It was nine years ago, almost to the week, that Wayne Carey fled Melbourne after his affair with Kelli Stevens was revealed and he resigned in disgrace from North Melbourne. His long-time manager, Ricky Nixon, was left to face the baying media pack and answer for his star client.

Carey fled to a secluded campsite on the Tumut River in New South Wales with his older brother, Dick. There they stayed for five days, with old friends such as Mick Martyn, Anthony McConville and Craig Sholl driving up to spend a night or two by the campfire to give him some company, and comfort.

As he recalled in his autobiography, The Truth Hurts: ''We sat around drinking beers. As I drank more, I'd start to feel slightly numb and the pain would go away ... Then I'd wake up the next morning and find nothing had changed. I was dead sober and the pain had come back. It was hard to get out of bed each morning to face the day. I felt ... weighed down with depression.'' 

A week or two later, Carey and his younger brother Sam escaped to Las Vegas for a fortnight. It was to become a familiar theme: whever Carey found himself in trouble - and in the early-to-mid 2000s, that was a fair bit of the time - he'd scarper to Bali or Los Angeles or Las Vegas. He'd run away from his problems, thinking they'd somehow have resolved themselves by the time he got home weeks later.

When news of his affair with Kelli Stevens became public in early March 2002, the first person Carey called was his old mate Johnny McNamara from North under-19 days, and then he called Nixon.

The point of this story is simply to illustrate that nine years is a very, very long time in football.

Today, we learned that Nixon has fled to Ireland - partly on business, partly to escape the force-10 storm that was brewing behind him in Melbourne. As things stand, he is being investigated by the AFL Players Association over the nature of his relationship with a 17-year-old girl. If it can be proved they had sex - something he denies - then Nixon will almost certainly be stripped of his licence to act as a player agent.  

While Nixon was on the flight to Dublin, Carey was back in Melbourne looking after his five-year-old daughter, Ella, at home in Albert Park. 

The former North Melbourne premiership captain turned his mobile phone off on Monday because he knew he'd be besieged with reporters wanting a comment on the tawdry affair that had engulfed his one-time mentor.

Today, Carey could afford to reflect on life's strange twists and turns. How he was the one living an almost blameless and respectable existence - and being asked about his besieged, on-the-run former manager.

Carey still regards Nixon as a good friend, even though their relationship - which began when he joined Nixon's Flying Start stable at 18 - has endured extraordinary highs and lows, an on-air radio spat, a sacking and much more besides. It was Nixon several years ago who remarked on the grief that Carey, and other star clients such as Gary Ablett snr and Ben Cousins, had caused him over the years. 

Carey was loath today to offer any advice to Nixon other than to say, in his hard-won experience, it's always best to confront your demons, face the music and try to get a speedy resolution to any issues.

Running away, Carey said, would achieve nothing because all Nixon's problems would still be here, waiting for him, when he got back. ''Believe me, I know,'' Carey said.

As he wrote in The Truth Hurts: ''I remember seeing (his wife) Sally before I left for Las Vegas and she said: 'You're just running away. That's all your doing, just running away. And when you get home your problems will still be here'.

''At the time I thought she was wrong. I figured I'd go away and when I came back, things would have settled down .... but, of course, Sally was right. I drank myself into oblivion most days and that was my medication, my temporary pain relief. I didn't get to see much clearly at all, just the bottom of a beer glass.''

Carey the mentor, advisor and sometime-philosopher. Nixon the accused fugitive. Who'd have ever thought it?