Eric Grothe, a four-time premiership winner and a member of the NRL Hall of Fame, was one of the most dominant and successful wingers in rugby league history.
The powerful ball runner was a key cog in Parramatta’s golden era in the 1980s, while he also starred for NSW and Australia.
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So comments the man known as “Guru” made on Sunday have left jaws on the floor and are a stark contrast to the aura he once enjoyed in the game.
Grothe, 64, featured in 152 games for the Eels between 1979 and 1989, but says he should have played in a lot more.
Instead, one of league’s hard men would fake injuries to skip games and also made the stunning revelation he played scared and felt smaller than all of his opponents.
“It was like there were two faces,” Grothe said on the Andy Raymond Unfiltered podcast.
“There was one that was in the public domain and there was the other one that was in the private domain.
“The ego was running riot. I was considered in public a pretty mild-mannered type of guy, but I had this big ego.
“I played football in a scared way. It felt like I was little. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened.”
Grothe then recalled a time when he was 15 or 16 years old at a public swimming pool and a bigger kid tried to punch him, which changed his perception of society.
“I thought why would someone want to do that,” he asked.
“Then I got this fear going out on my own, thinking I was going to have this pressure.
“It translated into football. After 1984 when I was a bit older and struggling a bit, it all came back to me, it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
“I just had no self-esteem, I started faking injuries. I didn’t want to play. I could have played a lot more games.
“The knees were a problem, but when I did my knee the last time I was a little bit happy about it because I didn’t have to deal with this thing in my head that I had to get out there and try to show that I was tough.
“Everyone looked bigger than me and I had no self-esteem at all to be better at what I was doing.
“There were a number of games I pulled out of on Sunday morning.
“I rang (Eels) doctor (Peter) Manollaras and said ‘Pete, I can’t play, my knee is sore or ankle is sore’. Then I’d be happy. That would make me happy.”
Grothe’s lack of confidence snowballed and he would find ways to skip games if he’d played poorly against a certain team last time out.
He says he was suffering from depression, well before that became a public issue men would openly discuss, and started using drugs in an effort to block out his worries.
“I did have some drugs when I was playing, every now and then I’d partake in some during the footy season, in the off-season a little bit more.” he said. “Just your standard marijuana.
“But I never really escaped myself. That was always there.
“You try to run away from yourself. You make excuses. I supposed having a smoke takes away from having to deal with it.”
Grothe did his best to hide his situation from his teammates, friends and family, but said he was aware of rumours he was “soft or injury-prone”.
He retired from footy after the 1989 season, but his problems didn’t improve.
“I broke my family up by playing up,” he said. “In 90, 91, my wife and I split up, the kids’ mother.
“I was retired then. I just did the wrong thing, chasing girls and all that.
“I thought of myself before anything else.”
Even in his later years, Grothe has battled demons.
He met a new partner about five years ago, which coincided with a man named in an official list of Australia’s 100 Greatest Players ever back in 2008 turning to harder drugs.
“I did cocaine pretty heavily there for a little while,” he said.
“I got in some dark places. It was a period of time there where it was an introvert thing.
“Cocaine I’d have by myself, in my own room, that led me to doing some stupid things.
“She was part of that time.
“It’s only the last four years I snapped out of that and woke up to myself and finally grew up a little bit.”
Grothe ultimately found religion and said he’s in a much happier place these days with a new partner he calls his “angel”, although he says he still has work to do on himself.
He previously did some volunteer work with Meals on Wheels and also gets enjoyment playing in his band, Eric Grothe and the Gurus.
Grothe also turned to his children for support, including fellow former Eels and Blues representative, Eric Grothe junior.
“Eric junior has been a wonderful rock for me, I told him everything,” he said.
“He didn’t judge. He’s done some things in his time as well.
“He was good and my younger son Daniel too. They’ve both been fantastic.”