For Diego Maradona: 'I‘ve just never seen anyone have such a beautiful affection with a football', by Gary Lineker - 2020

26 November 2020, London, United Kingdom

He‘s so revered, he’s so worshipped in Argentina. He constantly had a huge entourage around him.

I went to see a game and I’ll never forget it, to see Boca Juniors play. He had his own little box there. I went with his family. And he was standing …. the atmosphere was unbelievable at this game.

And his family, one of his daughters was literally holding him as he was screaming over the balcony, holding him so he wouldn’t actually fall off. He had such an incredible passion for the game.

I never thought in my lifetime I’d see anyone come remotely close to Diego, in terms of ability with a football. I think we’ve seen Messi, who’s very similar in many ways, Argentinian, diminutive, brilliant left foot, but Diego was incredible.

I played, I actually played with him as well for half a game, played for the Rest of the World at Wembley, against, funnily enough, an English league side because it was a centenary, I played for the Rest of the World, because I was at Barcelona at the time.

And all the player, there were people like Platini on the pitch, lots of great great players from around the world. And everyone was totally in awe of him.

The first thing he did was in the dressing room, he sat there; just a pair of shorts. And you know you roll your socks up? He did that and just juggled them on his left foot for about five minutes. And everyone was going whoooah whoooah.’

Then we went out on the pitch and he did something incredible, one of the most unbelievable things I‘ve ever seen on a football pitch. it might not sound that amazing to you at home, but I think you’ll appreciate this.

He juggled the ball all the way out to the centre circle and then he got to the centre circle, still juggling it, and then he went bang, he whacked it as hard he possibly could (up into the air) and he waited. And then it came down and he went bang and did it again. He did it 13 times, and the most he ever did was walk three paces to it.

All of us were standing there going, ‘That’s impossible’. I remember going to training the next day at Barcelona. We all tried it and the best anyone did was three, and they were all running for the third one.

I‘ve just never seen anyone have such a beautiful affection with a football.

for Jim Stynes: 'There's never been anyone like Jim Stynes and there never will be', by Garry Lyon - 2012

2 April 2012, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia

Big Jimmy would have loved this.

He thrived on a big crowd. If he was here, he'd have us all standing up, waving our hands above our heads, and singing, and turning to the person next to you giving them hugs and shoulder massages. It's the sort of weird stuff he did and it took us a long time to get our head around it.

He loved to take people outside their comfort zone, to get them to do things that they didn't think they were capable of, which is not surprising really when you strip it all back to the very start of his extraordinary journey.

How else is a young lad form Ireland arrive on the doorsteps of the Melbourne footy club, another world away in very sense of the word, if he wasn't prepared to step out of his own comfort zone?

It was to be a consistent theme throughout his time here. That he would struggle initially was inevitable. That he would eventually fail was likely. That he eventually debuted as a Melbourne Footy Club player in 1987 was admirable. That he was the best and most dominant Australian Rules footballer in the country four years later, was to begin to understand and appreciate the sort of athlete and person we were dealing with.

Consistency was a cornerstone of Jim's footy career. He was consistently our best preseason performer, defying logic as he powered up mountains, leaving us all in his wake. There's enough team mates of ours here to know that he was consistently our worst in season trainer, as he hobbled around the training track from Monday to Friday, attempting to overcome all manner of injuries from the previous game. He was a horrible trainer during the season.

And then he was consistently our best performer when it mattered most, as he wheeled himself from contest to contest, game after game, year after year. So I wanted Jim to be consistent today, and he would be disappointed if I didn't take the chance to have a laugh at his expense. It's what I enjoyed doing most with him. So here's some home truths.

If he wasn't tight with his money, he was very careful with it. You only had to look at the way he dressed to realise he didn't spend money on a wardrobe. I've never seen a man get more excited about a club issue of a pair of runners every year. Mainly to discard last year's and move into the new fashion.

Which is why recently he turned up at our blazer presentation night, only a ... You know where I'm going with this Sammy ... a week or two ago, and he was crook and his eyesight was failing him. And I realised how crook he was because the raffle tickets were being handed around. Jimmy wasn't a big raffle ticket buyer, he was a $5 man. And I saw him and Sam arguing, having a blue over the envelope, and there was 20s and 10s and 50s flying everywhere and I thought, "Shit, Jimmy's crook. He's going for a 50." And it wasn't until two days later I spoke with Sammy and she said no, even with his failing eyesight, she saw Sam put a 50 in, and he was diving in to try and get 45 out.

He wasn't opposed to stretching the boundaries in the pursuit of victory either, and at the risk of starting an international incident, and I know there's a strong Irish contingent here, I've got to get this story off my chest. Some of my favourite times with him were in the International Rules series where I was coaching and he was assistant. And they were tense times, and we were always in the back of my mind wondered whether he was a double agent or not. And we got to the game and Croke Park, 75-80,000 people there. Not sure who you were barracking for either Brian.

