PAUL Chapman can’t remember when he wasn’t a combative soul.

Maybe it was born the day his brother Glenn died. Chapman was 16. Glenn, who was 19, died in a work accident and a disenchanted Chapman could not comprehend how and why the world kept moving, leaving him behind to deal with the grief.

“For me, I couldn’t believe the world moved on so quickly,” he said.

“My world ended so why doesn’t everyone else’s word end? But it doesn’t. People move on. It’s not that they don’t care, but people move on. It’s like footy, it keeps moving.”

Maybe it was the day, in 2002, when his former coach Mark Thompson knocked the chip off his shoulder.

“He said to me one day, ‘You’re a good player, but you’re a little piss ant and you’re easily replaced’,” Chapman said.

“He said to me one day, ‘You’re a good player, but you’re a little piss ant and you’re easily replaced’.”

“That hit home to me. I wasn’t in the side. I was maybe 18 or 19, I was playing well in the twos and I think he was really trying to test me, really test my character.

“I took it as, ‘Don’t get too comfortable’. I’ve always believed that footy – and life – can give you a good kick in the arse when you need it. If you give it a chance it will kick you back.”

Maybe we’re looking for reasons why Chapman presented himself as if he was a coiled cobra, ready to strike out at opponents on the field, and ready to flinch at anyone who challenged him off it.

Maybe it was front, a self-protecting mechanism to distance himself from normality, from others, from himself.

Maybe it’s simply who he is, a man who from personal tragedy challenged himself to forge a terrific football career which today reaches 250 games.

No-one knows if Chapman is in the last month of that career.

Geelong hasn’t told him he is required next year and Chapman hasn’t asked.

Naturally, Chapman’s unyielding belief in his ability, which should not be construed as arrogance, means he is expecting a new contract.

If it doesn’t happen, then that’s life. As he said, football clubs keep moving and he will be left, not to grieve this time, but to reflect on a career which is of champion status.

Always near the end of anything, there is clarity about the journey and one’s accomplishment.

“I have loved it,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s over, but when you leave you hope you’ve had some impact on peoples’ lives, and they appreciate you a bit and you give a bit back. That’s how the world works, doesn’t it?

“I love this place and I want to play again. I’ve got a lot to give, still got good footy ahead of me. I know that. I wouldn’t play unless I knew that. The thing is, fairytales don’t always happen, do they?

“At age 30, you’re considered an old man. Brent Harvey is seen differently because he still has his speed and good luck to him and the Kangaroos for backing him in. But it’s different circumstances at our footy club.

“We have got young kids coming through and do you sign them up before anyone else can get their hands on them? I understand it. It’s the circle of life in footy.

“I am lucky to have experienced all of it for 14 years and, touch wood, it doesn’t end. But 14 years is a good career. An average career is less than four years, you know. And the kids we’ve got at the club, they have a crack. They are really good guys.”

There’s a calmness about Chapman that is obvious around the club and at home, where his partner of eight years, Lauren, is 20 weeks’ pregnant with their first child.

He said impending fatherhood changed him and, combined with a determination to stop and smell the roses in what could be his final year of footy, he has never experienced such contentment.

“It’s nice way to be,” he said.

For all of his career, Chapman would be tense for two days after a game and for the two days leading into the next.

Paul Chapman wins the Norm Smith medal in the 2009 Grand Final. Picture: Michael Dodge

It meant he was “normal” three days a week. He smiles now at how he used to tense up, or adopt an aggressive persona, at the merest hint of confrontation.

Or sometimes it would happen when he was driving home to Torquay after training and he would find himself strangling the steering wheel for no reason other than he was thinking about football.

At home, Lauren would often ask what was wrong, and mostly always Chapman would answer: “Nothing.”

“But I didn’t know how to let go,” he said.

Of what?

“Because being that person on the field made me the player I was and it was hard for me to turn it off when I left the field.

“It happened for a couple of days after the game, and a couple days before the game because I had to be that person.

“Often I wasn’t angry, but very focused and very determined and sometimes I bring that off the field.

