What does Jonathon Patton have in common with sport’s all-time greats Ali, Gretzky and Bergkamp?
MUHAMMAD Ali, Wayne Gretzky, Dennis Bergkamp and Jonathon Patton. They might not be the traditional awesome-foursome but they do have something pretty unique in common. And it’s all to do with being in the air.
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MUHAMMAD Ali, Wayne Gretzky, Dennis Bergkamp and Jonathon Patton.
Not bad dinner party company if you’re GWS Giants big man Patton — and not least of all because he shares a fear of flying that some of sport’s greatest have conquered.
Patton recently opted to get behind the wheel and drive the three-and-a-half hours back to Sydney after the Giants’ home win over Fremantle in Canberra, rather than take the 20-minute flight with his teammates.
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Of course in a national competition, that’s an exception rather than the rule for Patton, who flies virtually every second week and will be boarding the GWS jet down to Geelong for Friday night’s blockbuster at the Cattery.
But for one of the AFL’s most imposing contested markers, flying off the field still doesn’t get any easier.
Patton is yet to request a train ticket on the Indian-Pacific to Perth, although he wouldn’t be Robinson Crusoe if he did. The one and only Muhammad Ali inquired with American authorities about catching a boat to fight in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Ali ultimately had 15 fights overseas, including the Rumble in the Jungle, and by the end The Greatest said his Islamic faith cured his fear.
Ice hockey royalty Gretzky started his famed career driving from Edmonton to road games in Calgary, 300km away.
Gretzky once feared his phobia would force him into early retirement and his advice to fellow plane-shy athletes like Patton is to talk to the pilot.
“It’s the worst feeling in the world to have … I don’t think psychiatrists and psychologists and all that are going to help,” Gretzky once said.
“I went to four or five, and it didn’t help me at all. What cured my fear was the pilots themselves explaining the plane and talking about what planes do.”
One of the most revered English Premier League footballers of all time, Bergkamp, used to drive a campervan across Europe for away matches and was blamed by Arsenal fans for a first-round UEFA Cup loss in 1997 in Greece after refusing to fly there from London.
Bergkamp wrote in his autobiography that his fear of flying sometimes clouded his thinking during matches when he started to sweat over the next flight.
“It got so bad I would look up at the sky during away games to see what the weather was like,” he wrote. “Were there any clouds coming? Sometimes I was preoccupied by the flight home while I was playing football. It was hell.”
Famous American stuntman Evel Knievel, incredibly, was afraid of flying and legendary Channel 9 rugby league commentator Ray Warren has hated boarding planes his entire career.
Patton’s phobia hasn’t stopped his evolution into one of the AFL’s biggest emerging stars, drawing regular comparisons with Brisbane Lions great Jonathan Brown.
And there’s inspiration from some of sport’s all-time athletes that Patton could move into even rarer air.