Imagine, for a moment, a boy growing up in Coolamon – infatuated by footy, feeding off the game and forever following it. Everything, in fact, except playing it.
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“I always asked as a kid, every year – you go to the doctor to get a check-up and every year I’d ask.
“And they’d go, ‘Nah, not yet, no, you can’t play, it’s too risky.’ Even if you know the answer is going to be no, you just try your luck with it.”
Isaac Pattison suffered spina bifida as a child.
“As a kid, I had the lowest (level) so I was lucky with that,” he says.
Still, the North Melbourne fan was resigned to the fact that the issues with his spine meant he wouldn’t ever play the game he loved.
Then 18 months ago, Pattison was preparing for an unrelated operation for appendicitis, when doctors discovered a tube in his stomach – still there from his treatment for spina bifida.
“I’d had a tube running from my head to my stomach, just to keep all the fluid going to my spine, to keep it strong,” he said.
“I went in to get my appendix taken out and they found the tube in my stomach, so we had to go get checks and scans and do all the right things.
“When I got all that checked, I just said, ‘This means I can play footy now, doesn’t it?’
“And she said, ‘Yeah, you can.’
“I got the all clear off the doctor. So I had to go to the neurologist – I went there, done all that, and they just said, well, there’s no reason you can’t play footy now.”
Isaac Pattison played football last season.
Following some mates out to the Northern Jets, he spent the season in the twos and discovered footy is indeed all it’s cracked up to be.
“One hundred percent! I reckon it’s the best thing. It’s unreal,” he says.
“I was a bloody fanatic about footy (as a kid). I followed it all the time, I always grew up around it. So yeah – it was good.”
He says with a laugh that his Mum might have been a bit nervous but he kicked off his football career with plenty of family support.
Now, Pattison, 20, is in the Jets’ first grade side and will take his place in a back pocket at Ariah Park on Saturday for just his second senior game, after debuting at North Wagga two weeks ago.
“It was really good. I was excited, but very nervous... It was a pretty big shock to me. I didn’t think in a million years I’d be playing first grade.”
As a game, it was a rude awakening, with Saints running right over the top of the Jets late.
“They were a bit too quick, and just outran us. They were too good.”
But Pattison was among the Jets’ best, and holds his spot for the crucial round six game against Charles Sturt University, which could land the winner a spot in the top five.