And I said to him, "Jim, get the walkie talkie sorted out. Make sure we've got two way down to the bench."

And he said, "Yeah okay, okay." So he's fiddling around with it, trying to get onto the right channel and all of a sudden he said, "Shut up, listen." And there was a cross reference and we logged into the Irish coach's box.

And I said, "Jim, you can't do that." And he said, "Shut up." So for the first five minutes, we listened to the coach of the Irish team make his moves, and we trumped them and we eventually went on and won the game, and I reckon the next day I heard or read somewhere they said the Australians were well prepared, they anticipated every move the Irish team made. Damn right they did, because Jimmy was listening to the coach all the way through.

So he was a bit deceptive. He didn't lose his temper much, but he did on that day. The game was really close and it got towards the end of the match, and we were a few points down and he was in charge of our whiteboard, with all the magnets and the men around it. And someone did something wrong and I smashed the table in frustration, stuff went flying everywhere but I kept watching the game. It was about 30 seconds to go and I said, "Jim, who's on number 20?" Nothing. So I was getting a bit agitated at this stage, so I said, "Jim, who's on number 20?" And there was still nothing. I said, "Jim, if you don't tell me-" and he cut me off and he said, "Well how to fook do I know? He's crawling round on the floor trying to pick the magnets up." They'd been flying everywhere. Fook's an Irish word for flaming, so we're okay with that.

That was about it. That was about it. It's all I got. The truth is finding fault in anything he did was a fruitless exercise. I sat down and wrote a list of words that best describe him as a footballer: consistent, reliable, dependable, trustworthy, honest, strong, durable, sincere, loyal, courageous, caring and resilient. They're wonderful qualities to possess in a footballer. They're even more significant qualities to possess as a man. And what I find most amazing of all, is that all the kids from around the world we could have attracted in the game when Melbourne took the audacious steps of looking beyond our shores in the albeit unlikely hope of unearthing a footballer, we found him. Jim Stynes. And as a result, we knew never to question the boundaries of what one man is capable of achieving on the playing field, but also to never question the ability of the same man to have an impact away from it. There's never been anyone like Jim Stynes and there never will be, which is why we loved him, and we miss him so much today.

for Les Murray: 'This is not a job, it's a mission', by Craig Foster - 2017

14 August 2017, Sydney Australia

Craig Foster is an ex Socceroo and long time broadcasting partner of Les Murray.  Watch the video at SBS on demand.

Football evangelist, missionary of the world game, Les Murray changed both the game in Australia and the nation through his life-long mission to make Australia understand.

Alongside his partner the great Johnny Warren, the two main protagonists in the inexorable rise of the beautiful game in Australia.

More on that in a moment.

Firstly, may I extend the condolences of our football community to Les’s family with particular mention ofthe extraordinary Cida Maria Olsen, who spent the past 15 years with our colleague and nursed Les through his most difficult times, in the past 2.

We witnessed first hand the incrediblelove and devotion Cida gave our brother, how she cooked his meals twice a day when he was in hospital, arranged his schedule, made his apologies and chided him gently over his relentless smoking, to little effect as most of you would be well aware.

Thank you Cida on behalf of the millions of Australians who are part of Les’s extended football family. We owe you a debt of gratitude and you need only ask and football will be there to support you.

Now, to Les’s beloved game.

He appeared on our television screens every week and gave his football sermons, and changed the social fabric of a nation.

Before the game was truly accepted, when it took great moral courage to carry the fight, Les was there. He fought the battle for every immigrant, publicly, on their behalf, as their representative and through the game they shared.

When they arrived here and found little of their beloved game, they could always turn to Les and feel a little more at ease, that someone understood them.

Speaking with his famously perfect pronunciations anddressed impeccably, his pride in the game and its community, in you, in us, was palpable.

I can still hear him so clearly now.. ‘this is not a job, it’s a mission’, he would say. To make Australia see.

Les brought the world’s best football to our screens for a reason, to open our eyes and teach a new generation of kids to emulate the greats. To become great.

The very kids that would later make the Round of 16 in Germany. All part of his personal, lasting legacy.

For this, Australian football is forever in the debt of Les Murray.

He despised any attempts to mutate the game to accommodate the prevailing culture. ‘Let them come to us, in time Australia will learn’. And how they have, Les, how they have.

Les believed in Australian players, Australian coaches, Australia’s destiny in the game.

I remember most fondly his love of seeing Australia play, his heartache when it did not end well, his unbridled joy when we qualified in 05 against Uruguay, young again, as few had lived the torment of the 32 failed years so deeply.

And above all he adored the great players, joga bonito, beautiful play.

‘Where’s the ball son..’ he would yell when Messi dazzled a defender. And when a team toyed with the opponent hecouldn’t hide his pleasure.. ‘they’re hiding the ball..’ he would chuckle, like his mighty Magyars used to do.

