Print this pageChris and James Gowans fight every day - without fail. If it's not about football, it's about work or even a favourite pastime - such as music. Known for terrorising opponents on the field, Central District's "terrible twins" terrorise each other off it.
"We blue flat out, all the time," Chris revealed.
"Yeah, we get out of control, we fight every day and pretty full-on too," James said. "But we've got one rule, if we get physical we never punch in the face. Mum wouldn't let us do that."
As if to prove a point, the identical 31-year-old twins - Chris is eight minutes older - blued minutes before this interview was conducted. This time it was over the homes they are building for themselves at Hampstead Gardens.
"We were pitching the roof and there was a mistake," James said. "I reckon Chris buggered it up and he reckons I did, so we had a full-on argument."
Chris said: "Put it this way. There's nine ways to skin a cat and there's 10 ways to do everything and for some reason we never want to do things the same way. It's probably a test of wills as to who gets their way. I guess it goes back to that competitive instinct we've both got."
That competitive spirit saw a full-on argument break out the night before over the artist behind the song Give A Little Bit.
"James thinks he's the king of picking songs and he'll go off his head if I don't know an artist," Chris said.
"When I didn't know it was Supertramp who sang that song he went berserk and yelled 'I can't believe you don't know that'. Trivial matters set us off." The disagreements spill onto the field.
Long-time field umpire Richard Williams jokingly told Chris he was going to report him after he whacked James in the arm during play.
"He gave me a corked arm," James said.
"And the other day he screamed at me from 150 metres away when I did a bad kick to Jon Giles."
One of their team-mates once made the mistake of trying to break up a fight between the pair at training and came off second-best.
"We got a bit too competitive and were going at it and Yves Sibenaler tried to break it up and he accidentally wore one," Chris said. "Looking back it was pretty ordinary and no-one knew how to take it. They know us better now."
So well that when the Gowans boys now go at it their team-mates barely raise an eyebrow.
"That's just us and everyone at the club knows that while we get pretty fired up at each other, it doesn't get personal, we don't hold a grudge and we're actually really close," James said.
"The old man (Peter) is starting to get a bit annoyed because he says 'boys, you're 30 now, stop carrying on like you're 15'. But we're still young at heart."
The Gowans - whose arrival at Central District in 2000 signalled the start of one of the most dominant eras in SANFL history - say their antagonistic ways started with a tough upbringing in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
The hard-nosed midfielders were born at Footscray - "mum (Alison) wanted a third child and ended up with two," Chris said - and grew up in Sunshine.
"We copped a lot of shit when we were younger because there weren't many twins around," James said.
"We grew up in an area where you had to stick up for yourself - that was the only way you got any respect. And the fact there was two of us helped. I remember standing in the queue at the canteen in Year 8 and having this Year 11 kid push in front of me. I tried to take my position back and he belted me in the mouth.
"I hit him back and got taken out of the line by the teachers. Chris then asked what had happened to the food I was getting for both of us and when I said I'd been hit he went after this kid. So I guess that's where we learnt to fend for ourselves."
It is no surprise the Gowans' favourite AFL players weren't the flashy ones but Footscray hard men Jim Edmond, Steve Wallis and Rick Kennedy. Like them, the hits the Gowans deliver on the field are as subtle as a sledgehammer.
"We always liked the hard-at-it, straight-over-the-ball players," Chris said.
"There's no rocket science to us. We're obviously not blessed with the greatest amount of pace or skill so we have to play within our limits. And because we're used to getting under each other's skin so much we probably do that to our opponents as well."
Loved at Elizabeth for helping turn around an underachieving club by winning six premierships in eight years, the Gowans twins are despised by rivals.
"Until they get to know us," Chris said. "I reckon we're the most hated people in SA. The abuse we get out on the ground (from opposition supporters) is unbelievable and even when we're out people come up to us and say 'I hate you'.
"But we have a chat and if we're out we'll buy them a beer and they end up saying 'you aren't such bad blokes after all".
Courtesy of The Advertiser
Story by Andrew Capel