Former Sydney Swans father-son selection Heath James and his complicated relationship with footy

Heath James followed in his father’s footsteps to become an elite footballer, but his career was done by the age of 25. He details the brutal injury curse he went through at the Swans.

Heath James has a complicated relationship with footy.

The former Swans father-son selection admits he has the game to thank for a lot of the successes – both professional and personal – in his life.

The son of Port Adelaide Magpies SANFL star Max James, Heath qualified as a father-son selection for Sydney due to his dad’s 54 games with South Melbourne in the late 1970s.

After being selected under the rule at pick 28 in the 1998 draft, Heath spent seven years with the Swans before retiring at the age of 25.

So after a relatively short career cruelled by a litany of injuries, James is conflicted.

“It would be hard to work out if I’d do it again with how the body’s feeling right now,” he admitted.

“My knees are shot and my body’s just buggered – I didn’t play that many games but my body’s completely ruined from footy. My fingers are no good, I’ve got a shoulder that sticks up, I’ve got scars all over my knees from surgeries.”

Even after retiring from the AFL at just 25 and never setting foot on a footy field again.

“I wanted to be able to run around with my kids when I was 40, but I’m 44 now and I still can’t run around with them,” he said.

“My experience is all positive, it’s just unfortunate my body let me down and that’s the negativity I have towards footy these days.”

Heath James was drafted to Sydney as a father-son selection in 1998.

James grew up in Mildura before heading to Adelaide to live with his dad and play with Port Adelaide in the SANFL. When AFL recruiters came calling, he had the choice of the Power or the Swans, but made the pragmatic decision at the time.

“The only reason I chose Sydney was because they were grooming me to take over from Andrew Dunkley. And Port had all these guns and it would’ve been really hard to get a game,” James recalled.

“So it was just selfish reasons – I just wanted to go somewhere where I could get a game!”

And he wouldn’t know it at the time, but James’ fellow recruits in 1998 would become stars on and off the field – and lifelong friends.

“Fitzy (Ryan Fitzgerald), Jude (Bolton) and I ended up living together for a few years and we ended up being best mates – I was Jude’s best man, he was mine. Fitzy ended up MCing both our weddings and we’re still super tight to this day.”

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James battled injury throughout his career and retired at 25.

But it didn’t start out that way.

“I played against Jude (as a junior) and I hated him because he had this blonde peroxided hair,” James said.

“And it came to draft day, because I knew I was going to Sydney, and I think Jude went No.7, and I said to Mum, ‘I’m not going – I hate Jude Bolton’ and she said ‘you might be best friends with him one day’ and obviously mums are always right.”

Bolton laughs at the memory when contacted for this story.

“He tells me that story all the time,” Bolton said.

“He got a sense of who he thought I was from under 18s, but as soon as we met, we became best mates pretty quickly.”

James played four times in the ones in his first year, 1999, before the injuries set in, and he managed just three over the next four years before a run of 11 games in 2004.

Bolton remembers just how difficult it was for his mate.

“His body just didn’t give him a go,” Bolton told The Herald Sun. “I was so proud of his willingness to keep going and get back on the field after so many hamstring injuries.”

Bolton recounted a junior appearance where James’ injury curse hit again.

“He tore his patella tendon at a kids clinic one day. I had to call the club doctor and he said ‘where’s his kneecap?’ When I told him, he said, ‘you’ve got to bring Heath in, it sounds bad.”

James with dad Max at home in Adelaide before making the move to Sydney.

And with fellow Swans draftee, and still close friend, Ryan Fitzgerald.

Bolton said at his best, James could’ve been anything as a footballer.

“He was a great intercept defender – when people ask me what sort of player he could’ve been I think of a Jeremy McGovern, just floating across the pack and taking contested marks.”

“To watch it (his constant injury woes) happen was heartbreaking. That’s just the tough side of footy.”

For someone who spent just seven years at the Swans for a grand total of 18 games, James life is to this day deeply intertwined with his time in red and white.

Heath met his wife Alanna Seery as an 18-year old recruit when her dad, then Swans CEO Colin Seery had him, Fitzgerald and Bolton over to their home soon after they had arrived in the harbour city.

“So Fitzy, Jude and I went over to Colin’s place for dinner … and we met his wife and their two kids, Brent and Alanna.”

Alanna was 12 at the time (“we had nothing to do with each other!”) but a decade later, when competing in the City to Surf, their paths crossed again.

“She bumped into a guy who was saying he knew Jude Bolton and Alanna said ‘I used to have a huge crush on his best friend Heath.’

“So they rang me and we got together that next day and got married about a year later!”

James was best man at the wedding of Jude Bolton, right, and vice versa. Picture: Todd Martyn-Jones.

But for every lasting positive experience that came out of his footy career, Heath James’ days at the Swans were frustrating, excruciating and in many ways, lonely.

“I was just always in rehab and you see players who play full careers and they talk about the challenge you might have staying in rehab for a short amount of time,” he says.

“I think in the seven years I was at the Swans I was in rehab for about five of them.”

“That’s probably the hardest thing for me now in watching footy and watching some of the Swans games.

“It just brings back a lot of negative memories for me because it was just so challenging.”

James’ final year at the Swans was 2005, and his final moment in red and white was celebrating Sydney’s 72 year drought breaking premiership with his mates.

But even that was a calamity waiting to happen.

“I was one of the only players to actually get injured, and I didn’t even play!

“I jumped the fence and tore my pants on the fence as I jumped over and then one of the security guys got me in a headlock as I was trying to get my badge out,” he remembers with a laugh.

But it was Leo Barry, fresh off his historic match saving mark, who did the damage.

“I see Leo, and I was best man at his wedding so we were really close and we run and hit each other and I do my AC joint so I was walking around after the game with ice on my shoulder and I didn’t even play!”

A fitting end to a footy career cruelly ended by constant injuries.

Following the Swans end of season trip to Hawaii (“I pretty much partied like I was best on ground!”), James was done with footy.

20 years on, he’s an executive at Mushroom Creative having previously worked at the GWS Giants, and he and Alanna have a couple of kids, neither of whom are likely to become third generation Swans.

“I try and get my son into it, he’s playing a little big of footy but mainly soccer,” James says.

“I don’t know if it’s rubbed off on him, not my negativity, but just the fact that we don’t watch that much footy any more.

“It’s not that big a part of our lives anymore.”

Originally published as Former Sydney Swans father-son selection Heath James and his complicated relationship with footy