Les’s most enjoyable moments, you see, were not when the camera was on, but when it was off, just watching the game. As it should be.

He still played on occasion. Libero like Beckenbaueur, yelling ‘keep the ball.. keep the ball’, and momentarily he was with his heroes Puskas and Di Stefano in ‘60, up 7-3 against Frankfurt, directing the play of his childhood dreams.

I tell you it was glorious to see. The pride. The sheer joy.

Usually, Les could mask his emotion as the consummate professional, though one of our most difficult broadcast moments together, when Italy’s penalty knocked us out of the World Cup is an abiding memory.

We sat, in the bowels of the Fritz-Walter Stadion in Kaiserslautern, waiting as the floor manager counted downto live – ‘ten, nine, eight..’ and neither could look at the other, lest the tears flow.

That is why he had the admiration and trust of our football community - because he cared as much as them.

Speaking of professionalism, while we await our own Ballon d’Or winner, off field we had our own galactico.

He was unquestionably one of the world’s finest football broadcasters. The historical knowledge, the insightful interviews, and when Les worked with the legendary Martin Tyler or football’s other luminaries, they met as equals.

The game we enjoy today is courtesy of the two great warriors who fought our battle, Les and Johnny, whose spiritual leadership brought millions along for the ride, on whose coattails we all sailed into a new era.

And yet Les’s mission went so far beyond where we are today.

And if his passing marks the end of a golden era of the two great champions of our game, leaving us momentarily uneasy, uncertain, for we had the comfort of Les Murray’s guidance and service for three decades, whence to now?

That is why this final farewell is a call to arms to the football community, a moment we must reinforce the dream, reenergize the mission, for Australia to become a football nation and to win the ultimate prize, the FIFA World Cup. Male and female.

Les and Johnny believed it was possible, and so must we all. It can be done.

Only in this way can we complete their work, for their visionary beliefs to come to fruition and change Australia forever, for the better.

Football and Australia, a match made in heaven we might say, from where Les and his mate Johnny now judge our contribution.

‘What are you all going to do now?’, I hear them ask.

‘How are you going to bring our vision to reality?’

Well, friends of football, if I may answer on our behalf, we will fight, and dream and believe until the mission is achieved. Les did his duty, this is ours.

Les Murray lived his life for Australian football and to change Australian society through preaching the gospel of the beautiful game.

May he rest in peace knowing that his work will continue. That is the best eulogy you, I, we can provide.

So rest well old friend, alongside Johnny. We’ll miss you dearly.

It will be a grand day when we can again discuss football in the world game studio in the sky.

For Lou Richards: 'Lou is bigger than a legend', by Ron Joseph - 2017

Richards' funeral: Joseph's speech - collingwoodfc.com.au

18 May 2017, St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia

Lou was right. He told me his farewell would be bigger than Texas. He also told me that I would have to speak at his funeral.

"All the other people I know are dead,” he said.

"You better start thinking about what you are going to say, because it will be a bloody big funeral. Harold Holt’s will have nothing on mine. I had a house down at Portsea near him, you know. He didn’t drown. He took off with a sheila.

"It will be a state funeral, just like his. So that’ll give Jack and Bobby Davis the shits.

"Don’t let them have it at Jeff’s Shed. That is a cold hole, like Jeff. It will be a telecast around Australia, it might even be around the world. So you better be ready to talk on national television, Ronnie, and don’t stuff it up. You’re bloody lucky to get this opportunity, you know. No one else would give it to you.

"Tell Nicole and Kim to make sure that they get a good quid for the television rights. If Seven are covering it, tell the girls to charge double. Casey paid me bugger-all for all the time I spent with him at 3DB and Channel 7. He was a good bloke, Case. Edna and I loved our time with Ron and Pauline, but he was tight, tight as a fish’s ...

“EJ’s was a state funeral too. I’m bigger than Ted ever was. I nicknamed him Mr Football and he believed it for the rest of his life.

“I called Barassi Mrs Football. Of all the blokes I have nicknamed over the years Barassi is about the only one that ever lived up to his moniker.

“And if that Mike Fitzpatrick’s at my funeral, you know the bloke who used to play for Carlton, the Rhodes Scholar — Rhodes Scholar, my bum — tell him he spent too much time at Oxford and Cambridge and can’t recognise a legend when he sees one.”

So Lou leaves us after 94 marvellous years. With memories that will last our lifetime. There would be few people in this church who wouldn’t have their own special story of Lou and his ability to warm up an event, a lunch or a dinner, with laughter and fun. You could almost say that Lou knew it was expected of him.

I remember as a young upstart at North in my early years having my first visit to Channel 7 and Ron Casey’s World of Sport. Uncle Doug Elliot was presenting an ad for Ballantyne’s chocolates, reading his lines off an idiot sheet, a piece of butcher paper held by two members of the Seven camera crew. Live on TV Uncle Doug was halfway through his ad, staring intensely, glasses over his nose, reading the idiot sheet when up came Lou and set the butcher paper alight. I couldn’t believe it.

