me away people will take time out of their day to go and abuse someone or tell them how bad they are or how bad they did their job.’’

He doesn’t know what the answer is but believes “these people need to be wiped from social media’’. Although, with a grin, Dixon nods at the boxing ring that sits at the rear of the garage.

“There’s a boxing ring at the back here. I’ve got a set of gloves, let’s go.’’

At the end of last year, he signed with Port for another three years, which will keep him in Adelaide until the end of 2023.

But if he has his way, Dixon will remain in SA much longer. His partner has moved to Adelaide and the pair are building a house. Cowe is another Queenslander and Dixon will have to guide her through the cold Adelaide winters. “I said, ‘If you don’t like it here in three years, we can go wherever you like’. But I’m gonna try my best to keep her here and stay here.’’

. Charlie Dixon and Madeline Cowe. Picture: Brenton Edwards

Dixon sees his post-football life in the world of cars and motorsport.

Whether that’s promoting races or Adelaide as a motorsport hub.

“It gives me pure joy, and not just driving them, but then just sort of being involved in them as well,’’ he says. “I think there’s a really big, really big gap in the market to be able to do more, because there’s such a big car presence in Adelaide and I think that needs to be tapped into.’’

But first, there’s a footy season. Port’s first game is away playing North Melbourne tomorrow. The club has big expectations for its players. Chief executive Matthew Richardson says Port’s aim is to win three premierships in the next five years.

Dixon is comfortable with the challenge. Maybe because he has faced and come through bigger ones in recent years.

“I mean, you got to put your goals out there,” he says. “If that’s not in the conversation then, you know, what are you doing? We’ve got the team to do it, and we’ve got the depth to do it. So I think, ‘Yeah – why not’.’’