Usain Bolt’s football dream still alive: ‘When I want something, I always go for it’
USAIN Bolt came to Australia to pursue his childhood ambition of playing professional football, and leaves this weekend having, on the face of it, come up short. But don’t assume the football dream is over for the legendary Olympic sprinter.
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IN THE end it was a dream too far, and proof that there are miracles even a superstar like Usain Bolt will struggle to carry off.
The legendary Olympic sprinter landed in Australia in August to pursue his childhood ambition of playing professional football, and leaves this weekend having, on the face of it, come up short.
But don’t assume the football dream is over or that Bolt isn’t still utterly enamoured of Australia. Off the field, the eight-time gold medallist has loved his taste of living Down Under, even smiling at the odd inebriated fan’s enthusiastic welcome.
Bolt’s bid to become a professional footballer in Australia’s A-League ended a week ago with a polite, perfunctory statement from him and the Central Coast Mariners confirming his “indefinite trial” had ceased.
As if released from the weeks of training sessions on a muddy pitch on the Central Coast, the Bolt we all know rather better was back on show at the races in Victoria this week, dapperly sporting sunglasses and a gold-tipped cane.
In some ways this has been the strangest period of the past decade for the 32-year-old, since his breathtaking first triumph at the Olympics catapulted him in front of the lenses of the world’s media.
In that time Bolt has become used to having the eyes of the world upon him. Whether it’s smashing the 100m world record at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (and smiling for the cameras on the finish line), partying for three days in London to mark his retirement, or DJing in a succession of high-end nightclubs — it’s a life lived in the absolute glare of a global spotlight.
But for the past three months the spotlight has been largely pointing elsewhere as Bolt lived the life of a trainee footballer.
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Each morning he would drive from his waterfront penthouse in Gosford’s up-market Point Frederick enclave to Tuggerah, the sleepy Central Coast suburb with little previous claim to celebrity status.
Just behind a collection of office blocks and five-a-side soccer pitches on the road into town stands an equally anonymous breezeblock building — its doorways a jumble of football gear, balls, cones and nets, and leading out to a grass soccer pitch.
The grandly titled Central Coast Mariners Centre of Excellence is a building with precious few flourishes, a rather apt metaphor for Bolt’s fledgling football career.
Throughout it all, even in private his teammates spoke warmly of Bolt’s low-key demeanour.
On one heavily overcast day when BW visited, that was borne out by the rather surreal experience when one of the world’s most famous faces appeared around a door, and one of the greatest Olympians of all time politely introduced himself.
The introduction was really not that necessary. For the past decade or more he has been the world’s fastest man and one of those sport stars who has evolved into a 24-carat global celebrity.
Bolt is someone who has become accustomed to seeing himself on billboards and in magazines at every turn.
“In the beginning, I was like, ‘Wow it’s me,’ but you kind of just get used to it pretty quickly,” Bolt noted as the kettle perched on the corner of the coach’s desk behind him came to the boil.
If it seemed odd that the 32-year-old should be charging round an anonymous football pitch on the Central Coast, trading utter domination in one field for a muddied apprenticeship in another, you have to understand him as a force of nature in need of fresh direction.
Three times he conquered the Olympics, and entering a fourth would have tempted most in Bolt’s position — but the sprint star has lost much of his passion for athletics.
“The reason I retired (from track and field) is that I didn’t have the motivation to continue,” Bolt told BW.
“People always say to me, ‘You could do four Olympics,’ and I’m sure I can. I know that at the level I am, if I train I could do it. But the level of training I would have to put in, I don’t have the drive to do it.
“But in a new sport, with a new dream, to be the best, to prove to people I can do this — that’s where I get my motivation from. You’re always going to have people out there that doubt you, people who say, ‘Oh he’s just messing around.’
“Even in Jamaica we are the biggest critics: ‘He’s just wasting his time, he’s not going to make it.’ For me, those are the things that motivate me to do better.”
And the possibility of living Down Under was just icing on the cake.
“I’ve always wanted to live in Australia,” Bolt says.
If that sounds like a celebrity platitude, he has witnesses after visiting numerous times.
“It’s the one thing I’ve always told my friends like (Aussie athlete) John Steffensen — Australia is the only place I’d live.
“It’s really laid back and when I’m here people recognise me but they don’t hassle me or try to pressurise me. They come up and say, ‘Hi, what’s up? Can I get a picture?’
“It’s not crazy like when I go to Asia or certain countries — so it’s much different. It’s been good, it’s just been nice people.”
Bolt has certainly enjoyed the fame that his athletic prowess has afforded him — he’s befriended movie stars and even royalty, with Prince Harry known to be a pal.
Appropriately, the Point Frederick penthouse that was his base for three months is very much at the deluxe end of the market.
But still, the local Central Coast night-life is more Carlton Draught than Cristal champagne.
That goes some way to explaining why Bolt leaves the Coast with as little fanfare as when he lived there.
If the proprietors of local hot spots hoped his arrival would prompt some extra star-spotting custom, they would have been largely disappointed.
The most exciting moment came when Bolt was spotted in the Spotlight superstore in Tuggerah buying extra pillows.
On occasion he would head out with his Mariners teammates, who took him to the Crazy Fox cafe at Erina to enjoy a 32nd birthday cake, but local spies say he was usually among the first to pull up stumps.
In the end it was to no avail, with Bolt apparently no closer to achieving his football dream despite scoring twice in a trial game televised around the world.
Don’t assume, though, that he won’t keep trying — not when he sketches out how long he has nursed this ambition.
“I’ve played football through my years, right up until now,” he said.
“It’s something I’ve always enjoyed, I’m a massive fan of the (English) Premier League and I’ve always said to my friends, if I get a chance to play football after I retire I’d do it because I feel I can be a decent footballer, a proper good one if I work hard.
“When I want something, when I have a dream, I always go for it.”
Originally published as Usain Bolt’s football dream still alive: ‘When I want something, I always go for it’
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