Flashback: How rugby league legend Chris ‘Choppy’ Close got fit ahead of 1988 Coast season
TODAY’S rugby league stars have gyms and specialised trainers who help keep them fit. But one Gold Coast player instead got fit by putting in the hard years on the building site.
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ASH Taylor is Gold Coast rugby league’s $3 million man after securing himself a top contract to stay with the club until 2021.
The deal seals the halfback in and ensures the Gold Coast has one of the NRL’s strongest players continues to help lead the team into its 11th year.
His signing comes 30 years after the city’s first national rugby league signed one of its biggest stars — ex State of Origin Maroons star Chris “Choppy” Close who arrived from Manly alongside Ron Gibbs.
Close arrived on the Coast fresh from an appearance as runner up in Manly’s reserve grade grand final appearance.
But unlike the stars of today, Choppy had to first secure himself a day job.
In between training sessions, He spent his days as a bricklayer, both for a pay cheque and to keep fit.
By November 1987 if you stood on the Currumbin bridge on weekday mornings around 6.30am you would see the Maroons hero cycling to work after his wife Diane pushed him to get fin.
Mrs Close bought her husband a bike to help him get fit ahead of his Gold Coast debut.
“To be honest I bought Chris the bike for two reasons,” she told the Bulletin at the time.
“I thought it would be a great way to help him get fit quickly and it would also allow me to have the car during the day.
“As it was, Chris was using the car to get to work and I was left without wheels.”
Close, who began his career at Beaudesert in the 1970s, said he enjoyed getting fit.
“I set off from work at 6.30am and arrive at work just before 7am,” he said.
“As well as the daily cycling I’m working outdoors as a brikie’s labourer and that’s also helping my fitness campaign.”
Among his colleagues on the building site was former Kangaroos hooker Elwyn Walters, with him he spent time discussing football.
Both the husband and wife were pleased to be on the Gold Coast, which came despite him still having an extra year to run on his Manly contract.
The club granted the blockbusting centre a release on compassionate grounds when it was discovered his then-three-year-old son Christopher had asthma and the warmer Gold Coast climate would help his health.
Close made his debut for the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants in the 1988 season where he played a leadership role in the centre position, mentoring the team which was coached by Bob McCarthy.
The Giants went on to win four games in their first season, avoiding the wooden spoon in their first year.
Close scored a try during the Giants famous first win over the powerhouse Brisbane Broncos to give them a 25-22 victory.
His playing career ended with the renamed Gold Coast Seagulls at the end of the 1991 season before he went on to serve as a major member of the Maroons coaching staff from the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s.
Close still lives on the Gold Coast today.
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