Essendon Football Club champion Jobe Watson has announced he will be retiring from AFL and football at the end of the 2017 season.
The 32-year-old will bring to a close a career that will have seen some 217+ games, including 112 goals, 2 All-Australian selections, and 3 club Best & Fairest awards. Watson was also the recipient of the 2012 Brownlow Medal, an award that was subsequently handed back in the wake of the club’s lengthy and hugely controversial ASADA supplements scandal.
Watson fronted a press conference with Bombers coach John Worsfold to announce his decision a short time ago, stating an intention to play out the remainder of the season as the team pushes towards a – some might say unlikely – finals berth.
Despite a serviceable season, Watson noted that, coming off a year’s suspension handed down to him and a raft of other Bombers by WADA, the game had gotten decidedly quicker and his body was unable to do things that it could in his athletic prime.
The bullocking midfielder thanked the club, the fans, and his teammates, and stated that he was excited to play out the last few games of his career.
Addressing the lost Brownlow, Watson stated that the medal itself “didn’t matter to me,” rather that it was more about “what the people around me thought, and my own opinion about myself,” hinting at the mental toll that the four-year scandal had taken on Watson and his fellow affected teammates. Adorably, he admitted that he gave his Grandma a replica Brownlow after he initially won it back in 2012.
Watson: “I should probably tell my nan that the Brownlow she has is fake.” #ThankYouJobe
— Essendon FC (@EssendonFC) August 9, 2017
Further still, Jobe admitted he hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell his Mum about his decision to retire, noting his family’s propensity to be fairly close-lipped about themselves; a trait made quietly famous by his triple premiership-winning old man and fellow club champion, Tim.
Watson: “Mum doesn’t know I’m retiring, so she is probably watching this live now.”#ThankYouJobe
— Essendon FC (@essendonfc) August 9, 2017
As for what’s next, Jobe has expressed a desire to return to New York after his playing career is over, and resume working at the Manhattan cafe where he sought refuge during his suspended 2016 season.
Watson will continue pursuing his love of coffee at the Manhattan-based and expat-Australian owned Hole in the Wall cafe, the shirt of which Watson wore when announcing his return to the Essendon Football Club in September of last year.
Jobe Watson lead his club through a situation unprecedented not just in Australian sport, but in global team sport full stop. And he did so with a calm humility rarely seen from football or sport leadership.
At his absolute best, Watson had few equals on the field; a big-bodied bull of an inside midfielder capable of breaking games open on the strength of his own prodigious back, and a true testament to the notion that the best AFL players aren’t always the most naturally gifted, but rather the ones with a superhuman work ethic and unshakable desire.
It takes a iron-willed strength of character to endure the hardships like those beset upon the Essendon players, and emerge at the other end still universally respected by fans and industry alike. Jobe had that and then some.
While it will be sad, as a black-and-red bleeding sod, to see him leave the field for the final time, there’s absolutely more to life than this crazy little game called football; that he’s content and happy in life will, for whatever its worth, serve as a comfort to those who miss him pulling on the club jumper.
Watson: “I’m really comfortable I’m making the right decision”#ThankYouJobe
— Essendon FC (@EssendonFC) August 9, 2017
That there is way more important than any goal or clearance ever could be.
Thank you, Jobe Watson. For everything.
