Andrew met Daniel’s eyes from across the change room. With Andrew draped only in a gleaming white towel and his firm, taut muscles still gleaming from the spa, Daniel lunged at him in an act of uncontrolled desire.
The two embraced, their gym-toned muscles intertwined and inseparable as the heat rose in their bodies and drove them to…
And so began the most passionate bromance in the history of the AFL between Daniel Chick and Andrew Embley. So impassioned that it left them panting with exhaustion and led them to nominations for The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame.
The Frownlow Medal is awarded to the player whose off-field demeanour epitomises the values of the modern-day footballer and draws attention to the status of footballers as role models to young Australians. It covers Australia’s four major football codes: the National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), the A-League (Football) and Rugby Union’s Super Rugby competition. NRL player Shaun Kenny-Dowall won the inaugural medal in 2015, while NRL star Talatau Amone is the most recent recipient.
The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame honours former players and players who received media attention in previous seasons, for similarly scandalous behaviour, and its inductees include Ben Cousins and Julian O’Neill.
Embley and Chick indulged their homoerotic fantasies in the changerooms of the West Coast Eagles club in 2007 after months of bromantic tension between the pair.
Embley later described the encounter as a fight, but sources close to Frownlow judges have revealed that the relationship was a true bromance to rival that of Corey Oates and Justin Hodges, Jackson Hastings and Daly Cherry Evans, and Steven May and Jake Melksham.
It started with locker room banter and post-game celebrations in a team of star players who won game after game. Illicit drugs were easily available and the night before the changeroom romp, players had been out to dinner at a classy restaurant where alcohol had been consumed and inhibitions relaxed. True emotions and feelings could now take over, and the next morning they did.
Embley is quoted as saying
“So I end up calling Chicky about 10pm on the Monday night — in hindsight of course I shouldn’t have done this — after a few red wines.”
The next morning, Embley waited for Chick, hoping, longing for his touch. He saw no sign of his teammate at 7am, so he waited…in the spa.
Chicky, as he was known, went for Embley,
“‘Chicky’ just comes in and starts throwing haymakers, just whacking me, I’m like, ‘what the!?’ A few guys pulled him off and nothing sort of happened at the time, I said ‘mate, you’re an idiot, et cetera’,” Embley said, shocked at the violent nature of his love, before imploring his Chicky to “…do it properly”
He also explained that,
“…It’s pretty vague after that but I remember then suddenly it was like UFC and we were going into lockers, bouncing around.”
Like UFC, where super fit young men spoon and grapple each other for minutes on end.
“Peter Worsfold (ex-Eagles coach John Worsfold’s brother) pulled us off and that was basically it. We didn’t have time to get the mouthguards in, it was bare knuckles.”
They stopped, because they weren’t wearing protection.
After a meeting between Embley, Chick and John Worsfold, both players were made to stand up in front of the playing group and apologise to their teammates.
“I remember ‘Woosh’ (Worsfold) sits there and goes, ‘so who won the fight?’ I’m looking at Chicky and he’s looking at me and we’re a bit sheepish, tale in between our legs. Neither of us answered the question,” he said.
“Then Woosh said, ‘well, judging by the fact that there’s no bruises on both of you, it must have been a pretty s**t fight’ … he made light out of a situation that I do regret that it happened.”
Of course, no one won the fight because it wasn’t a fight. It was wild, uncontrolled bromantic love making. Which is why the pair are on good terms now.
Embley would go on to win the Norm Smith Medal in the 2006 Grand Final and play 250 games for the Eagles — the ninth most in club history.
This romance novel has a happy ending, and Embley and his Chicky can rekindle their bromance at the awards night for The Frownlow Medal and The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame later this year.
Image: NuNa
The Frownlow Medal 