I met Alex once at a post-game function at the Lexus Centre after a typical night loss at the MCG a few years back (2010 I think). It was a cold night and it was his first game back from a spell out with injury. My hands were so cold that when I went into the function room I went straight to the pie warmer - my hands were frozen, but the pie was good and warm. I started talking to one of the suits there while I was eating my pie - he looked more than a bit anxious, that kind of buzzed out on caffeine pills look. Couldn't make hide nor tail what the guy was talking about and my pie did a kind of exit out of the bottom end of the pastry and laid a big brown splodger right down the white anchor of my jumper I had on under my coat. My football buddy tried to wipe it off with a napkin, but that just made it worse.
Then they wheeled in the players - about 6 of them - and they sat looking bruised/dejected behind a table at the other end of the room. No one really wanted to talk with them - at the far end of the table was Alex. They were all holding marker pens for autographs (or something) - Pav had a line-up of waiting supporters, but I wanted to say howdy to SCOS. So I wandered over for a chat.
We talked, I said it was really good to see him back, etc. His head seemed really big to me, but I didn't say so - instead, I said he reminded me of a husky - he laughed. What I like about him was that he looked you straight in the eye, almost without blinking. But when I talked I noticed that he would start lowering his gaze down my jumper to the brown splodger on the anchor - then rapidly upwards if I asked a question. He kept looking at it, then said 'You want an signature near that shit mark on your jumper mate?' I said 'Nope, bumped into Demetriou and he gave me that signature' - he laughed and laughed and had to tell Van Berlo (next to him) the joke.
Good bloke, great sense of humour.
