GWS midfielder Matt De Boer has a ripper story to tell, involving stolen bank cards, a date night cut short, a torn hamstring, and the hot pursuit of a brazen thief.
A few years ago, De Boer was moving into a new rental in Sydney and after taking a break with Tendai Mzungu for a spot of Madden, the midfielder discovered his wallet had been nabbed from his car via a call from his bank following some suspicious activity on his credit card.
He quickly logged into his online account to find some 'tap and go' transactions ending at a nearby pub. Following the trail, the former Docker spoke to the publican who admitted to some strange behaviour after said card was declined with the group, who were “having beers on” De Boer, quick to scatter.
While perusing the CCTV footage, he took a couple of “sketchy photos” of those who appeared on the vision in a bid to identify them at a later stage.
Before taking too much of it into his own hands, De Boer opted to call the police to report the crime, prior to realising the thief had also landed himself a travel card with about $100 left. Deciding not to cancel that card, De Boer would receive a notification every time that particular card was used.
While out for date night with his fiancee in Bondi, De Boer received a ping and was quick to act. With date night now cut short, he was in pursuit to the inner west to find the culprit.
De Boer expertly told the story on the Dyl & Friends podcast with former Giants teammate Dylan Buckley.
“I sped off to try and find this guy, called the cops on the way, doing all the right things,” he said.
“He’d left by the time I got there. I’d be chasing him around Sydney for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately I had torn my hamstring in the second week.
“I was due to go out for breakfast with the Mzungus on the Sunday, I was out the front waiting for my fiancee and I see this guy walk past and I was like, ‘that’s f---ing him!’. I’d been studying his photo like Liam Neeson from Taken.
“By that time he was down the street a little bit and I’ve realised I’ve torn my hammy, so what am I going to do? I’ve jumped in the car, sort of sped up to him, got out of the car and I was hobbling along to him.
“I didn’t know what to say, I was like, ‘hey mate’, what do I say? What do I say? I turned to him and said, ‘have you got any ID?’ He’s just looked at me and gone to run, and I just launched at him, I’ve tackled him to the ground - I’m supposed to be this good tackler - I ripped his shirt off his body and his hat fell off as well. He got up and went to scamper away, I went to chase him but felt my hammy and thought I can’t do that.
“He got away, which is disappointing, but I picked up the hat and dropped it off to police, they ran forensics on it, he’d been arrested previously so they had all his DNA. They went and picked him up and 18 months jail!”
It’s safe to say the bandit, although momentarily, experienced first-hand the close-checking some of the AFL’s prime movers over the years have had to deal with when in De Boer’s company.
The moral of the story, according to Buckley, is don’t mess with Matt De Boer.