Paul Hurst was at an oval watching the footy.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
He casually remarked to one of the players as he trudged off the ground "you showed a bit of form today mate."
"Who cares what you think you dumb arse prick," the player snarled.
Hurst wasn't shocked by the reply considering he was watching the match inside the confines of Her Majesty's Prison Pentridge.
The 1972 Carlton premiership player and his brother were new inmates after being convicted of cultivating a quantity of marijuana near their home town of Tallangatta.
Hurst received a two-year jail sentence during the mid 1990s for his part in the crime.
"I had a bloke that I had known for a long time that had gone broke in the Philippines," he said.
"He came and saw me and asked for my help.
"One thing led to another and we got caught trying to make a quick buck and had forty or fifty plants of marijuana growing.
"It cost me a lot of money trying to fight it.
"I got excommunicated by the old lady and written out of the will as well.
"It wasn't the best time of my life.
"I spent two years living on the razor's edge."
Hurst said the inmate that made the crude remark to him had long passed away.
"He's dead now, he got knocked off in St Kilda," he said.
"It's funny though, a few days later after he gave me a spray when he was walking off the ground he came up to me.
"He said 'I'm sorry mate, I didn't realise who you were and played in a flag for Carlton.'
"He couldn't do enough for me then and became my protector which suited me fine."
Hurst managed to stay out of trouble in Pentridge where he spent 12 months.
He was then relocated to the low security Dhurringile Prison, 160km north of Melbourne.
"Looking back at my time in Pentridge, I consider myself lucky," he said.
"My brother Roger and myself got a job in the kitchen as pot washers and graduated to being cooks.
"We used to live like kings and could have bacon and eggs, fish, steak whatever we liked.
"The rest of the prisoners would get Weeties or porridge."
Hurst blamed the recession of the early 1990s under the Hawke-Keating government for his life-changing decision to 'make a quick buck' and grow marijuana.
"It was the recession we didn't have to have with Keating," he said.
"Our earthmoving business fell over just when we had a development project near the airport with $25 million worth of gravel under the ground.
"We started to develop it and the Commonwealth Bank had a mortgage on most of the properties in the area and wanted their money back.
"They jumped on everyone for their money and suddenly there was no cash flow and it was a bad time for everyone."
Hurst by luck or otherwise landed another plum job at Dhurringile Prison.
After starting off making deck chairs, he progressed to working in the dairy which was the most sought after position by inmates.
"I was lucky in that one of the screws at the prison used to come and watch me play for Carlton when he was a young bloke," he said.
"He came up to me and said 'I remember you running around on a back-flank for Carlton. I'll pull a few strings and get you a job in the dairy.'
"I started off feeding the cows, fencing and helping build a new dairy.
"The dairy foreman then got me to help milking the cows which I didn't mind."
Although Dhurringile Prison is low security, inmates weren't spared the indignity of being strip searched at all hours of the night.
"That was another benefit of working in the dairy," he said.
"I was never strip searched.
"I had my own cell, with a self-contained shower and toilet which was considered a luxury.
"I also did a bit of study and did a cooking course.
"So I used to bake cakes and then trade the cake to other inmates for something that I needed.
"I kept my nose out of trouble, worked hard and was rewarded with being appointed dairy foreman."
Hurst said he was even allowed out of his cell at night to attend to the pregnant cows.
"I would walk around in the paddocks at night checking on the pregnant cows," he said.
"I used to walk around with a set of pulling chains and would be pulling calves at all hours of the night.
"I remember the governor called me into his office and said 'what are we going to do when you are released? Who is going to run the dairy?'
"The screws would see me pulling calves at 3am and just yell out 'how are you going Hursty?'
"They just left me alone and even when I had visitors, every prisoner got strip searched except me."
Despite getting special privileges from the prison officers, Hurst never let his guard down.
"I just wanted to do my time with no trouble and get the hell out of there," he said.
"But mind you I never let my guard down and had three shivs stashed in different places because there were some real morons getting around."
Hurst was released from prison after serving his two-year sentence and says there is 'no way' he will find himself on the wrong side of the law again.
"When I was released from jail I moved back to Tallangatta and everywhere I went for the first six months I had some bastard following me," he said.
"Just to make sure I was doing the right thing.
"But there was no way I'm going back into the can.
"People often tell me no matter what you have done in the past - it's the past.
"There are also people out there who still label me a drug dealer and you can't hide from it.
"It's 25-years ago now.
"But the way I look at it I've done the crime, I've done my time, life goes on.
"What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."
