Brendan Fevola says he rejected a last-minute offer to stay at Carlton

BRENDAN Fevola has revealed he drank two cans of Jim Beam and ate two McChicken burgers on the day he kicked 12 goals against Collingwood on New Year’s Eve.

Brendan Fevola could have stayed at Carlton.

BRENDAN Fevola says his decision to leave Carlton “still flattens” him almost seven years after he rejected a last-minute bid from president Stephen Kernahan to keep him at the club.

Fevola revealed he signed a three-year deal with Brisbane worth $3.6 million in a trade that sent Lachie Henderson and pick No. 12 (Kane Lucas) to the Blues.

Carlton put its third-greatest goalkicker up for trade after a boozy night at the 2009 Brownlow Medal capped a frustrating string of off-field incidents involving Fevola.

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But, in a little-known backflip, Fevola said Kernahan rang him in the final days of the 2009 trade period to tell him the club had changed its mind.

“Sticks (Kernahan) rang me on the Thursday and said ‘Mate, we are not trading you’. Come back and when you kick the first (goal) against Richmond on a Thursday night in Round 1 everything will be forgotten’,” Fevola said on ‘The Howie Games’ podcast.

Brendan Fevola playing in one of his final games for Carlton.

“But I thought ‘you (Carlton) put me up for trade, I can’t go back’, let’s just break it here.

“But I wish I had have gone back. It still flattens me now.

“But at the end of the day things happen for reason. I made that decision and I’ve got to live with it.”

Fevola, 35, said his decision to leave Carlton was his only regret in life and believed Brett Ratten’s men were on the brink of challenging for a premiership when he departed.

The Blues’ seven-time leading goalkicker bagged 188 goals in his last two seasons at Carlton before he was put up for trade.

“If I didn’t leave in 2009 we would have been pretty close (to winning a premiership),” he said.

The dual Coleman Medalist also said he considered an offer to join St Kilda alongside twin towers Nick Riewoldt and Justin Koschitzke.

The Saints were offering Fevola, who was a St Kilda supporter as a child, $400,000 a year.

“It was like a $500,000 a year pay cut … so it wasn’t going to happen, was it?” he said.

In a revealing interview with Mark Howard, Fevola also said he:

DRANK two cans of Jim Beam and ate two McChicken burgers on the day of his 12-goal haul in the 1999 Millennium match against Collingwood that ignited his career.

Brendan Fevola kicks for goal during the Millennium match. Picture: George Salpigtidis

LOST $365,000 over a series of four or five horse bets that led to the breakdown of his marriage with wife Alex. They are back together.

BATTLED Attention Deficit Disorder, which impeded his concentration in footy meetings.

WOULD constantly repeat himself in conversation, up to 15 times, during a 70-day stay at the New Farm mental health clinic in Brisbane where he was diagnosed with depression and sacked by ex-Brisbane coach Michael Voss.

Fevola said alcohol was a factor in his mental health issues.

“At the end of the year you would just smash beers because that’s what you did and that’s the culture you were in,” he said.

Brendan Fevola struggled at the Brisbane Lions.

Fevola said he owed everything to his wife and three daughters.

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“Alex has been amazing. Everything that I have put her through and even when I was up in Yarrawonga with all the gambling (debts) and we had to pay it back, she was the one person . who stood by me and helped me even when we weren’t together,” he said.

“I was driving her car, her little Rav 4, which is a beast, and she was paying for it and I was driving it and we weren’t even together. She just wanted the best for me.”

The Brendan Fevola interview will be available on The Howie Games Podcast on iTunes from Thursday

Originally published as Brendan Fevola says he rejected a last-minute offer to stay at Carlton