Durante opens up about getting shot as teenager

Wellington Phoenix captain Andrew Durante has opened up about getting shot while playing for Sydney Olympic as a 17-year-old in 1999.

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Durante, now 36, discussed the crazy incident after a news article from the time was posted on social media over the weekend.

The Australian-born New Zealand international explained that he didn't even realise that he'd been shot initially, rather thinking he had been hit by a rock. 

Durante had just come off during a trial match for Sydney Olympic, then called UTS Olympic, at Mahoney Park in Marrickville in Sydney's inner-west, when he was hit. 

The then 17-year-old was putting on his jacket when he felt the bullet pierce his body, but he was lucky that it came on an angle that meant it lodged under his armpit and missed any vital organs. 

It was an Olympic teammate that pointed out that he was bleeding before his father got involved.  

"My dad lifted up my shirt and I had this blood dripping down my chest and he was like 'you've been shot'," Durante told Stuff.co.nz

"Then obviously there was a bit of a frenzy and everyone was screaming 'he's been shot, he's been shot'.

"The game got scrapped straight away and everyone ran to the changing rooms at the opposite end of the field.

"I was thinking the worst. It came through my chest but on an angle and the bullet lodged under my armpit.

"I could actually feel it lodged under there so the doctor gave me a local, did an incision and pulled it out. I think it was a .22 calibre rifle.

"There was a big inquiry, the police got involved.

The police never found the perpetrator, but it was reported at the time that another shooting had taken place nearby at a golf course. 

"I asked if I could keep the bullet but they wouldn't let me, but that was it. It wasn't a real big setback in my career, I got stitched up and played a week or two later," he said.

"For sure if it went straight on or on the opposite side maybe I could have died. Going on that angle it probably saved me a lot of other complications."

"There was probably just some idiot up there shooting from his house or up on the street taking random pop shots at people.

"I remember the players saying when they were interviewed that they heard things whistling past their heads but they didn't know what they were so it could have been so much worse than what it was but fortunately it wasn't that bad.

"If they got someone in the head then that could have been death.

"At the time it was so serious, everyone was petrified and they were running around screaming. It could have been a catastrophe."

Durante has gone on to be the all-time leader in A-League appearances with 307 games played. 

However, he has never spoken publicly about this story before, in fact even most of his teammates were unaware. 

"I never found a time for it to be brought up, like 'hey I got shot'," Durante said.

"Not that I've tried to hide it, it's just something that's never really popped up and it's not something I thought to bring up. 

"At the time it was pretty big news but I guess it's just something that has never come up again.

"I think it did make the news but it wasn't like it would be nowadays when there would be a big article on it and everyone would pick it up. Back then there was no social media and very little online media."

"But I actually got in contact with the guy who posted it on Twitter to ask where the hell he got that article.

"I've got it somewhere at my parents' place I'm sure, but for him to have found it is pretty amazing.

"He said he was just going through some old articles in the Australian and British Soccer Weekly and he said he saw it and thought it was pretty cool that I was still playing.