KICK-OFF: Ironman Michael Bolt's lofty place in steel city folklore

Then again, Steelers ironman Michael Bolt's storied career was built on getting things out of his body that mere mortals couldn't.

Illawarra's inaugural third grade skipper was the first man to take to Wollongong Showground in an Illawarra Steelers jumper in February 1982.

That distinction become something of a footnote on an incredible run of 187 consecutive grade games prior to his retirement in 1990.

There were countless times that streak could - and probably should - have ended due to injury. The closest he came is a story that would make bronze statues wince.

"I'm 90 per cent sure I'd broken my coccyx," Bolt, who has developed an appreciation for the importance of enunciation in years telling the story, said.

"We were playing Brisbane [in the Panasonic Cup] down here in I think it was 89 and someone put a kick through.

"It was a wet day and I slid onto the ball. As I did Gene Miles tried to toe it forward and he's kicked me right up the tailbone."

If that hurts to think about, wait until you hear the lengths the hardest of hard-nosed rakes went to to get on the park the next week.

"I think I was 10 or so games away from that record so I thought 'I may as well try and con my way through it'," Bolt recalls.

"I got through Tuesday and Thursday [training] but only just. We were playing Penrith at Penrith and I went to the doc and said, 'I think I've done something here, can you give me a [pain-killing] shot?'

"He said 'no way' because it was too close to the spinal column. I went to Walshy (Chris Walsh) because he was the captain at the time.

"I said 'I dunno how I'm gunna last'. He said 'do what you need to' so I went on the table and got something called Capsolin (heat rub) and got it rubbed onto the tailbone.

"They normally do it with oil to break it down a little bit but I said 'just put it straight on there'. The heat loosened it up and took all the pain away.

"I thought 'you beauty'. What I didn't think of was that, when you warm up and start running and stretching... you sweat."

You don't need much of an imagination to gather why there was some extra spring in his step that day.

"I got man of the match," he said.

"I just had to keep running because it just bloody hurt so much. Walshy said to me afterwards 'you should do that every week'."

It's a rippin yarn, especially considering that Panasonic Cup game didn't even count towards that famous unbroken run of games.

"With all those games we used to play in Amco or Panasonic Cup, there were probably another 20-25 games over that period that were never counted," Bolt said.

The streak could well have been even longer given he missed the final week of the inaugural season due to, of all things, a university law exam.

"For some reason we had a Saturday game which was rare for us, and I had a law exam on," he said.

"I just couldn't get there because it was at Balmain. I didn't think I was going to be breaking any records in the future so I just went and did it.

"You look back it now and think [the record] might have been more but, it wasn't to be."

That sharp brain explains why he's enjoyed a post-football life as a successful hospitality baron, but that body could've been pulled straight out of the Port Kembla Steelworks.

The now 61-year-old's famous durability was as much down to mental toughness as physical attributes, but he had another secret altogether.

"Not turning up to the medicals on Monday," he said.

"It's better to seek forgiveness than permission I guess. I just never went on Monday and by the time I got through the week I was right.

"I didn't know about any records until it was probably about 120 games, fourth or fifth year. There was nothing there from my point of view but then someone brought it up and started to check the records.

"I think the Mercury cartoonist was drawing things up with a monkey on my back so once everyone started cottoning on it made a little bit harder to do but I didn't hold back."

He claimed his second Stegbar Medal as club player of the year in 1987, the year he set a new record with 122 consecutive grade games.

By the time he retired in 1990, he'd amassed 187 straight grade games - and a record 171 first grade games for the Steelers.

Who knew that the first Steeler onto the Showground in 1982 would end up one of the greatest. Certainly not the man himself.

"It definitely didn't strike me at the time," he said.

"I'd organised an exchange over to New Jersey, it was one of the first exchanges Wollongong Uni had done, so I'd only come back to Australia three weeks before [the first game].

"I had played for Wests the year before and we'd won the comp, but I'd only had a couple of weeks' training.

"I got selected as captain of third grade and I didn't think about it at the time but then someone pointed it out to me. I said 'yeah, I guess you're right'. It wasn't a bad little achievement."

Read more: Wishart's praise for those who dug Steelers well

Having been out of the country for most of the build-up to the Steelers entry into the NSWRL, Bolt was surprised to see how quickly it took off.

"It was all pretty surreal when I got back," he said.

"The hype was starting to get there but I think we were everyone's second favourite team to start with. We had to do that winning over, but it came fairly quickly because third game in we beat Souths.

"Souths had a bloody handy side then and we beat them in first grade and everyone went 'oh right, they can compete'. That made the year from there.

"You could see the crowds build more and more and we stuck it up a few of these other teams. We held our own and we weren't flogged every week like people thought we might be.

"By the second year we were everyone's favourite team."

While the clubs best era was just beginning as Bolt's career wound down, no player more epitomised its ethos through those early years.

The Illawarra Rugby League's successful pitch for inclusion in the NSWRL was famously third time lucky after unsuccessful bids in 1954 and 1966.

When they finally got the nod it coincided with an economic downturn that made the fledgling years a financial - and at times on-field - struggle.

For Bolt to not miss a week, and earn two club player of the year gongs through that grind speaks to why he still occupies such lofty status in the Steelers story.

Even these days, few players are more beloved in the streets of the steel town.

"It's always been a great town and a town that keeps you honest," he said.

"The one thing about Wollongong is you've got to be pretty humble because they chop down the tall poppies pretty easily."

He's remained humble, but his popularity has had its perks, not just for him, but also his neighbours at times.

"In the latter part of my time there we had Cousins going and it was the biggest night club in town," Bolt said.

"We had a guy who drove one of those big street-sweepers who was a big [Steelers] fan. We'd stay back and have a couple of staffies on a Sunday after work and he'd come past at 4.30-5 in the morning.

"He's always give me a lift home so Campbell Street was always the cleanest street in all of Wollongong."

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