He was a high-marking, history-making Adelaide Crow, booting four goals in the club’s 1991 debut against Hawthorn and earning the nickname “the president”.
But at 64, South Australian footy great Bruce Lindner is in the “fight of my life” as he tackles cancer.
“I recognise that this is the last quarter of my life – sometimes you win them, sometimes you don’t,” says the Renmark-born dual all-Australian, who also played 66 games for Geelong in the VFL in the 1980s and kicked six goals in West Adelaide’s SANFL premiership victory in 1983.
“It’s when the most important parts of the game are played. When they can provide you with a good outcome or you have a not so good outcome.”
In January 2024, Lindner was 62 – “but I thought I was mid-30s” – and looking forward to a retirement of long lunches, playing golf, meeting up with friends and travelling overseas with his wife of nearly 32 years, Julie.
But he woke one morning to find blood in his urine. Tests confirmed his worst fears – he had an aggressive tumour in his kidney.
“I’d never had to call a doctor back in my life and the reality is it’s never good news,” says the account executive for wholesale distributor Options Wines.
“Suddenly your world gets turned upside down. And all this (plans for retirement) becomes a distant memory because all that you are trying to do is become healthy again and stay on this planet a little longer.”
Now, Lindner has written a book, Time on in the Last, which tells the story of his cancer battle and reflects on the highs, lows and lessons of his life.
He decided he wanted to write the book as a “love letter” to his 21-year-old daughter, Sophie, while he faced his mortality in Ashford Hospital’s recovery room – tubes and leads strapped all over his body – after surgery to remove his cancerous kidney.
“When I was lying in my bed and things were looking doom and dark, I thought ‘Sophie doesn’t really know me’,” says the former footballer, whose time with the Crows was interrupted by injury.
“If things go south … this will give her an understanding of my life and where she’s come from.
“I think my life has been able to provide the basis of resilience that has served me well, both in football and in my current predicament. Part of the book is trying to pass on to my daughter the understanding that life’s not a straight line, that you have your highs and lows and you can learn from them and build resilience.”
Lindner – who played 19 games for the Crows and, before that, was a leading goal kicker during his five seasons with Geelong – started making daily diary entries for his book as he recovered from his surgery.
Sometimes, he would write until the early hours of the morning.
But his story took another turn in May 2024, four months after his surgery. Even though he was feeling good and eating well, he found blood in his urine again.
More tests revealed that his cancer had returned and spread to his bladder and he now needed groundbreaking immunotherapy treatment.
“Dr Google told me there was a 15 to 20 per cent chance of living five years – that’s a sobering reality check. That’s when I thought ‘I’ve got to get something positive out of this’,” says Lindner, who decided to use the book to help raise funds for the Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group, a research organisation for “below-the-belt” cancers.
Lindner’s book – which officially launches this Friday and has been called “a three-vote, best-on-ground performance” by Crows legend Tony Modra – finishes on a knife’s edge.
In the penultimate chapter, he is sitting with his wife and daughter in his doctor’s rooms, nervously waiting for the verdict from a scan late last year after tests had suggested that the cancer may have spread to his lungs.
The book then has a QR code that links to a website, where readers can donate money and see his results.
In the final chapter, Lindner looks forward to “so many more experiences to have and many more people to love”.
“When people ask me how I am, I say my health’s good, it’s basically status quo from my last scan,” says the former footballer, who lives in Unley with corporate affairs and communications specialist Julie and Sophie, a final-year economics student at Adelaide University.
“But when you’re having scans every three months, you get ‘scanxiety’. Basically, I’m as good as my next scan. The scans so far have seen improvement. But if it metastasises, the percentages are pretty dim of living five years.
“I’m hoping to have a Cinderella story. I’m hoping I try on the glass slipper.”
Lindner’s book can be purchased at timeoninthelast.com.au and at Dillons bookstore.