Former SANFL premiership enforcer Alan Stringer overcomes his mental demons — and wants to help others do the same
He was the on-field football enforcer who seemed indestructible. But more than three decades after playing a key role in Glenelg Football Club winning back-to-back SANFL premierships, Alan Stringer has revealed how his life was saved by an old adversary.
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He was the on-field football enforcer who seemed indestructible.
But more than three decades after playing a key role in Glenelg Football Club winning back-to-back SANFL premierships in 1985 and 1986, Alan Stringer has revealed how his life had been saved by an old football adversary.
“Scott Hodges saved me,’’ Stringer said of the eight-times Port Adelaide SANFL premiership player, 1990 Magarey Medallist and former Crows and Power AFL full forward.
Without Scott’s help I don’t think I would be on this earth anymore.
“I had a hideous disease and was in a bad way for a long time. I was sick — mentally and physically — and couldn’t function.
“I was crying out for help and didn’t want to be here anymore.
“But I was able to get in contact with Scott, who I’d never met away from the field of battle, and now here I am.
“He helped me get back, to find myself again, and now I'm on a mission to help others — just like he helped me.’’
Stringer, now 59, is on the recovery trail from a 15-year battle with mental illness that saw his life spiral out of control.
It almost cost him everything, including his life.
Stringer contemplated suicide, his wife, Robyn, had left him, his strong relationship with his three children soured, he couldn’t work, he became a recluse in his Aberfoyle Park home and he avoided his friends like the plague.
He said he would probably be dead if it wasn’t for a last-ditch bid to reach out for help last year.
“I wasn’t in a good place, so I rang my old (Glenelg) coach Graham Cornes and asked if he had Scott Hodges’ phone number, who he coached at the Crows,’’ Stringer said.
“I knew Scott had been to hell and back and had written a book about it (Not All Black and White, Scott Hodges’ life in football and how it almost ended), so once I got his number I rang him straight away.’’
Hodges’ book, released in 2017, details his long fight with depression which saw him contemplate suicide.
“I was basically crying and Scott told me the first thing I should do was to get hold of his book and read it, the whole lot,’’ Stringer said.
“I vividly recall going to a book shop at Jetty Road, Glenelg, starting to read the book at 3pm and not putting it down until I had finished it at 10 that night, all 280 pages of it.
“Scott had told me that I would probably relate to a bit of it and I rang him back at 10 and said I relate to the whole bloody lot.
“It was a tipping point for me because I finally knew somebody who had fought a similar battle and come out the other side.
“Scott — and his wife Kerry — have been rocks for me ever since and enormous in helping to turn my life around.’’
Born in Snowtown and raised on a farm in the mid-north town of Koolunga, 188km from Adelaide, Stringer is a member of a famous footballing family.
His dad, Lyle, won a Mail Medal but did not play in the SANFL because of his commitments on the family farm.
His oldest brother, Barry, was a star wingman for North Adelaide from 1971-81, playing in premierships in 1971 and 1972 and being a member of the Roosters’ losing grand final in 1973 against Glenelg — a seven-point thriller widely regarded as the greatest grand final in SANFL history.
A brilliant left-footed wingman, he played 220 league games before tragically dying of a heart attack at age 57.
“He had chest pain, tried to drive himself to the Jamestown Hospital and didn’t make it,’’ Alan said.
Middle sibling, Wayne, played 129 games for North from 1975-82 before crossing to the Tigers with Alan at the end of the 1982 season.
A tough, rebounding half-back flanker, Wayne played 145 games for Glenelg until retiring in 1988 and coaching the club in 1997.
Alan played 25 games in two seasons for the Roosters and 145 for the Bays from 1983-89.
They played alongside each other in Glenelg’s 1985-86 premiership teams.
The three brothers hold the record for the most games (661) played by siblings in the SANFL.
“I loved the farm and my childhood and I’ve got nothing but great memories there,’’ Stringer said.
“And I have nothing but the fondest memories of my league football career.
“I wasn't the most talented player and had to scrap and fight for my career but to win two league premierships with Glenelg is something that I will always treasure.
“Me and Wayne had some great times there and felt that we were very fortunate to have played in a great era of SANFL football.’’
When he retired from the SANFL, Stringer won four premierships as player-coach of North Clare and later coached amateur league club St Peters Old Collegians and Southern Football League side Happy Valley to flags.
“I gave a bit back after my playing days,’’ Stringer said.
But he said his life began to badly unravel in 2004 after he spent two weeks holidaying with his children at a mate’s cattle and sheep station in the New South Wales country town of Cobar.
“I’d dealt with a few issues in my life but nothing I wasn’t able to handle until that Cobar trip,’’ Stringer said.
“Robyn and I were living at a lovely property at Kangarilla, I was running our farm there while working full-time at Sacred Heart College, my boys were going to college, I was coaching Happy Valley and I was being a good husband and father.
“But then things went pear-shaped.’’
Stringer said his life started to go downhill after he “knocked’’ his knuckles while he was “catching and selling feral goats’’ with his mate at the Cobar station.
“There was an open wound on my left hand — I used to knock my knuckles all the time on the farm — but after about a month I started to feel very lethargic, like I had glandular fever,’’ Stringer recalled.