Jack Dyer, Bob Davis, Neil Roberts, Skeeter Coghlan, Bill Collins and Bruce Andrew fell around laughing. It took a stern Ron Casey to get World of Sport back on track.

And who could ever forget the Phoenix Hotel? As legendary as the Flinders St Herald Sun building alongside. Sir Henry Winneke was Victorian governor in the ’70s and after a VFL dinner at the Southern Cross, Lou invited him back to his hotel for a drink. Sir Henry, the great man that he was, obliged. When I made it back to Lou’s pub at one in the morning there was the Rolls-Royce, numberplates VIC 1, double-parked in Flinders St outside the Phoenix. Upstairs, Sir Henry was the centre of attention. Lou came up and asked him if he would mind staying because Edna wouldn’t believe that royalty had visited his hotel and he wanted Edna to meet him. Lou was gone for five minutes and then reappeared.

“Governor,” he said, “Sir Henry, your Excellency, I never know what to call you, but Edna is in bed upstairs. She has rollers in her hair and she said is to tell you that she couldn’t care if you are the king of England, she’s not coming down to meet you.”

What a beautiful marriage Lou shared with Edna. They were inseparable. They shared a wonderful marriage and friendship. When Edna went into care, Lou didn’t leave her bedside. When Lou died last week he had endured 3350 days without her. It was only after Edna had gone that you could get Lou out for a coffee, a lunch, a footy match or a drive in the car. He could still laugh, there was some special events — his 90th birthday at Kim’s, the unveiling of Lou’s statue at Collingwood — but his darling Edna had left his life. You knew that deep down all Lou was ever thinking was, “Where’s Edna?”.

Having read, observed and listened to all the glowing tributes that have been printed and aired on the radio and TV since last week, it is easy to overlook the depth of the man himself. A character on the footy field, as a tough, take-no-prisoners captain, and a character off it as a person with a rare knockabout charm and sense of fun — as well as a generosity of spirit and a strong sense of doing the right thing.

The National Trust in 1982 went as far as classifying Lou as a national treasure. But Lou is much, much more than that.

First and foremost, he was a devoted husband, father and grandfather, brother to Ron and Glenys, and an uncle. And regardless of all the fame that came his way, Edna, Nicole, Kim, with the grandkids, were always his pride and priority.

How lucky were we at North. Shirley Trainor, the wife of our ’60s president Tony, was a close friend of Edna. They were best friends. Inevitably the Trainor family introduced Lou with Edna to a football club that wore blue and white, not black and white stripes.

After some hits and misses in the early ’70s, North started to get its show on the road. They were heady days. Fundraisers and functions that rolled from one week to the next, and Lou was always there. People attended just to be in the room with him. Six successive Grand Finals and in 1975 the inaugural premiership.

Then the famous draw and replay of 1977. The VFL competition was on its way to being a national competition. The Grand Final was televised live and in colour, and Ron Casey and Lou Richards led the way. For 40 years, Lou would be up on Grand Final day at 6am to host North’s Grand Final breakfast, that through his brilliance became its own institution.

Lou would then leave the Southern Cross to call the Grand Final with Mike Williamson or Peter Landy. Prime minister Hawke never missed one of those breakfasts and Lou never missed giving the PM his famous line, “Bob, the only thing you haven’t done for the workers is become one”. With Allen Aylett, Albert Mantello and Ron Barassi, it seemed that Lou was also a part of the executive team at North. Lou loved his involvement and North loved him back.

Out of all of this grew great friendships like Shirley’s and Edna’s that stood the test of time. It would be wrong to say that North was the only beneficiary of Lou’s generosity. Lou had friends at every club and he delighted in helping them all with his presence and star quality. Today we say farewell. Lou is a legend. Who else gets an eight-page wraparound in the Herald Sun that is as much a part of this city as Lou and the MCG.

So Lou Richards leaves us after 94 marvellous years, with memories that will last our lifetime.

Lou might not have kicked as many goals as Tony Lockett or Peter Hudson but he is a legend. Lou might not have won as many Brownlow Medals as Haydn Bunton, Bob Skilton, Dick Reynolds and Ian Stewart but he is a legend.

And if his game as a player was just a little short of the class of the great EJ or the dynamic Ron Barassi, Lou is still a legend. In fact, Lou is bigger than a legend. Decency, loyalty, gentleness, warmth, kindness, integrity, humility, cheek and fun all in equal parts gave us Lou Richards.

Our love and thoughts are with Kim and Nicole and their families. Their loss first of Edna and now Lou is immeasurable. I thank them for the honour of speaking here today, I thank them for sharing Lou with us and, on behalf of all of us and our marvellous sport, I thank Lou for all that he gave.

