Broadhurst the tough nut
You might have seen footage of the infamous fight between Mark Broadhurst and Steve Bowden.
If you have, you won’t have forgotten it. If you’ve haven’t, pour yourself a strong coffee before tapping the details into a search engine.
But be warned, it’s like something out of the wild, wild west.
It doesn’t get much worse than the all-in scrap which erupted when Manly and Newtown played a NSWRL preliminary club final on a clear afternoon in Sydney in 1981, leaving the uncompromising New Zealander Broadhurst with a face that was a mask of swollen eyes and bruises.
No doubt it started with a few strong words being swapped, a shove and a poke and then, all of a sudden, all hell broke loose.
As a scrum disintegrated opposing props Broadhurst and Bowden emerged from the tangle of bodies and kept firing punches at each other.
Watching two hardened athletes duke it out, even if they weren’t exactly adhering to the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, could be excused in the heat-of-the-battle but the sight of Bowden landing two head butts to the face of his Manly rival was sickening. Nasty stuff, for sure. Bowden, who was sent off after order had been restored, hit Broadhurst flush in the face with the first head strike, and drove home the second as he lay on the grass.
But the stoical Broadhurst, despite mottled purple swelling around his eyes and a shattered cheekbone, refused to retreat.
He remained on the field, although it was to no avail because Manly lost, and pitched out of title contention.
‘‘It was just one of those things that happened,’’ Broadhurst, a rugged Kiwi international who was also a handy amateur heavyweight boxer, said from Christchurch this week where he has been honoured as the No 1 ticket holder for tonight’s NRL clash between his old club and the Warriors at AMI Stadium.
‘‘It was just part and parcel of what the football was like back then. There were a lot of head-high tackles and things also.
‘‘I landed-up in a few punch-ups here, and even when we played in Great Britain and stuff. There were a few going around.’’
A trip to hospital in the wake of the unsavoury incident against Newtown revealed the extent of the damage to Broadhurst’s face.
‘‘I had a depressed fracture – I think I had broken my eye socket in about three places so had to get that packed-out.’’
The repair job involved having string inserted inside the damaged part of his eye socket and cheek, which was removed by digging through the inside of his mouth. The good news was that the procedure was successful and he suffered no ill-effects.
He wasn’t bitter at Bowden, either. A few years after his playing career in Sydney was over, he was flown to the city for a fundraiser and had a conversation with his old adversary.
‘‘We had a bit of a yarn. I don’t hold any grudges against anyone for things like that.’’
Things didn’t end on a great note for Broadhurst at Manly, and given the service he had given the club he deserved better. Having originally signed a threeyear deal with the club as a 25-year-old, Broadhurst told club powerbroker Ken Arthurson he wanted out after his second season.
It didn’t go down well. The club conspired to rip out the rug from under the New Zealander who, despite being in regal form, was demoted to the reserve grade team ahead of the playoffs.
‘‘I went to training the next night and the gear-man said to me ‘you’re training with the B-grade side tonight.’’
For the next two years Broadhurst joined his old Manly team-mate John Dorahy at the Illawarra Steelers in Wollongong and later moved to England to play for Hull Kingston Rovers for a couple of seasons.
After returning to Christchurch he accepted another invite to play for the club for one more season, and then called time on his professional career.
He considers himself fortunate to have avoided any major damage to his constitution during those years, saying his biggest concern nowadays are his creaky 63-year old knees.
A cracked sternum did cause some problems, the result of receiving an elbow to the chest by another Kiwis international, Graeme West, when they played each other in England.
The doctor at HKR did a repair job, giving Broadhurst injections to dull the pain.
‘‘Then we got a new doctor and he wouldn’t give me injections, saying it was too dangerous and that I was getting a lot of pain because it was a serious injury.’’
Concussions are a major talking point in the game these days but Broadhurst reckons he has been lucky.
The worst incident was when he received a karate-chop to the side of the neck by Wales prop John Mills when the tourists played Canterbury in Christchurch in 1975.
Mills arrived with a reputation for being a thug and didn’t disappoint.
His dog-act on Broadhurst dropped him, and he woke up in the ambulance on the way to hospital.
‘‘He flattened me. I remember running out on the park, and playing a bit. That was all I remember from that, really.
‘‘I met him again when I was playing in England. That was interesting.
‘‘He was as good as gold. I didn’t hold any animosity against him.
‘‘He was just someone I had played against.
‘‘It was just one of those things.’’ Broadhurst is nearing retirement from his job at the Belfast freezing works, having worked in the industry for around 30 years.
He doesn’t look at the players on big contracts nowadays and feel the sting of jealousy.
While in Sydney and Wollongong he supplemented his income by either working at the freezing works or at the leagues club but the coin was much better in England.
‘‘A lot of people make a lot of money nowadays but I didn’t.
‘‘I should have been a lot better off than I have been but I’m pretty happy with my life.’’
Although he played in Australia and England, and 17 games for the Kiwis, his favourite memories are of playing alongside his friends at the Papanui and Marist-Western Suburbs clubs in Christchurch and representing the South Island when they upset the touring Australian team at the Christchurch Showgrounds.
A tough man, Broadhurst didn’t bow to anyone.
He didn’t look for trouble but anyone trying their luck against the front rower risked leaving the park with a wiggly tooth or an egg-shaped lump on their lip as a momento.
‘‘Any prop, playing anywhere in the world, you are going to come across the odd smart-arse.
‘‘You probably have to sort it out, otherwise you are going to get a hiding.
‘‘They are all pretty tough buggers. Otherwise you wouldn’t be out there.
‘‘As you got older, they left you alone more.
‘‘When you are younger, you are trying to sort each each other out.’’