Horror injury turned NRL prodigy John Rowbotham into rap artist
John Rowbotham should have been a household NRL name up there with Smith, Thurston and Inglis. But a horrific injury that went untreated ruined his career before it began and he became hip hop artist Johnny Row instead.
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Part 2: The injury that ended Tony Caine
Part 3: Yow Yeh still dreams of coaching
They were the lucky ones — blessed with talent, passionate and on a path that led to riches and fame. Then it all came crashing down and they had to rebuild lives that would never be the same.
Michael Carayannis continues our series profiling rugby league players whose careers ended all too soon.
♦♦♦♦♦
I won’t lie I thought of suicide a couple of times
It would have been so easy to leave it all behind
I went from having everything a young man could need
To no woman, no cash and nightmares instead of dreams
♦♦♦♦♦
He’s known as Johnny Row in the hip-hop world, and he sings with a conviction born of despair.
If not for a horrific injury he could just as easily have been known as John Rowbotham, NRL superstar.
Rowbotham was a record-breaking prodigy. An Australian Schoolboys representative two years in a row and skipper of arguably the greatest youth team ever assembled.
The second-rower earned his first contract with North Queensland at 16, when he moved from Innisfail to Townsville.
But Rowbotham’s first-grade dream quickly faded as he instead harboured a new ambition — keeping his left arm and eventually fighting to stay alive.
After playing, by his calculations, about 80 games in 1998, which included Queensland and Australian matches, Rowbotham felt a lingering pain in his shoulder. He needed a shoulder reconstruction, which sidelined him for the first half of the 1999 season when he was 18.
“I wasn’t worried about the career here,” Rowbotham says.
“It was just part and parcel of footy. I missed the Queensland under-18 trials though.
“So I wrote a letter saying why I’d missed the trials but I’d be fit to play. A bloke pulled out and they picked me without even trialling. It caused a bit of angst at the time.”
Rowbotham went on the Australian Schoolboys tour to Europe later that year despite feeling his shoulder partially dislocate while playing for Queensland. He co-captained the Australian side, which went undefeated in eight matches, including a record 76-0 defeat of France in Limoux.
Three players from that side — Mark Gasnier, Justin Hodges and Brent Tate — were later named in the Australian Schoolboys Team of the Century. Other future representative players included Jamie Lyon, Braith Anasta and Corey Parker.
Rowbotham had another shoulder reconstruction upon his return. Undeterred, he pressed on with his first-grade dreams.
Coach Tim Sheens called him up to train with the Cowboys’ top squad in 2000.
“This was the turning point. I remember getting the momentum I needed to push for a first-grade spot but then it was a freak accident. One of the players gripped where my scar was from my two previous shoulder operations. I remember a snap.
“It was a really acute snap and pain under my skin. You try and brush it off but the next day it blew up really badly.”
Ten months of misery followed.
A misdiagnosis left him with crippling pain in his left arm, and it is still impaired today.
“I went to see the doctor but our primary doctor wasn’t there,” Rowbotham says.
“The doctor drained out the blood with the syringe and said it was good news because it was just blood so there was no infection. But from there it was just hell.
“The shoulder deteriorated. I remember waking up one day and there was this God-awful smell. I couldn’t describe the colour of my arm.”
Rowbotham dropped about 15kg of muscle mass as he lost movement in his arm. He somehow made it back onto the field for a Cowboys reserve-grade team late in 2000 with the infection still undiagnosed.
“I went to score a try and my good shoulder, the right one, just came out completely,” Rowbotham says.
“From there I knew it was the end for me. I was flown to Sydney to have an operation. I took my shirt off for the specialist and he freaked out when he saw how infected my left shoulder was.
“He told me there was no way he could operate on me and sent me straight back to Townsville.
“I remember waking up every morning pushing the bottom half of my left pec up and it would burst out with disgustingness. I bought and administered my own dressings.
“I didn’t hear from anyone at the club. I was still a contracted player but no one seemed to know what was going on as there was little to no contact from anyone. I was on high doses of many different medications, had undergone multiple different medical procedures.
“I went into the club one day. They’d asked where I’d been. I told them, ‘I’m just trying to live’. I was 19 and had no support.
“Eventually I went and saw coach Murray Hurst. I remember peeling back my sleeve and showing him this is what I’m dealing with.
“He didn’t know. The next day I was on a flight to Sydney.”
With the pain of his left shoulder, Rowbotham has never had his right shoulder fixed since being held up over the try line against the Roosters.
His hopes of a long-term NRL career now dashed, Rowbotham battled mental demons.
“I was like, what the f...,” Rowbotham says. “I had waited 10 months for them to fix my shoulder when it could’ve been all over in two weeks. I could’ve kept playing. I was just a kid. I had no one there. I had no idea.
“I don’t hold any ill-feeling towards the Cowboys. You’re a product. If you break, you’re no use to the business. I learnt it the hard way.
“My mates didn’t understand. In their mind I was the guy that they’d put on a pedestal.
“They didn’t know how to react when they saw me struggling. I’m not going to lie, it was very tough.
“My mind took me to some very dark places and had me thinking of doing some horrible things to myself.”
Rowbotham found his peace in music as Johnny Row. His 2011 album On a Personal Note has played on Triple J and is available on iTunes. One of his songs, “Scars”, covers his football journey.
“I’ve had to learn how to live with the ‘what if’,” Rowbotham says. “I didn’t watch footy for ages. I have a really poor range of motion in my left shoulder. It inhibits my quality of life such as my sleep and the things that we take for granted, like washing your hair with two hands.”
Rowbotham, now 37, has rebuilt his life. He is married with two children and works as a fly-in-fly out operator at the mines.
He lives in Townsville and has been invited back by the Cowboys, schools and other community events to share his story to help the youth of today and the next generation of stars.
♦♦♦♦♦
So close yet so far
God knows I tried so hard
It just rips me apart
Now all I’m left with is scars
♦♦♦♦♦
Lifeline 13 11 14; Beyondblue 1300 22 4636
Originally published as Horror injury turned NRL prodigy John Rowbotham into rap artist
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