A history of violence: The legend of Jonathan Brown

There’s not much room for folklore in 2015. Thanks to social media and the interwebs, virtually everything we hear about we’re able to see with our own eyes.

In sport something that feels unreal or mythical becomes jaded pretty quickly after it’s vined and retweeted 200,000 times.

However, some athletes do things so incredible, so audacious and so impossible that they’re able to transcend this. They live on in glowing anecdotes so outlandish that people two generations removed will dismiss them as fiction. They become folk heroes over time.

Jonathan Brown was one of these guys.

Brown is one of the few players of his generation who stood bigger than the game he played. He was a mythical creature. His stature echoed Wayne Carey and his courage was reminiscent of Glenn Archer. His single-minded attack on the footy wasn’t just admirable and breathtaking, it was inexplicable. His acts of courage didn’t just inspire awe, they inspired downright shock.

The reaction to Brown diving headfirst with the flight into packs of men he couldn’t see wasn’t ‘wow’ – it was ‘how?’ How could a human being possibly do that?

The stories off-field about Brown only added to his myth. When he was three years old his babysitter left him alone with a dog who bit him, and young Jonathan promptly bit the dog right back. In 2012 he was riding a bike on the Gold Coast and got hit by a car. The car came off second best, getting towed while Brown escaped a minor elbow graze. You can’t make this stuff up.

Over the course of his career Brown made violence an art-form. There was a poetry in his brutality. His maniacal focus on a piece of leather was as endearing as it was frightening. The violence was rarely malicious; it was always purposeful and altruistic. Even when he clocked Josh Carr’s jaw in the 2004 grand final it felt like he was doing it as a selfless act for the countless players Carr had harassed over the years.

The resounding image of Brown was him standing tall at centre half forward, awaiting the battle cry of the siren. Brown was a powerful figure; military haircut, improbably upright, chest always proud, looking more like he was preparing to storm Normandy than play a game of footy at the Gabba. Only Brown’s idol Carey had as impressive and imposing an on-field presence as Brisbane’s old #16.

What made Brown one of the game’s truly elite forwards was that he complemented his toughness with impeccable skill. He had a smooth, delicate kicking motion that belied the brutality he would use to get the ball in the first place. In his run-up he would fluently jog towards the man on the mark, lightly waving the ball in circles before he caressed it onto his boot, and often through the middle of the big sticks.

In front of goal Brown was a deadeye, kicking at 64.6 per cent accuracy, well above his peers Lance Franklin (58.3 per cent) Nick Riewoldt (60.5 per cent), Warren Tredrea (59.6 per cent) and Travis Cloke (54.8 per cent).

The tragedy and perhaps inevitability of Jonathan Brown is that his unreasonable courage led to him spending an inordinate amount of time on the sidelines. Plagued by suspension in his early years and injury in later ones, Brown only managed to play 20 games in five of his 15 seasons.

It was only from 2007 to 2009 that we truly saw Brown at his dominant peak for a sustained period of time. In these three years he kicked 77, 70 and 85 goals, earning a Coleman medal, two All-Australian selections and 46 Brownlow votes. With Chris Judd injured and Gary Ablett only just emerging, for these three years Brown had as credible an argument as anyone for the mantle of ‘best player in the competition’.

The second half of Brown’s career featured little team success. After making the finals in each of his first five seasons, playing in three premierships and four grand finals, Brown played in just two more finals in his last 10 years, both in 2009.

Brown was a victim of circumstance, undone by a team with no conception of its place in the league’s hierarchy, foolishly expecting that recruiting the veteran likes of Xavier Clarke, Amon Buchanan, Brent Staker, Matt Maguire, Travis Johnstone and the ghost of Brendan Fevola could push it over the top (people forget now, but Brisbane traded a first-round pick for a 27-year-old Travis Johnstone, and it cost them Lachie Henderson and Daniel Bradshaw to get 17 games of Fevola).

For years Brown and Simon Black were the only reason to watch the post-Michael Voss Lions, giving fans up north something to cheer for amidst the fires of Justin Sherman and Aaron Cornelius.

Sadly but justifiably, Jonathan Brown’s career is going to end up serving as a cautionary tale. He suffered four horrific facial injuries in the latter part of his career, some due to bad luck but one in particular due to total recklessness. Every Australian kid who has played footy has been told that ‘the harder you go, the less likely you are to get hurt’ – if you brace yourself and attack with conviction, your body is less susceptible to damage. Jonathan Brown is the counter-argument to that; evidence of the thin line between bravery and negligence, proof that even courage has its limits.

However, even though it probably shouldn’t be the case, a decade from now we likely won’t remember Jonathan Brown because he highlighted the severe health risk of concussion. I know I won’t. I’ll remember that mark against Hawthorn, and I’ll remember sitting at home on a Saturday night in August 2008, watching Jonathan Brown lining up for goal deep in the boundary on the left half forward flank, 50 metres out, down six points to Sydney in the dying seconds, and knowing that he’d kick the goal because he was Jonathan Brown. And he did kick it.

Courage and the human body’s ability to perform it might have a limit but myths and folklore do not. In reality, Jonathan Brown was a temporary case – someone whose prime was fleeting and whose style of play was unsustainable.

Myths however, are not temporary. They last generations, and the myth of Jonathan Brown, the superhuman who ran over cars and took on canines with his own teeth, is one of the best myths that footy has to offer.