We remember Lou with affection, admiration, gratitude and delight

For Peter Hutchinson: 'He was the best hugger ever'. by John, Mandy and Gwen - 2016

24 September 2016, Powerhouse club house, Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia

John Hutchinson - son

Greg and I were in Berlin when we heard of dad’s passing. We thought long and hard about putting a post on Facebook to let our fiends know what had happened – was it a bit tacky? Is that what people did these days? What would Mandy and Mum think? But boy are we glad we did. It gave people an opportunity to pass on their condolences and to also tell us stories that reminded us of the “old” Hutchy.

Something that consistently came up was the kind of man Dad was, a gentleman, a gentle giant, a generous, kind and loving man. It made me think about the topic of masculinity that has been discussed a lot recently and how it wasn’t the fact that Dad was big and strong and handy in a fight that made people react like this.

I’m sure Allanis Morisette would agree that its ironic that we choose a gay pub in Berlin to discuss masculinity, but its there that Greg told me how his father Bob had taken him line by line through a poem written by Rudyard Kipling called “If” as an instruction on how to be a man.

We ignored the international roaming fees and googled it, read it and cried. And reflected how even though it was written way back in 1895 as an instruction on how to be a man there was nothing traditionally masculine in it, it was an instruction on how to be a good person.

So I’ll read it now with thanks to Bob, and Carroll, for raising such an amazing person and thinking that Beryl could well have read through it line by line with Dad as it reflects the kind of person he was and the comments about him on Facebook from many of you:

If you can keep your head when all about you  

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;  

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;  

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;  

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;  

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,  

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,  

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Mandy - daughter

Dad was the most beautiful wise encouraging positive patient loving father. He was the best hugger ever. He taught me to give 100% in everything I do.  A most fun and scrumptious grandfather- a Somers father to so many, and a particularly beautiful father figure to my lovely Dom.

Dad was so loved as a child that it seemed so effortless for him to love. He had an endless well of love. I think John and I have this well, we love easily. Thank you for sharing this with us Dad.

I have these little snap shots of Dad at:

Easter Camps- - sleeping in the Medium Room, Dad as the ultimate decider of the wobbly slice award (thanks for that memory Jim Paxford), cooking Chinese food, Hutchy’s  infamous meatloaf, Swannees – wherever it was Dad would be there, checking with Harry to see if Heather and I were in our hut.

Driving our Patron Dorothy McAdam down to Lady Somers Camp every January. She thought he was very special indeed.

The beautiful letters I got from him when I was in Brasil

Arriving back from Brasil to see that had bought a car so luminously green it was so embarrassing We named it the Pea green machine

His Story telling was legendary, and often quite long.

His little sayings: spurkling bargandy. Fit dit, foot, His prolific apple tarts.

Demonstrating how to roller skate - zoom zoom

Football- the smell of linament, mud and sweat and the loud war cries

Love of people and fun, parties, undies in the lemon tree- wine bottling in the back yard, singing – so much singing

Dad would enter our 4 ft Clark rubber pool, by launching himself over the edge- the joy we felt as the enormous tidal wave would crash all around us.

His love of my great ability in Chemistry- he is not here to dispute it

Taking me to the Turf Club for a counter meal after my last HSC exam

Dad was brought up by strong women, his Mother Beryl was deliciously naughty and wise. He married a strong beautiful woman, and then had a daughter, just like many of his friends, Woots, Harry, Johnno and Dake to name a few– Lady Somers Camp was born with the love and support of all these wonderful men.

Mum and Dad were our cheer squad. I mean who would have pictured me milking cows?! - Dad milked cows- though I think he enjoyed bringing beer to the shed more. Dad and Mum came to every event our children starred in, and enthusiastically supported and were embraced by our lovely friends in our community, who also in turn loved them. Thank you for being here today.

Kim Wootton described my mum as the most graceful woman she has ever met. She then said that I was nothing like that! I do think though that it sums up mum’s approach to Dad and the slow pervading relentless alzheimers disease. 

Dad never lost his love of people and would greet everyone with his famous smile and cuddle.

He went into Windmill Court in April. It was the hardest thing we have ever had to do.

However his simply remarkable ability to turn any subject back to football continued on.

He also continued to be highly competitive, and so was so impressed when Mum was able to trounce the other residents at the nursing home in trivia competition one day. She’s my wife he would say, proudly. In true Hutchy fashion he won the footy tipping competition this year!

They said he was the most popular resident they ever had.

Thanks to all of you who visited him there.

He slipped away so quickly and quietly it took us by surprise. 

Thanks my beautiful brave Mum, who seems to have an endless amount of resilience, compassion, and as Kim says, grace. Thanks for looking after my beautiful Dad. She loved him so… and he loved her.

My Aunties, Aunty Margaret and Aunty Mary Took Dad to his appointments with Mum and were Mum’s go to people. Mary sat with my Mum all day Saturday until I could get there.  Mary gave me the best advice. –Just close your eyes, and listen- it’s still his voice.

