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WITH his leg busted, broken and bent at “right angles”, doctors told Brad McDougall he would never play again.
And he was beginning to think of life after football.
“It crossed my mind,” McDougall revealed as he prepares for his 300th match this weekend.
“The doctors told me I shouldn’t play again, but I suppose when you have a passion for something you stick at it.”
McDougall broke his leg and dislocated his knee so severely that he ruptured his ACL and damaged the medial ligament.
“I was cleaned up by one of my teammates. It was Round 17 of 2006 and I missed all of 2007,” McDougall said.
“It was a bit of a nasty one. He hit my knee from the side and my knee popped and I did my ACL and the medial.
“They had to operate and pop my leg back into place. It wasn’t all that pleasant looking down at your leg that was sideways. The bottom part of my leg was at right angles.”
McDougall had played roughly 170 games for the Seagulls and was forced to consider his playing future.
“I spent 10 weeks on crutches and I had a limp for about three months,” he said.
“I was the runner for the reserves the next year, so I was back training that year and doing a bit of running but no twisting and turning.
“Just the way it happened, and those incidents happen a lot in footy where you get your legs taken out, I certainly did think about whether I would do the same injury again.
“I don’t bat an eyelid now, I still crash and bash the same that I would.”
McDougall, 34, said he was proud to become the sixth North Shore player to reach 300 games.
He arrived at Windsor Park in 1996 and spent two seasons in the under-18s. He progressed to the senior ranks in 1998, when the Seagulls were at the peak of their powers.
They had already won four successive flags and would go on to win two of the next three grand finals in a golden era.
McDougall spent the majority of the year in the reserves, struggling to break into a star-studded team. “When I first came up from the under-18s they were champions and I’ve never been a superstar player, I’ll admit to that, but to an extent the strength of the side kept me out,” he said.
“I could’ve gone elsewhere and played seniors but it never really crossed my mind. I was happy at North Shore.”
McDougall would play in five losing reserves grand finals — 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 — and the glory days would soon evaporate into several seasons of pain.
“Obviously there’s been some periods where we’ve been struggling and it’s been a tough pill to swallow, but we had periods where we were giving sides a touch up and we enjoyed those times,” he said.
McDougall has also been committeeman for seven years, coached the under-14s for two seasons and is coaching the under-16s for the fifth consecutive year.
The Seagulls play Geelong West-St Peter’s this weekend.
