Port Adelaide key forward Charlie Dixon has opened up about his mental demons on the road back from injury

Charlie Dixon is a man mountain with a gruff exterior. But this week he showed another side of himself and it proves that bravery comes in many forms, Reece Homfray writes.

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As a footballer, Charlie Dixon is a fearsome sight.

Two hundred centimetres and 105kg with a big bushy beard and a look in his eye that could flatten you just as quickly.

But this week we learnt something about Charlie Dixon the man.

Not that he likes a beer after a game (who doesn’t?) or that when he’s not at Alberton he’s at the local garage tinkering with his cars.

We learnt that he’s been doing it tough. Beneath the gruff exterior and behind that ferocious glare is a 28-year-old who’s not too big or too proud to admit that he has needed help.

Nine months after breaking his ankle in Port Adelaide’s Round 21 loss to West Coast at Adelaide Oval, Dixon is finally nearing a return to football — cautiously pencilled in for the SANFL against Sturt next weekend.

As that day draws closer, Dixon has opened up about the turbulent road back both on and off the field. And his words resonate even more after the sudden retirement of another highly paid key forward in Tom Boyd at just 23 last month.

“My last two interviews I’ve thought ‘you know what, I’m not going to give the generic answers that I’m getting there and all that ... I was struggling’,” Dixon told Fox Footy’s On The Mark program this week.

“Then you go through other things like a breakup of a relationship, things fall apart ... I didn’t think I’d lose someone.

“Then you find yourself in a pretty dark place, and after my second surgery I was laying there and was like ‘am I going to be right to play again? Am I going to be back?’

“And people don’t realise that when you’re a player and a competitor, all you want to do is go out and play and you can’t do that, and then you’re copping a beating at home, and at training as well.

“It’s like ‘am I going to be OK?”

Dixon told Fox Footy this week that he has sought help to work through his mental struggles on and off the field. Picture: Kelly Barnes AAP

It’s at this point where Dixon can’t stop talking and the words are pouring out but his voice appears to break ever so slightly as he thinks about what he is saying.

“I’m just so lucky I have the people around me, all my teammates who have really got behind me in this tough time, and you think about it, I’ve struggled with some sort of depression,” he said.

“You go into not being able to play football and you lose a couple of things that you love in your life ... and it’s just not the same, which is something that I’m working through now and I’m getting help.

“I have to get myself out of this hole that I’m in, and I’m sort of moving in that way now and I find myself day to day I’m getting better and stronger.

“The only thing that’s probably kept me together is these lads here (local garage) and also just going to a public gym away from the club, putting the headphones in and smashing myself until I can sleep at night.

“People look at it and say ‘why would you be struggling? Look at you, you’ve got a really good life, you get paid really well to kick a footy around?’ Well at the moment I can’t do that.”

Dixon broke his leg on August 11 last year and had surgery within days. He was mostly boxing on Port’s pre-season camp in Noosa in December and started running over Christmas.

But in his words, it felt like he had a stone in his shoe and would send pain shooting up his leg.

Leaving Adelaide Oval after breaking his ankle against West Coast in Round 21 last year. Picture: Sarah Reed.

“As soon as I started to ramp it up, same thing again, I’d have a week off, a couple of jabs, get going again, a week off ... and they were telling me the scans look good,” he said.

“And I was saying ‘well they’re not good because I can’t get out of first gear’.

To keep himself busy but also take his mind off footy and life, Dixon would go to his local garage to work on his cars. He told Kelli Underwood the best car he’s ever driven is a Porsche 911 which reminds him of teammate Connor Rozee.

And the worst? A WB ute, which reminds him of himself.

“Because it had holes, it was busted and barely got going,” he says with a wry smile.

“I never thought I’d miss football this much.”

Boxing with fitness coach Daniel Buberis on Port’s pre-season camp in Noosa. Picture: Sarah Reed.

Dixon said he felt for Boyd who came under a lot of scrutiny as a key forward brought to the Western Bulldogs from a rival club on big money and ultimately led it to a premiership.

“I sympathised for the big fella, I remember seeing him after the grand final we were down in Sorrento for New Year’s and I went up to him and said ‘mate what you’ve done this year is unreal, you’ve copped it, you’ve been hit from pillar to post and all this expectation (on you), but you showed up when your team needed you, and it doesn’t matter about any other game you played, your finals series was better than anyone else’s and you’re a superstar’,” Dixon said.

“He’s got the dangly (medal) around his neck and that’s what we play football for.

“That’s something I thought this year that footy maybe has passed me by, that’s the bad thoughts you have in tough times, but I think we have the team that can do it (make it deep in September).

“If we can get everyone out on the park and we get on a good run we can definitely be there, that is a dream, to not be out having beers on my birthday (September 23), I would love to be working on my birthday.

“As a competitor there’s nothing more I want than to win.”

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