He won't be playing in the AFL Grand Final this weekend but if you’ve been watching throughout the year, you might have noticed Geelong player, Jimmy Bartel, sporting a spectacularly "out of control" beard.

"There are millions of people who will be watching Geelong play this year, so if I can get kids asking their father why I have a big dirty beard and long ratty hair, I will be achieving something," he told The Herald Sun on the eve of the start of the 2016 AFL season.

“I am going to try and get people to start having conversations around domestic violence because I want people to change, and to start owning their behaviours and actions,” he said.

The issue of domestic violence is a deeply personal one for Jimmy Bartel.  The Brownlow and Norm Smith medallist shared that his father physically assaulted his mother during their marriage and continued to do so after they had separated. Bartel and his siblings, as well as his grandparents, were also physically assaulted.

Through the Face Up to DV appeal, the new dad is raising funds to assist the Luke Batty Foundation as well as Bethany – a Geelong-based family services organisation supporting victims of domestic violence.

Jimmy Bartel prepares for Face Up to DV campaign at the beginning of the 2016 AFL season.

 

Geelong’s games record holder recalled one vivid memory, when his father flung his sister, ten years old at the time, against the wall "like a rag doll".  She had tried to stop him beating her mother. Bartel was only four-years-old at the time. “My other sister, Emma, then ran and hid under the bed. I tried to get in between him and Mum, and I was the next to get thrown, into an old-fashioned bureau. He belted Mum one more time before he left. That was a major turning point in my life," he recalls.

"People often say to women, 'Why don't you leave him?' Well, Mum did, and it still happened," he said.

Bartel's parents had already separated when that particular incident happened.

Bartel talks of the scenario his mother explained later, one that will be familiar to many other victims of abuse. Terry Bartel would say to his wife, “You made me do that, you know that. You got me into that emotional state, so you have to take some of the blame. Can you understand why I did it? Say it was your fault! I love you though!”

The three-time premiership player highlighted that one of the most challenging obstacles for women when it comes to leaving an abusive relationship is being stuck financially. This was certainly the case for his mother.   

Just three weeks after his mother, Diane, left her violent husband she had to move back in with him because of the financial pressures of caring for two young children and his persistent threats. She thought if she didn’t take the brunt of it he might turn on the children. With the help of her best friend who set up a bank account for her, his mother slowly put enough money away to "get us out of there".

Bartel said over the years his mum was forced to come up with excuses for her obvious injuries. "I think people were well aware — there are only so many times you can fall down the stairs, aren't there?”

Bartel’s parents separated when he, as the youngest child, was about 12 months old.  “In actuality, I grew up in a single-parent family. It was a small family growing up, but it was perfect to me.”  He says his Mum tried to make life as amicable as possible, always reminding the children to ring their father and every weekend she would drive them to see him.

“All the opportunities to see him or talk to him were there. She separated her own emotions from it all. He was our father, and Mum believed we were entitled to as much contact as we wanted.”

Terry Bartel, by all accounts was an amazingly gifted sportsman but “he was a wasted talent, as training and hard work weren’t his strong suit,” says Bartel. 

“He was incredibly charismatic, always the life of the party. A real knockabout “man’s man”, the sort of bloke you wanted to hang around with at the pub. That was the image that everybody saw, anyway.”

The "out of control" beard - Round 19

 

When Jimmy Bartel told his story to Hamish McLachlan of the Herald Sun, he talked of his dad never kicking the footy with him or taking an interest in his footballing achievements.  “Dad was invited to every sporting event I ever went to — but he never came. He never had an interest in it.”

“I sent him my under-18s state jumpers, thinking he might like them. The next time I visited him, I found one of them being used as a dog bed. I took it back and gave it to my best mate, who still has it today.”

Bartel talked of a “real line in the sand moment," in 2004 when he stood up to his father.  It was after the birth of his sister Olivia’s son, when his father became overly aggressive towards his sister.

"I was thinking that there's another generation that was going to have to go through it all if I didn't do something, so I had to stop it. Hunter, being the first of the grandchildren, wasn't going to have a life subjected to violence if I could stop it."

He discussed it with the assistant coach at Geelong, Ken Hinkley, who told him to do what he had to do.  So, a 21-year-old Bartel drove three and a half hours to his sister’s home and met with his father the next day. 

“I told him straight out that he was done getting involved in our family. He asked me who I was speaking for, and I told him I was speaking on behalf of all of us. I told him to get on with his own life because he wasn’t going to have anything to do with ours.”

Standing in broad daylight in the carpark of the Wodonga pub, his father’s first reaction was to get aggressive. “He said, 'Do you wanna have a f*ing go?' I just started laughing. I said to him, 'That’s the difference between you and me, I don’t have to fight. You’re done, go and enjoy your d*ckhead mates'. His first reaction was to defend his mates. He didn’t care that his family was being taken away from him.”

“I saw him one more time before he died with cancer in 2010, but I didn’t go to the funeral. I had said everything I needed to say. It may sound harsh, but he was dead to me from that day in Wodonga on,” said Bartel.

 

Jimmy Bartel wants those affected by domestic violence to know they're not alone – and that they are worthy. "You are not responsible for the inexcusable actions against you. You are worth a lot."

 

Bartel explains that in launching this campaign, he has had to get deep into what actually happened with his mother, his sisters and his wife Nadia.  

Bartel says he thinks being involved in the campaign has helped Nadia to fully understand why he gets upset when he hears about a woman dying from domestic violence.

“The numbers are horrific. On average in Australia, two women are killed every week from domestic violence, a woman is hospitalised every three hours, and more than half of women who experience violence have children in their care. For me this isn’t just another cause, this is very personal.”

 

Jimmy and Nadia at 2016 Brownlow Medal Awards where he won the Jim Stynes Community Leadership award.

 

The AFL Grand Final is on this weekend. Bartel will be watching from the sidelines with, Nadia, who is looking forward to having her clean-shaven husband back.  She told radio station Triple M, "It's a fantastic campaign that he's done and I'm very proud of him, but I'm so excited to see it gone. I'm that over it! Half the time I don't even know where his mouth is! It's like are you smiling, are you sad, where's your mouth?" 

She did say though, that their 10-month-old son Aston, loves his dad's beard and grabs onto it every single day. "He's going to miss it more than me, that's for sure," she said.

We say, CONGRATULATIONS, JIMMY!  You are a very deserving winner of this year's Jim Stynes Community Leadership award.  His mother must be immensely proud of what a good man she has raised.  He is certainly very proud of her.

In footballing terms, of his mother Diane, Jimmy Bartel, masterful Geelong 300-gamer, three-time premiership player, Brownlow and Norm Smith medalist says, “I am biased, but I think she is the greatest player that’s ever lived.”

 

 

It’s not too late to donate: www.bendigobank.com.au/geelongcatsfaceuptodv

 

Has this article raised issues for you or someone your know?

Need help? Men and women can call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732

Or visit the Divorce Resource Crisis Support links page HERE.

Published by Christine Weston
www.DivorceResource.com.au
30th September, 2016.