Neil Snowden was goalkeeper for the Australian men's hockey team at two Olympic Games – both times they were favourites to win gold, but finished fourth.
Decades on, Snowden, now 61, lives quietly in Miepoll, a tiny locality between Violet Town and Euroa.
But the memories of those devastating Olympic losses — and the blood, sweat and tears leading up to them — are still as clear as day.And up until the semi-final against Pakistan, they were red-hot favourites to win gold. "When we did lose that semi-final against Pakistan, the deflation was just indescribable," Snowden said.So when they fronted up at the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, they had every reason to expect success."That broke me … after '88, I went into retirement," he said.A newspaper clipping showing goalkeeper Neil Snowden, top, in the devastating aftermath of losing the semi-final in Seoul to Great Britain.
While there was some psychological support available after the shock losses, Snowden said it "wasn't a lot".As goalkeeper, the pressure on Snowden had been enormous — right in the thick of it, the team's success and failure often rested on his shoulders."You do your absolute best, and everyone’s not going to have a good day every day.Abandoning the sport completely, Snowden spent the next decade picking up the pieces.
"It took me about 10 years to mentally recover by myself from — well, it was traumatic, as far as I was concerned," he said.Neil Snowden dives during a grand final shootout at the 1985 Australian championships.
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