8 August, 2008

In a football sense, the bell has tolled for the final time for one of the best little men of the modern era.

Small in stature but big in impact – both on and off the field – Peter Bell walks away from the AFL with a glittering portfolio bulging with premierships, best and fairests and All-Australian honours, but will be remembered within the playing fraternity as much for his dedication to all things ‘team’ and to the selfless work he did for the AFL Players’ Association.

A leader in all senses of the word, the 32-year-old exited the game still putting others first. In the only interview he granted in the wake of his early July retirement, Bell explained that his decision was laced with recognising the needs of Fremantle moving forward.

“I wouldn’t say it was easy (to retire), but I was at a stage where the decision, in my eyes, made itself,” he said. “I’d almost decided to retire at the end of last year but was then convinced to play on for one more year in the hope that we might be able to contest some finals, and clearly that’s not the case.

“Once I’d decided I wasn’t going to play on next year I thought that it best for the footy club that I retire and my spot in the team be taken up by someone who could have an opportunity to press claims to either stay on the list or move into a permanent midfield role.”

So, not even the lure of reaching the magical 300-game milestone – he finishes on 286 – could tempt him to play on?

“Not really. Yeah, it would be great to play 300 games, but I wouldn’t go on and play on just for the sole motivation of reaching a personal milestone,” he said. “I didn’t believe that was right or appropriate. The body was certainly fine and I could have gone on and played for at least another year, but I was at a stage in my life, and my family were at a stage, where the main thing we wanted was to spend a bit more time together as a family, and you can’t do that being a footballer based on the west coast.”

Bell, who played 163 games for the Dockers, including a club record 107 as captain, and an amazing 123 of a possible 125 matches in five seasons with the Kangaroos, considers himself fortunate to have split his career on either side of the country, and doesn’t have leanings to one club over the other.

“It was a terrific experience being able to play for the Kangaroos in Melbourne, and I was very fortunate that my time at the club coincided with a very successful period for the North Melbourne footy club,” he mused.

“Nothing compares with the premierships (1996 and ’99), but winning a final with Fremantle – the first one the club won – and fighting our way into a preliminary final was a big thrill. Enormous amounts of work had gone into getting the club to a stage where we could win a final, and when we did win that final against Melbourne in 2006, there was a small amount of satisfaction with it.”

In a career that began in 1995, Bell witnessed the game undergo massive change, and for many years in this decade he was at the pointy end of it as president of the AFLPA between 2003 and 2007.

His philosophy on his service to the Association is simple but timely, and he highlights three achievements – retirement fund, medical benefits and community work – as of special significance to him.

“It was terrific to be involved and take an interest in player welfare in a much broader sense, and I was very much of the opinion that football had been pretty good to me and I wanted to give something back to the greater playing group, and playing groups of the future,” he explained.

“It certainly became a little more difficult when I was placed over here in Western Australia as far as being able to attend board meetings and see people face-to-face when we’re talking about important decisions, but I really enjoyed the five or six years I was involved with the executive, and I met some wonderful people, and the game is in very good hands.

“There were plenty (of achievements), but the philosophy of having a retirement fund is a good one. It gives players a little bit of a kick-start into their post-football careers, and also the medical benefits that players receive now well into their post-football lives is a pretty significant achievement, alongside the community hours.

“A lot of that gets overlooked – there’s just a mountain of community work done by players that goes unheralded, and a lot of players are very keen for it to go unheralded, and that’s not the reason why they do it, but generally speaking the contribution by footballers into the community is a very large one.”

Bell added he was comfortable with the esteem the Association was now held, and that the playing group should never forget the work that it does for them. “In my view the players are the most important stakeholder in the game and I think the status of the Players’ Association reflects that. If players spent a little bit of time looking at the benefits they receive from being a modern-day AFL footballer, I think they’d realise that the AFL Players’ Association had a lot to do with that.”

In addition, he mounted a staunch defence of the playing group in regard to the scrutiny they’re under and the broader community’s perception of it.

“It’s a little bit disappointing, from a community perspective, that sometimes the community’s more interested in non-football stories, or hearing about how someone might have made a mistake or messed up,” he said.

“At the end of the day I think our playing group’s a very good playing group, and certainly in comparison to any slice of the population from the ages of 18 to 30, I think that on the whole they’re forced to grow up very, very quickly to become outstanding citizens.

“I think there’s a bit of overkill there, but perhaps it’s not even the media’s fault that they have to cover it the way they do – at the end of the day they’re pandering to what people want to read and people want to consume. If people didn’t want to consume that sort of information then it wouldn’t be covered – simple as that. But these days’ footballers – in some sense they’re a footballer, but they’re also an entertainer, because people want to escape the daily grind of their own lives.”

Bell, who has a law degree from Melbourne University, has no immediate plans other than taking the rest of the year off and then contemplating a career after football. With a young family – two daughters under three – time spent at home with the wife and kids is first on the agenda.

He doesn’t plan on doing anymore interviews anytime soon, and signed off with some words of advice for those just beginning the adventure that is football at the highest level.

“Work hard and be the same person you were when you started out, and don’t lose sight of the fact that to play AFL football is a wonderful privilege.”