“I still think on the field I’m that person, but as soon as I step off the ground, I don’t know, I just want to smile instead of being that (he tenses his body).

“Some people have said, ‘He’s very in your face’, but I’ve achieved what I’ve achieved because of that. So I didn’t want to change.

“I always thought I was very respectful, never put myself before anyone else, the team was always first, but when I believed something I always expressed it.

“But you can’t be like that forever. People used to tell me to chill out, and I’d think, ‘F— off. I am who I am’. You look back, and you think, ‘Geez, was I like that?’. There’s not much use for it any more.”

Paula Chapman sees the changes in her son.

“He’s in a brilliant place – I’ve never seen him as happy,” she said.

“He’s got his life partner, a baby on the way, he’s got support.”

It’s difficult to talk about Chapman’s journey and not talk about Glenn.

Despite a three-year age gap, they were like twins. Glenn, a budding umpire, and Paul, the budding champion footballer, used to joke that one day one would play in an AFL Grand Final and the other would umpire one.

Paula said her son’s journey had been a family journey.

Chapman been able to compartmentalise his brother’s life and death only recently.

“We never forget,” he said. “We talk about him bit now and at least when we talk about him we smile and talk about the good times and how funny he was.”

Paula Chapman adds: “We have all been in a dark place and to a certain extent we’re still in dark place, but we’re able to deal with it as a family.

“We don’t hide Glenn away, we include him, we talk about him. Yeah, we laugh. Often on the way to the football we talk about Glenn, you know, ‘Remember when he did this’ and whatever.

“It’s taken a long time, even though he’s not here, to include him in our life.

“We’re as happy as content as we can ever be. When you lose a child, you lose a part of yourself, and we do the best we can and we feel we are doing a good job at that.”

Chapman’s 250-game milestone is a family occasion, too.

He said his mother was over the moon.

“She’s pumped. She’s been sending weird messages through the week, how proud she is of me, what a wonderful achievement it is.

“Obviously it means lot to her and dad. He doesn’t say much, but I’d imagine it would mean lot to him. To everyone really. My brother, my sister.”

And Glenn?

“Yeah, he would be proud. I still think about him all the time. You never forget, but you just learn to deal with it. I haven’t seen his face for 15 years, but I think of all the good times I’ve had and how much better they would be if I shared them with him.

“We always used to bag each other about who was the better footballer. It would be nice to stick it up him a little bit.”

He says his 250th is not about him.

“It’s more so about others than myself. I think the premierships are about others as well, but premierships are about the team and the sacrifices the players have made. But I think milestones … they’re individual but they are individual to my group.

“It’s not about me, it’s about them. Everyone’s made sacrifices along the way. It’s good to talk about it. I feel good to talk about it.”

Paul’s pride was obvious.

“All of my kids had to grow up, all of our kids had to take on being protector of us,” she said.

“It’s not his journey and he made that quite well known when he won the best-and-fairest (in 2006). He said, ‘My brother has ridden every bump with me’. And I fully believe it. It actually makes me smile when Paul goes to kick goals because I look up at the screen and I see his tattoo of Glenn on his right shoulder pop out. Still now, I see it constantly.”

Three weeks ago, game 250 couldn’t come quickly enough for Chapman, but today it’s just another game, or at least another final.

Indeed, the frustration of dealing with an 18-week hamstring injury is long gone.

He will assume his favourite position – half-forward flank – and, as always, his thighs will look massive and his guns will be glistening.

Chapman hopes his next month will convince the Cats he has another season in him.

Mum doesn’t need any convincing.

“No, I don’t believe it’s coming to an end,” she said.

“I think he’s got one year definitely, maybe two years in him. I’ve never seen him as positive and committed.”

Chapman agreed. “You have to have self-belief, you have to back yourself in, you have to believe … it’s hard to describe,” he said.

Lets’s call it the two pillars of Paul Chapman: combativeness and self-belief.

“Yep, that’s it,” he said. “They are the main ingredients. They have got me this far.”