High Steaks: The gentle side of footy hardman Mark Geyer
In a wide-ranging interview, ex-Panthers hardman Mark Geyer recalls grand final glory and the forging a media career that recently took a new turn. Watch the High Steaks interview.
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Mark Geyer remembers the tightness forming in the pit of his stomach. It was last spring, a Saturday morning, and he was reading an email that had hit his inbox the previous night around 10.30pm.
There was no mistaking the message. His career after 17 years at Triple M was over. Mick Molloy had accepted a job offer in Melbourne and now the comedian’s breakfast show co-host was considered surplus to requirements.
“I get the landscape,” Geyer recalled as we dine on oysters, octopus and fillet mignon at Osso in Panthers. “Nothing is forever. I’m a realist that way. But it was the uncertainty that hit me. I had five kids, a grandson and a mortgage, was 56-years-old and didn’t know what was next.”
Turns out Tom Malone, the boss at 2GB, came knocking within two days. SEN pitched up as well but an offer to join The Continuous Call Team for the next three years was too good for Geyer to refuse.
“It was nice to be wanted,” he smiled.
The unofficial Mayor of Penrith, who was part of the Panthers’ historic rugby league premiership triumph in 1991 and stood nose-to-nose with the great Wally Lewis in one of State of Origin’s most iconic showdowns, is a long-time fan of 2GB’s footy coverage.
“I remember as a young player, there was nothing better than having sideline eye Tony Megahey put the headphones on you after a game and you’d be speaking to ‘Bolts’ (Ray Hadley), ‘Chippy’ (Peter Frilingos) and ‘Bozo’ (Bob Fulton),” he laughed.
“It’s great to be part of that this year. It’s funny, you know, because I’ve actually been in the media for more years now than I played footy. I’m not a great wordsmith, I know that, and I muck a few things up. Sometimes I know what I want to say and it doesn’t quite come out as intended.
“But I think people are okay with that. They know I’m not the most polished performer, but I do try be as authentic as possible. “
Family is everything to Geyer. His mother was just 16 and his father 18 when he, the eldest of the couple’s four children, was born into housing commission surrounds at Whalan in western Sydney.
“They were young parents, had four kids by their early twenties,” Geyer said. “We lived in a housing commission place but we didn’t know it was tough because mum and dad shielded us, made sure we always had what we needed.
“They had two jobs each just to pay the rent. But no matter how tired dad was when he came home from work, if I wanted to have a kick of the ball or play cricket in summer, he never said no. It’s something I got from him. I’ve tried to emulate that with my boys.”
A father to three daughters and two sons, Geyer has known his wife Meagan for almost 40 years. Her brother Greg, a Penrith great, played with Geyer in that first grand final victory in 1991.
But the relationship stretches back even further. Meagan and Greg – three years Geyer’s senior – were writing to each other when “Brandy” Alexander, the star Panthers halfback, was on the 1986 Kangaroos tour.
In one letter, Meagan informed her big brother she had a boyfriend. He was playing in Penrith’s Under-23 team. “That’s great,” Greg replied. “As long as it’s not Mark Geyer.”
“I guess my reputation preceded me,” Geyer laughs. “I’m just glad Meags didn’t listen to Brandy that one time.”
Family brings out the gentler side of the rugby league renegade known simply as MG.
On the field, different story.
He was the quintessential rugby league gunslinger, an enforcer rivals feared, teammates wanted by their side, and hometown fans loved. A Queensland State of Origin coach once wanted him locked up for his on-field brutality.
Geyer still remembers the day he slipped into his first set of shoulder pads: “I was 15 or 16 because I’d played five-eighth up until then”. He felt like Superman pulling on his cape.
In a trial for the Penrith Under-19 Jersey Flegg team, he flattened the two incumbent second rowers with shoulder charges. He was three years younger than both and was stopped in the car park after the game by the Panthers first grade coach Tim Sheens.
“Mum and I were walking back to the old Valiant station wagon when he came up and said ‘G’day mate what’s your name’,” Geyer recalled. “I told him ‘Mark Geyer from the St Marys club’. Sheensy said ‘Very impressive, you’ve got something … how would you like to play Under-23s next year’?”
Geyer would go on to make his first grade debut for Penrith in 1987 while still a teenager, played for a Prime Minister’s XIII the following year, was chosen for State of Origin in 1989, and toured with the Kangaroos in 1990, earning a Test jumper against France.
The Panthers lost the 1990 title decider to the Canberra Raiders, then atoned 12 months later, downing the defending champions in a thriller.
Geyer had a hand in three tries and would surely have been named the Clive Churchill medal winner as man of the match but for a second half sin bin stint for accusing a touch judge of cheating.
“Jubilation like I’d never experienced,” he says of the grand final victory. “I screamed that much after we scored our last try I fractured my larynx. Couldn’t talk for a month.”
Within a year of that premiership triumph, Geyer had departed the Panthers and for a couple of seasons, in his words, “got lost in the rugby league wilderness”.
He played one season with Balmain in 1993, got dumped by the Tigers, and was reduced to taking up a contract with Umina on the Central Coast.
When Meagan told him the couple were expecting their first child, it was the wake-up call he needed. Geyer signed for three seasons with the Western Reds in Perth after an approach from coach Peter Mulholland, and put his league career back on track.
Returning to the Panthers in 1998 – after five years away – he played out his career with the club and retired at the end of the 2000 season.
Also the host of a new podcast Life in 5ive, Geyer has long worked behind the scenes for numerous charities. In 2013 he received an OAM in the Australia Day honours list.
But family is what matters most.
“They give me solace,” he said. “I love them to death. My wife, wow … Meags has been a rock. Been my best mate for a long time now.
“I watch her sometimes when she’s talking to the kids. I’ll just stare at her and think ‘Gee I’m lucky’.”
Before we leave I notice the wristband at the base of his right forearm. It bears the number 262, representing Geyer’s position in the order of players to pull on the Penrith jersey since the club joined the competition in 1967.
What I didn’t notice was the number alongside it – 620 – his son Mavrik’s number after he debuted for the Panthers last April.
“He chose Penrith over Melbourne because he wanted to make his debut where I did,” Geyer smiled. “So proud of him. So proud of all my kids. They mean the world to me.”
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Originally published as High Steaks: The gentle side of footy hardman Mark Geyer
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