John and Greg – the rock has lived up to his great reputation and has been seriously the most wonderful support to Mum and Dad. Bravo John Ronald, and thanks to Greg for loving him so well.

Dom, Sam, Paddy and Jem – thank you for being my rocks. For understanding when I have been sad, and for making me laugh. For being by my side. For loving our Hutchiano as much as me.

Finally thanks to all of you for your support over the last week and the beautiful help in getting us ready for today.

Peter Hutchinson, a great servant and player with Powerhouse FC

Gwennie Hutchinson - wife

What a lucky girl I was to meet Pete and then for him to marry me.

We’ve had 51 great years with not too many hiccups along the way, rewarded with 2 of the best children ever, who in turn chose great partners and presented us with 6 lovely grandchildren to share his love. 

 You will be[have been] reminded of his sporting prowess, his teaching, his community service, his family and how the wonder of his personality affected such an amazing number of people, who passed through his life.

AD is hideous:  to affect such a personality as Hutch - but he took up conversation in a big way, unfortunately we lost the knack of understanding too much of it - but that did not worry or deter him at all.  He’ll be missed at Windmill Court as he saw himself as the Assistant Manager to Rachel – who will fold the laundry in the middle of the night? who will visit all those bedbound – he sometimes spent time with them by having a snooze on the next bed – who will challenge their emergency plans by setting off the fire alarm – what a dilemma he leaves behind.

There are many people to thank for easing especially his last months: his sister Mary who remained a constant to us both, the lovely staff at Cumberland View whom I could not fault, Harry, Ray, Rick, and Ish’s regular contacts as they were geographically distanced, Ross & Lee, Barb and Glen, John and Bev plus so many of you who visited, cared, prayed and quietly supported all of us, our sincere thanks.

Dom has a great story about coming to meet Pete and I for the first time.

Dom - son in law

Thank you Gwennie and all the wonderful previous speakers.

The first time I met Hutchy and Gwennie, I’d been going out with Mandy for a few months, and as it happens with these things the time comes when you have to meet the parents.

In fact I remembered this story when looking through photos with Paddy who noticed that Hutchy was a very rather large and imposing figure

He asked “Dad were you a bit scared when you met Hutch for the first time?’

Well he was rather an intimidating figure.

But after the initial introductions and chit chat, he asked Would you like a beer, Pete bought out pewter mugs, there couldn’t be much harm in that could there?

Many people here would know the danger of the pewter mug- Hutch kept topping them up with long necks.

I thought I could handle myself pretty well.

I was Having a very enjoyable night listening to stories- footy featured highly - little did I know that this would continue for the next 26 years

We were having a Beautiful meal- Gwennie clearly wanted to marry mandy off

Next thing Hutch asked if I’d like a Red Wine? Truthfully I hadn’t drunk a lot of red wine, being an innocent country lad.

One bottle came and went,  another bottle,  there could have been more….

I started Losing touch with reality….

Pete being the great host out came with the port

Things started going downhill

I had drunk port before in little glasses, Pete utilised these pewter goblets.

I was hitting my straps becoming quite witty.

Then I heard a couple of statements I was to hear consistently over the next 26years.

‘Well that’s the end of the port, ‘what about a cleansing ale?’’

I thought to myself ‘Cleansing ale’ Cleansing ale!!!??

The second one was “Oh Peter, leave the Boy alone”

I was a little seedy the next day, and mowing lawns was not fun

Hutch however was up and going the next day, he never showed any sign of a hangover, ever.

For when the One Great Scorer comes

To write against your name,

He marks-not that you won or lost-

But how you played the game.

In honour of Hutchy’s fine tradition at the conclusion of this celebration at 5pm, we invite you to have a cleansing ale at the PHFC club rooms, Ross Gregory oval. Please join us

In a final tribute to Hutchy please join with us in singing 'The Game Song'

For John Button: 'While as a politician he was skilled with words, as a father he was sometimes uncomfortable with them'', by James Button - 2008

15 April, 2008, St Michael's Church, Collins Street, Melbourne

It was exciting growing up around Dad. He brought the heady outside world into our house. The phone was always ringing, visitors were knocking on the door and being ushered into dad's study, which was the classic smoke-filled room. And plots were being hatched – plots to reform the Hawthorn branch of the ALP or to transform Australia, it was the same job. My brothers and I got to meet some intriguing characters. In our living room Nick, aged 10, took the liberty of asking Gough Whitlam if he hated John Kerr. ``Well Nick,'' said Gough, ``as a good Christian one shouldn't hate anyone.'' But Gough, Nick replied. ``What about as a bad Christian?''
                  