“I remember saying to Robyn that I felt like I was 75 years old, not 45,
“I was just so tired and feeling so crook. I went to the doctor for blood tests but nothing really showed up.
“But I became extremely concerned about my health because it just wasn’t me, feeling so bad all the time.
“I then became erratic with some of the decisions I made in life — there were times when I didn’t come home from the football club because I was stuck there having a few beers — which really put stress and strain on the marriage.
“I didn’t want to go to work and was going through a horrendous time, not knowing what on earth was going on.
“I couldn’t work, I couldn’t function.’’
Further blood tests — a year after the “knock'’ — revealed Stringer had contracted Q fever.
It is an occupational disease of meat workers and farmers and can leave victims with a fever, headache, extreme fatigue and weight loss.
He had medication to kill the virus but the damage had already been done.
“Not knowing for 12 months what was wrong with me was the start of my decline because my health had been no good,’’ Stringer said.
He said his world quickly collapsed around him.
Stringer went into deep depression, stopped working and “isolated myself from society’’.
With “wonderful’’ support from Robyn, he saw psychiatrists but they failed to help him and he was institutionalised for a fortnight at an Adelaide clinic where he underwent shock treatment.
“I was suicidal, so they had to try something,’’ Stringer said.
“It’s as black and white as that because I was in such a bad, bad place.
“Shock treatment can help some people but it didn’t work for me.
“My health was absolutely terrible and when I left there I felt I was back to square one.
“I had to sell my farm to have the money to save my life and the hole I was in was getting deeper and deeper.’’
During this period, Stringer’s marriage ended.
“And I don't blame Robyn one little bit for leaving because I wasn’t the man she had married,’’ he said.
“She tried to help me through my troubles for six years — she did everything she could for me — but eventually I wore her down.’’
Stringer had to dip into his savings — “because I refused to go to Centrelink because of my pride,’’ he said.
“Eventually I did and I was trying to survive on $255 a week,’’ he said.
“I was lucky that once I turned 55 I was able to access some of my superannuation savings to save my house and my life.’’
Former teammates, hearing of Stringer’s plight, reached out to him.
But he wouldn’t have a bar of them.
“I basically lived out of a beer bottle for 10 years and for four or five years I barely left my house,’’ he said.
“I can recall spending Christmas Day there for a few years in a row and not speaking to anybody at all.
“I refused to go to any Glenelg (premiership) reunions because I couldn’t face anyone and I remember being at Marion Shopping Centre, on one of the few occasions I left the house to buy something, and saw someone that I knew coming towards me so I ducked into a shoe shop and pretended to buy a pair of shoes so I wouldn’t have to face them.
“I was leading such a lonely, quiet life.
“But after sitting on my lounge for five years, I thought this isn’t going to solve anything and if it’s going to be, if I am going to find a way out of this, then it’s up to me to do something about it.
“So I rang Scott.’’
The pair had an instant connection.
Hodges battled severe depression and anxiety after his illustrious football career, which included kicking the most goals in a season in SANFL history (153) in 1990 and being inducted into the South Australian Football Hall of Fame, had ended and he had lost five Port teammates to suicide.
This led to him writing a book in the hope it would help others.
Stringer was a prime test case.
For the first time in years, Stringer said he had found someone who understood what he was going through.
The pair met regularly, Stringer started seeing a psychiatrist and a mental health worker who he did connect with — “I owe them a lot,’’ he said — and he is back working.
After being thrown an employment lifeline in February last year by Glenelg premiership teammate Tony Symonds as a part-time gardener at the Warradale Hotel, Stringer is now driving trucks for a mate’s business, Northern Grit Blasting.
He is trying to mend relationships with his boys — Dylan, 31, Todd, 29, and Matt, 27.
Stringer has two grandchildren, Judd, 18 months, and Harriett, who was born last month.
“My kids have found it so hard to understand what was wrong with dad but since I’ve come out of it, the disease that nearly destroyed me, I’ve had a chat with two of them and asked, ‘what was the first part of their family lives like’, and they have said ‘fantastic’,’’ he said.
“But my health issue has been a major problem in our lives and while they are still struggling to face it, they are starting to understand a little bit more.
“There are still some deep scars that won’t heal overnight but I’m hoping we’ll eventually get there.
“I have spent time with the grandkids, which has been great.’’
Stringer now wants to spread the message about mental illness with Hodges, who he has become great mates and fishing partners with.
“Me and Scotty have a pretty unique bond,’’ he said.
“We’ve been through a lot individually and together and understand what a hideous disease this is.
“As much as I enjoyed my football career and still like footy, I’ve learnt there are a hell of a lot more important things in life.
“The journey I've been on, well, whoever said life wasn’t meant to be easy, he got that spot on.
“But I feel that I am one of the lucky ones because I’ve stared this hideous disease in the face and come out the other side, managed to rebuild my life.
“Now I want to join Scott in helping others. If we save just one person it will be well worth it.’’
Hodges said he and Stringer would likely team up to undertake guest speaking roles to talk about mental health and how best to deal with it.
“Alan is a guy who desperately wanted to get help and, like me, had been in a dark place for far too long,’’ he said.
“We were both in a position where things could have ended for us at any time — I lost five Port teammates to mental illness — so I know just how bad it can get.
“This disease doesn’t discriminate and if we can help someone along the journey then we will.’’
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