Former Bronco Joe Kilroy opens up on the horror years that shaped his life Joe Kilroy enjoying life on the beach at Stradbroke Island. JOE Kilroy was one of Brisbane's most popular sporting identities of the 1980s. A flamboyant rugby league winger, he was an entertainer par excellence with a flashy turn of foot and charismatic smile which thrilled fans of Brisbane Norths and Brothers and the Broncos. But he also had a tough life. When he was two years old his mother, Joan, was killed after being hit by a car at Hervey Bay. At the time his father was working with a drilling gang in the Simpson Desert so Joe spent 11 years in the care of the Sisters of Mercy at Nudgee. Then he was sent to the controversial Boys Town school for disadvantaged boys in Beaudesert where he spent the worst three years of his life. Kilroy now lives on Stradbroke Island where he hopes to continue his career devotion to youth welfare. You spent time in the infamous Boys Town institution in Beaudesert. How difficult was that? I am actually going through court with them right now. There is a big thing going on with the boarders from Sydney. I spoke to them last week. What happened there, Joe? They bashed us. No one ever believed us. It was all that negative stuff we were forced to live under and listen to. I was bashed regularly. If you had a little bit of spirit they tried to break you. The place was run like a prison. The only things missing were the bars. Did your self-esteem take a battering? The saddest thing is that every boy in Boys Town was sent there as an uncontrollable child. Sorry. Wake up. Over 60 per cent of the kids in there were orphanage kids because the only crummy spot in the whole friggin' state where you could do grade eight, nine and 10 if you were a ward of the state. So you had all these kids who were wards of the state starting grade eights with all these crims. That must have made it hard? We were all treated like criminals. But a lot of those kids were just uncontrollable children and their parents did not have the skills. If you let a kid run wild you will end up with a feral adult. Joe Kilroy in action for the Broncos against Newcastle in 1988. You have done well to come out of it as such a lovable character, Joe. Oh Crash, I have a lot of flaws. A lot of them have impacted on me in life when you don't expect them. That is one of the reasons I like living here because they don't bubble to the surface much. When that Pauline Hanson stuff was around it impacted on my son then it impacted on me because it brought up a lot of my old issues. That's just one. I grew up under a veil of lies being told "you were no good, you were all crims." What sort of things would they do to you? Well mate, you'd bend over, get six on the arse and stand outside for five minutes, come in get another six and on it would go. Then they would throw you in the boxing ring on Friday night and if you could fight they would put you against older kids. I remember watching a kid in the ring with about eight others and getting knocked out by a king hit from the side. The only thing that place taught me was to resent authority. It was a wonderful facility run by the wrong bunch with the wrong morals. Do you never really get over it? You don't. I go to counselling when I get an issue that impacts on me and my family. You just don't know what is going to trigger you later in life. Later of course you went to jail over a drugs charge. What's it like in prison? The sad reality for being a black person in prison is that there is a far greater majority of us in there than what you see out here in the general population. So there was never any real problems as far as being looked out for because we had such a big base in there. We were definitely over-represented. During your time in prison you refined one of your football skills, didn't you? This will sound strange but during my year in prison I had a lot of time to think and I thought about a comment David Wright made when he was commentating on the 1987 Brisbane grand final (when Kilroy's Brothers beat Redcliffe). He talked about swapping the ball from one hand to the other so you could fend with both hands. I used to mentally rehearse it every day in prison and I am sure the other prisoners thought I was mad. I did it in a reserve grade game against North Sydney just after I got out. It was a defining moment because it came automatically. It proved to me the mind controls the body. What do you like about living on Straddie? There is nothing I don't like about it. There is nothing to upset you. People over here talk to you. Everyone has the time of day. As for traffic. What traffic? It is only when people get off the barge there is any sort of traffic and that's nothing. I have been looking to get away for years. You still ride a Harley Davidson. Whatever happened to that Harley you bought with your sign-on fee for Brothers in the 1980s? It cost $9300 and $9800 on the road. Getting it was a big moment. I had it for nine years and sold it for $14,000. Now every man and a dog has one. They have ruined the market. Yuppies with money. You see them riding around on a Harley with shorts and you just want to strangle them (laughs). I hope they burn their legs. But it's good. They make for a lot of cheap second-hand bikes on the market. What do you love about riding a Harley? It's akin to hang-gliding or sailing by yourself. Just you and nature. It is the nearest thing I have had to the tranquil feeling I get from sailing or hot air ballooning. Do you still follow sport? I watch everything. Rugby union, men's and women's soccer, Aussie Rules. Who is your favourite footballer now? I love watching (Brisbane Roar's) Thomas Broich when he is on fire. Broich is very unselfish, sometimes almost to his detriment. There have been times when he costs himself a goal but laying off. I love it. And - bizarre but true - I am always rooting for the Queensland Reds front row. What about cricket? Pulling hamstrings running 22m. What is wrong with those blokes? C'mon. I thought they would have more chance of doing a tongue muscle sledging than doing a hammy in that game. If you pull a hammy playing cricket I reckon you are an amateur in life. What's your favourite fish to eat on Straddie? The meat on little cod is nicer than barramundi but they are one of the few fish to eat the crown of thorns starfish so I don't eat too much of it. You played in the cross-over of eras between semi-professional era and when football turned serious, didn't you? That used to get to me a bit in that you would be paid $1000 for $100,000 worth of effort. Football never paid for my day-to-day living with the bills. It never took priority for me. It was the game I loved. Payment was a bonus. It was never a business for me. Even when I went to the Broncos I was working 60 hours a week and earning $42,000. And I was only making $30,000 at the Broncos. So where do you think my priorities were? Did you relish the fact that rugby league was a bit less structured in your day? You can say that, but when you come up against a Warren Ryan outfit they were very structured, but I was lucky in a sense that people with ad hoc ability were never stifled. I wonder whether you would have been suited to the structure in today's game? I am not sure but you would have been fittingly rewarded for putting your body on the line. Someone once said that in rugby league you train to be a bumper bar. It is pretty much the last person up off the ground loses. Your wife Debbie's story is remarkable, having gone from being in prison to a barrister. What do you make of it? She is awesome. She is an inspiration to a lot of women. She is proof that behind every amazing person there is a better person (laughs). We have been married for more than 30 years.