In the 60s and 70s the ALP was not so much a party as a cause – and a doomed one, it often seemed. In the wisdom of some in the party, the reason why Labor was unelectable, and the Liberals born to rule, was that Australians were hopelessly conservative and ignorant. My father never believed that. He loved Australia and he thought that if the ALP could come to its senses and change, Australians would come to their senses too. The road was long, though. In the 1961 federal election, he ran for the then blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Chisholm, a seat in which his mother happened to live. The sitting member was Wilfred Kent Hughes, a pillar of the establishment, and dad was predictably slaughtered. At the declaration of the poll Kent Hughes stood up and said in patrician tones, ``It was a fair fight.'' In his speech Dad replied: ``It was neither fair nor a fight. I gained a swing of one – my mother.''
 
Dad told a lot of stories like this around the dinner table. Adventures seemed to happen to him, or else he had the story-teller's gift of turning ordinary life into adventures. Like the time in the '50s he tried to smuggle himself into the Soviet Union with a delegation of Italian communists but was detained at the border. As the Soviet guards on the train examined his passport with no visa an Italian man -- who became a lifelong friend -- leant over and whispered to him: ``Siberia.''
 
He told these stories at our urging, because our family was happiest when he was making us laugh. At night sometimes we would play murder in the dark: he would switch off all the lights in the house and we three boys would hide, screaming in excited terror, as he boomed out one of his kooky poems: ``The grip of steel you soon will feel; it crushes boys to savaloys.'' When we kicked a football in the yard he spent hours assuming a bent over position so that my friend Graham and I could climb on his back and take screamers.
 
But he was away a lot with work, too, and even when around he was often lost in thought. He could be a moody bugger, and cranky too. For us kids he had an elusive quality. Part of him was a mystery, perhaps even to himself. Last week John Cain described his utterances as ``Delphic''. At dad's 70 th birthday party Paul Keating said that ``arguing with John was like wrestling with a column of smoke.'' 
 
He also said last week that John was a political loner, and he was. His honesty helped to make him a loner, and being a loner helped to make him honest. I admired that side of him. When he was a minister I once asked him about a crucial cabinet decision that had not yet been made public. ``I can't tell you,'' he said. ``It's not that I don't trust you – I do – but if it leaks and Hawke eyeballs us one by one I want to be able to look him right back and say I told no one.'' 
 
As a father, though often physically distant, he always kept us close. Whenever I traveled he would demand a detailed itinerary and I would wonder why – until I found myself in a far-flung corner of Mexico and one of his postcards packed with news of home turned up, right on time, at my hotel. One thing Nick and I will never forget is the deep friendship and fondness he and my mother Marj kept for each other. Despite their divorce in 1983, he still came round for tea most Sunday nights; there was never a sense we were not a family. And I know that dad had happy times with his second wife Dorothy and her daughters Kate and Jane, whom he helped to raise.
 
The upside of dad's terseness was that he was never windy; he didn't bang on about his achievements. After my partner May met him she looked forward to hearing dinnertime tales of life at the molten core of politics. But although she and dad had a very good relationship, he parried all her questions with one-line replies. When she asked him to name the hardest thing he had to do in politics he said, ``Going to country Victoria and being demonstrated against by textile workers who had lost their jobs.''
 
I only once saw him completely unbuttoned, if you'll pardon the pun. In 1989 he visited me in New York, where I was living, and we went to a bar in Greenwich Village to hear the 73-year old blues player Jay McShann and his band. We got drunk, banged the table, clinked glasses with strangers, met Jay and the band and at 3am had to be turfed out by the management into the freezing night. We had so much fun we came back the next night and did it all again.

 The only other place I saw my dad really let himself go was at the football. He was seriously, battily, obsessed by football, and by the Geelong football club. More than once, in the Geelong changing rooms, I caught Dad staring a little too intently at Gary Ablett's thighs.  Week after week, year on year, he would draw an oval on a sheet of paper and compile his team in his crimped handwriting, which a secretary of his once compared to the scratchings of a chook. Sometimes he would mail them to the coach, always he would mail them to Nick and I. I think football was a great release from politics. More than that, though, it gave him a chance to be with his two sons, and I know that his love of football was also a love of us.

As the years went on he learnt more how to enjoy life. When we were young his favourite food was a horrid tinned meat called Camp Pie. Once a year, with great palaver, he would cook a family meal. It was always the same: tinned ham steaks, tinned pineapple and boiled rice. But in retirement he taught himself how to cook an excellent prawn curry. He bought a house at the beach, became a gardener, discovered the pleasures of grandchildren. If he did mellow, I give a lot of credit to the partner of his last 10 years, Joan Grant.

 In 2000 Joan nearly died of meningococcal meningitis. Dad found her unconscious in her flat after calling a policeman who knocked the door down. As she lay in a coma for 10 days, dad was with her every day. It was a miracle she survived and I think some fabulous bond between them was forged at that time, one that perhaps makes dad's passing a little easier for Joan, because they knew their time with each other was precious. From the time Dad was diagnosed with cancer six months ago, Joan was with him every moment. She never stopped smiling, teasing him, stroking his head, even when she was exhausted and in despair at the cruelty of the cancer. Nick and I will never forget what you did for dad, Joan. You taught us something about how to live. Typically, Joan will have none of this. When I tell her she has been wonderful she just shrugs and says, ``What else would I do? He gave me the 10 happiest years of my life.''

