By STEVE MASCORD
THE definition of “Legend” in this weekly RLW feature can be pretty broad.
A legend can be someone like Wally Lewis, who dominated the game during almost the entire length of his career and now has a high profile place in the media.
Or it can be a character like David Niu, whose first grade career was brief but who now devotes his life to league’s American dream.
Or it can be Theo Anast, a former Canterbury and Australian Schoolboys prop who moved to France, played in Mal Meninga’s last home Test, worked as a musician, a department store Santa, a nude model, a roadie and is currently writing music and a book.
Our old game can be the basis of a pretty colourful life – and there have been few more colourful than Theo’s.
RLW: Your background is greek, like Braith Anasta’s. How did your family come to Australia and how did you end up at Canterbury?
Anast: “My father was invited here after my grandfather was honoured for protecting Anzacs in German-occupied Greece in World War II. I Idolised my brother and followed him into rugby league. When David Waite was teaching at Toormina High School, I was living at Armidale. I came down to train with Jason Alchin who I’d become mates with. I didn’t really come from a rugby league family. My parents had split up, I grew up with my mum. Just the wog situation. My dad wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer. I think he came to watch me once. I hitched down when I was still at high school. I was talking to Artie Beetson as well. I ended up deciding to go with Canterbury. They were chasing Alchin. I was playing footy and partying and chasing girls. League gave me some direction, role models, discipline … and more footy girls and parties . David Boyd, Sandy Campbell and John Wilcox all came from Australian Schoolboys that year. This is in ’84.’’
RLW: What was it like in the Dog pound during that golden era?
Anast: “I was living in one of George Peponis’ houses right opposite the oval – with a young bloke and another fella who is well known but I won’t name. The leagues club was just up the road, the ground was just over the road so there were a few times when there were a couple of cheerleaders over at the house after training. Also a few of the blokes would come over after training have a bit of a jazz cigarette, if you want put it that way. One day the cops came over and found a couple of smoking implements. I didn’t sell any, I want to add! Anyway, the club secretary Peter “Bullfrog” Moore and chairman Barry ‘Punchy’ Nelson pulled me out of training in front of everyone and said ‘we brought you down here to be another Peter Kelly. You’ve got to get in the boat, youse all row together. If you step over the crease, we’ll break your legs.’ ‘Punchy’ was into me like that. Being a police commissioner from that era, he wasn’t not to be messed with. I got a job at the Belmore Sports Ground stocking the bars in the boxes. We got the sack for ripping into the Cornettos.’’
RLW: Is it true you once wrote poetry for David Waite?
Anast: “One time when I was playing under 23s for Canterbury and … I smashed a bloke and he didn’t get up. I didn’t have that killer instinct. I was upset that I’d hurt him. At the judiciary, David mentioned that ‘Theo’s got another side to him. I think I’ve still got some poetry from him at home’. I tried to play hard but by the rules.’’
RLW: It’s France where your career had most of its highlights. How did you end up there?
Anast: “I spoke to Tas Baitieri one day when we were sitting on the bench for first grade. In ’88 I was in Europe and Cement (David Gillespie) was over with a team called Hunslet. Cement said ‘can you come over here, one of the blokes is injured’. I said ‘I’m going to Egypt first’. I climbed the pyramids on my 22nd birthday. The next year I wrote 20 letters to English clubs and got no responses so I played with St Gaudens. I remember arriving in Paris and Tas meeting me. I had a guitar and a bag and I was going for a year. I ended up staying five years.’’.
RLW: Tell us about your experiences.
Anast: “One time,I went busking down at Biarritz and Bayonne – where I was robbed at gunpoint of all my football earnings. Another time, I was thrown out of a girl’s place in Paris and ended up busking at Montemartre, being robbed once again by Algerian-Iranian buskers I had been squatting with. I remember sheepishly turn up knocking on the club president’s door, skinny – for a front rower, anyway – to re-sign for another season. The house key, car key, gym key were all instantly available. Just weeks earlier my catch cry had been ‘no games, no visa, no girlfriend, no money, no problems!’. I was a pathetic romantic… I had my guitar..’’
RLW: Got any of those wild French league stories people love?
Anast: “We went to a place called Carpentras one year. We were there watching the juniors game. Our club president has gone onto the field and started bagging the referee about how many penalties he was giving. He’s 65 or something like that. The 20-year-old captain of the other team has hung one on the jaw of our president! He starts reeling sideways. Then he takes his jacket off. The teams start lining up and do the can-can, a violent version of the French chorus line dancing…without the petticoats and the lingerie! One of my mates in the juniors team, Jean-Marc, comes over near the fence and someone cracked him over the head with an iron bar! He got 15 stitches. When you’re a front rower playing in games like that, you take up the ball and they come in with elbows and knees, smashing you. It was just mad. We beat them… On other occasions I’d seen guys run off the field and up into the grandstand and belt players’ girlfriends or other players that were injured. ‘
RLW: You’ve had some pretty interesting jobs since you stopped playing…
Anast: “I’ve been a Santa Claus. I’ve been a courier driver. I’ve worked in half a dozen Big Day Outs and other festivals. I’ve worked in exhibitions and motor shows, taught harmonica, taught a bit of guitar. Theatre stuff. Building for the launch of Foxtel and Star City casino, Olympic venues pre-2000 Games. Massaged at this year’s City to Surf. Worked for a wine company.I worked for a circus – I won’t name names – before being sacked for spraying huge antiwar slogans after a peace march in Tasmania, in March 2003 prior to Iraq invasion. Other jobs: TV film extra, nude model, cocktail waiter, fashion parade usher, selling health supplements, camera assistant, security guard, bouncer, setting up jumping castles, brickies labourer, steel fixer, gyprocker….I’ve had girls flash their boobs and offer more than that to get into Soundwave, lugged gear for Prince and watched him from the side of the stage, found a joint in the Beastie Boys’ dressingroom … Right now I’m playing more music with my bands Tamen and Lovejob. I’m also on the lookout for a good business that can give me more time for music. Right. I’m working on song for an upcoming movie and on a novel, about the impending end of life as we know it.It’s a comedy – ha!’
RLW: And even though you didn’t have that killer instinct, rugby league has clearly been good to you
Anast: “I’ve learnt a lot of people skills, a lot of communication skills. Rugby league’s kept a lot of people off the streets. It’s been a way to vent their frustration and anger and I’ve got to admit that was certainly good for me. I was very fortunate from an early age to be exposed to a lot of great rugby league characters like David Waite and Warren Ryan and Phil Gould and Tim Sheens and Wayne Bennett. I think league combat is a lot about overcoming fear and pain – to keep going in times of adversity, to persevere both mentally and physically. They are things that help you in life.’’
RLW Q&A SIDEBAR
THEO did an SBW in reverse – leaving his French club mid-season without telling anyone to return to Australia.
But he certainly didn’t do it for money.
“I left like a thief in the night – I was captain-coach and walked out in February ‘95 after seven months mid-season,’’ he recalls.
“I’d won three titles – one Championnat de France and two Coupe de France, won Player of the Year in 1992 and represented France in eight Tests. I was living the heart of the Pyrenees and left it all behind.
“Why? I wanted to make money playing music and come back home and ended up taking a job sweeping the tarmac at the jet base in Sydney. Hmm huge come down.
“Another time I was sacked for playing harmonica backstage at a Radiohead concert. That was right before Anzac Day and a Vietnam vet thought I was mocking the last post.
“Far from it – as my family background (above) will attest.”
This story appeared in Rugby League Week
