David Penberthy: Why trouble has a habit of following De Goey

The Collingwood forward has a real knack for landing himself in the poop because he seems to be “an ordinary bloke” – ordinary as in, you know, unpleasant, writes David Penberthy.

Just to be clear from the get go, I am not saying Jordan De Goey has done anything wrong in a criminal sense. What you could say by way of massive understatement is that trouble has a habit of following De Goey. Indeed trouble has followed him almost annually over the past few years.

The Collingwood forward – let’s not call him a star given he averaged just 1.3 goals a game this season – has a real knack for landing himself in the poop.

This column aims to tease out the reasons behind that phenomenon. Its thesis is simple – it is because he seems to be what is known colloquially as “an ordinary bloke”. Not ordinary as in average or unremarkable, but ordinary as in, you know, unpleasant.

To set the scene, a quick recap of the things De Goey definitely has done.

He definitely lied to his coaches and teammates back in 2017 when he said he had broken his hand playing with his dog, only for the truth to emerge that he had actually busted it in some late-night incident at a St Kilda night club, costing him three matches, a $5000 fine and 10 weeks community service.

He definitely got caught drink-driving in 2018, costing him a $10,000 fine and a $10,000 donation to charity.

Collingwood star Jordan De Goey partying in New York. Picture: Instagram

Collingwood star Jordan De Goey partying. Picture: Instagram

He insists that he and one of his mates were always innocent of indecent assault charges brought by Victorian Police in 2020 over an incident involving a woman in 2015, which had previously been investigated by the AFL’s Integrity Unit. De Goey claimed vindication when, on the day the case was set to proceed, prosecutors withdrew the charges.

He now finds himself awaiting another court appearance, where (you would think) he is going to exercise his right to deny charges of punching and kicking a stranger at a New York nightclub who intervened in some dispute involving a woman. He no longer has to defend charges that he groped that woman on the buttocks and genitals, as those charges have been dropped.

Against this backdrop of proven facts and unpleasant allegations, you would have to conclude that Jordan De Goey is either the unluckiest bloke going around or a pattern has begun to emerge.

I noted this week that a handful of players have invoked the Old Mates Act and sprung to his defence deploying the usual smorgasbord of cliches.

Jordza top bloke, the boys’ll get around him, there’s two sides to everything, just give him a break hey.

It is cute, the extent to which this man’s reward for being a boofhead is the unyielding generosity of the feeble-minded.

I say stuff him. It is about time other blokes called him out and called out others of his kind. You only need to look at the video of him on Instagram to suspect he’s a self-absorbed he-man with the capacity to ruin everyone else’s night. These charmers don’t act like most of us yet collectively they give us a bad name.

Jordan De Goey of the Magpies celebrates a goal in the 2021 season. Picture: Michael Klein

De Goey just after he was released in New York after being set a December 8 court date.

We live in censorious times and there are a lot of terms from this age of wokeness with the capacity to annoy.

One of these is “toxic masculinity”, a generalised slur for everyone from the Dalai Lama down. It’s a bit like that other sledge you see from the PC brigade on Twitter – “old white men” – a catch-all pejorative which includes everyone from the delightful planet-saving Sir David Attenborough to the repellent p---y-grabbing Donald Trump.

The term toxic masculinity suggests that all men are afflicted with a chromosomal flaw which could go off at any time, resulting in acts of domestic violence, sexualised vilification, or topless dancing on Instagram while we parade our six-packs to the world before a bit of casual grab-ass.

So often it is nothing like this. I take part in an all-male activity once a month which I like to call Thursday night beers at the pub then dinner in Chinatown with Paul, Ben and Daz. Topics of conversation include cricket, AFL, music, food, wine, and how are kids are doing. We drink to what the health wowsers call “excess” yet make it through the night without punching anyone, being punched, having “misunderstandings” with random women or police charges being laid or withdrawn. We keep our shirts buttoned up, don’t film each other and post footage of ourselves to Instagram, and not just because we are all aged in our 50s and have just eaten 2kg of barbecued duck.

Lest anyone suggest this is classist, I would also say that I have a great bunch of mates from my son’s public school, one a storeman, one a barman and one an ex-footy player with a trucking business, and we regularly get through similar sessions without any arrests.

For every ordinary bloke like De Goey there are others who are middle class and highly educated who still share his unpleasant ordinariness.

One of the things that struck me about Christian Porter was how few people sprang to his defence. Again, I am not saying he is guilty of anything. What struck me as noteworthy was that his ex-wife attended the women’s rally and that he seemingly had few, if any, female friends who wanted to stand by him publicly. Throughout that affair he looked like a born-to-rule spooner whose backers seemed less motivated by admiration for his character, than their own political survival.

Being an ordinary bloke is not an incurable condition. De Goey has a chance to redeem himself, albeit off a growing back catalogue of unsavoury conduct. If he can somehow summon the will, and display the wit, it is still possible to lead a life less ordinary.

Originally published as David Penberthy: Why trouble has a habit of following De Goey