Adelaide Crows fitness coach Matthew Bode with wife Kamala, who is currently nine months pregnant, and son Jesse, 3. Picture: Tricia Watkinson Source: Sunday Mail (SA)
FEW Crows have played like Matty Bode, the little forward with the spiky shock of blond hair who never left anything in the locker room.
Bode is the runner and one of the fitness coaches at the Crows these days, having walked away from a personal training business which gave him a sense of ownership of his own destiny but also made him realise where he wanted to be.
He played with Glenelg after leaving the Crows, hammered away at his fitness business, but it gradually came to him that he wanted to be in football.
And he's back at the Crows now, and held in high regard.
Fellow staff members know that he's there before dawn breaks - he often leaves home at 4.30am to be at the club before 5.30am - and it is rare that he leaves before 5.30pm after considering the state of every player.
List manager David Noble puts it plainly when asked about Bode's contribution. "The way that he played - he puts in the same effort into his work at the club now," Noble said.
This time of year is the time of the fitness coaches, the time of year when kilometres are put into legs and muscles are strengthened in the gym.
To Bode, it is a time to make hay.
"I must admit that it does consume you," he told the Sunday Mail.
"You wake up and the first thing you think about might be how some of the players are going, and what they need.
"But that's just this time of year. This is our time (the time of the fitness coaches): often up at 4.30am, at the club at 5.30am and won't leave until 5pm or later at night.
"During the season, the hours become more regular.
"But I love it, and it's something ... I'd like to stay in the industry for as long as I can.
"I love working with the players and I know what they're going through: I was the player who had injuries and I was the player who was dropped because of form. I have empathy with these guys."
It's been an eventful trip for Bode since he finished with the Crows, as one of the club's first forwards who really knew how to put on defensive pressure on a weekly basis as the game was changing.
I'm often up at 4.30am, at the club at 5.30am and won't leave until 5pm or later at night.
He returned to the Bays (Glenelg), a club he will always love, set up a personal training business and began a path of no longer being institutionalised by a system that told players exactly what to do with every minute of their day.
Bode's in a different space now, with wife Kamala due to deliver the couple's second child any day.
He's grown up, learned what it's like to live away from the bubble of AFL football, and decided to return on his own terms.
He still acts as the club's runner, which he reckons is a double-edged privilege.
"In a sense, it is painful," Bode said. "Because you're so close to it, but you're not part of it.
"I remember Graham Cornes speaking about this and he said it really well: 'sometimes, you miss it (playing) so much that it aches.'
"But I'm happy to still be part of it, even thought it's not the same."
Bode played 29 games for Port Adelaide, which picked him up in the 1998 pre-season draft, and 79 games for the Crows after he was traded ahead of the 2001 season.
Bode's exit from the game was traumatic, and he spoke about it openly when his football house came crumbling down at the end of 2007.
It was at the end of trade week and he had an uneasy feeling stirring within.
The lively little forward had struggled with injury all season, managing just the one game, and knew his card could be marked.
Bode managed to get the attention of then-coach Neil Craig and was crushed when he realised his career was at an end.
"How are things looking?" Bode asked Craig at the time.
"It's not looking good" Craig replied, and promised to call Bode later in the day. Craig did, and that was the end of Bode's career.
He shed a few tears with Kamala but he moved on, and those who work with him at the Crows now believe his exile did him wonders.
He forged his own path and made his own decisions. Now he's back, and better, and just as much in love with the game.
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