 Dad died as he had lived. Though he had wanted to live more, he didn't want any ``bullshit'' – one of his favourite words – about his condition. He knew what was happening to him. In the last weeks he was terribly sick and reduced, but he never lost his dignity, his curiosity about the world, or his nerve. I know he had nightmares and Joan and I both tried to talk to him about his fears, thinking it might make things easier. But he was never one for grand speeches. There was a job to be done, the job of dying, and he just wordlessly got on with it. He still liked to banter, though. After one gruelling day in hospital, a young nurse came in with a name tag saying Chelsea. Dad said: ``Hello Chelsea. Are you related to Bill Clinton?'' No, she said. Lucky for you, he said.

 In the last week my family and I have been tremendously moved by the many tributes to him. I think they would have surprised him. He had a healthy ego but he stayed ordinary, he was not conceited. I think, though, he would have been particularly tickled that he was written up on the same day in the literary pages of The Age and in the Footy Record.

 On Saturday Nick and I and my family went to the Geelong St Kilda game at Telstra Dome. For the first time in about 30 years we were going without dad. We met at the top of the stairs at the end of Bourke Street and flowed with the crowd across the footbridge toward the ground. It was warm and festive, everyone was dressed in tribal blue and white and black and red and someone was blowing a trumpet. And there it was, that moment I know dad loved, when there is a fleeting but great sense of collective endeavour, a sense that we're better when we do things together, that the best of the day and of life is still to come.
 
Dad would have enjoyed many things about Saturday. The sun, the grass, the packed stands, the colours, his grandchildren demanding drinks, the moment you recognise each player as he runs out. And as the Cats clocked up the goals on the scoreboard he would have let himself go. He would have embarrassed me by shouting ``Moons'' at Cameron Mooney's marks. David Wojynski's extravagant third quarter running goal would have made him sit back and laugh. So many times on Saturday Nick and I thought, Dad would have loved that. And it really came home to us: we're going to miss him.  

Dad was a friend of ours. You'd always come away from coffee with him with a good story or something sparky he said. He knew things about the world and gave good advice about how to find your way in it. But he'd also ask your advice and listen carefully to the answer. I admired the way he was able to get on with many different kinds of people without being all things to all people. 
 
He was proud of what he did in his writing, and rightly so. Yet while, as a politician and a writer, he was skilled with words, as a father he was sometimes uncomfortable with them. 
 
I have a strong memory of walking back from the MCG to his house in Richmond in about 1983. Geelong had won the last game of the season and dad sat down and drew one of his teams, which he claimed preposterously would win a premiership in about three years. Then he walked us to the gate and we had one of our warm but awkward goodbyes. Nick and I walked off. I looked back and he waved. Then we walked a long way down the street and I looked back again. He was still standing at the gate, looking after us. That was our dad.

James Button is a guest on episode 38 of the Speakola podcast

For John 'Starky' Gigacz: 'Dovidenia, Starky', by son Andrew Gigacz

29 August, 2014, Melbourne, Australia

John Gigacz, my father, was born on the 3rd of August 1922 and died last Saturday, a long way from where his life began, in distance – his birthplace, Brezno in Slovakia is 15,500 kilometres from here; in time – Dad was 92 years old; and in cultural attitude – when Dad was a baby, he wasn’t a very good sleeper and his parents used opium to quiet him down – definitely not something that would be approved of today!

John grew up in the village of Sumiac, but his adult life would take him to a number of places around the world, firstly to America, including New York, a city he loved, and Chicago – or as he pronounced it, Chicago [as in ‘chip’]. (As you will hear shortly, John had a great command of the English language but pronunciation wasn’t always a strong suit.) His second major trip was to Austria, made by somewhat unusual means – he got there by swimming across the Danube in 1949 to escape the communist regime that controlled what was then Czechoslovakia, leaving behind his own mother and father, whom he would never see again.

After a year in Salzburg, John was granted refugee status and approved for migration to Australia. After a voyage of several months on a ship called the Hellenic Prince, he arrived in Australia in January 1951, and spent several weeks at a migrant centre in Bonegilla, not far from Albury, before taking a job, picking grapes along the Murray.

Keen to settle into the Australian way of life, John quickly befriended several fellow fruitpickers, and was happy to accompany them to the local pub. Never having been a heavy drinker, John spent one early night at the local trying to keep up with his mates but failed miserably. His mates took him back home in a wheelbarrow that evening.

John was also to meet his future wife, our Mum, while fruitpicking. Having crossed paths with her on several occasions and then lost contact, John bumped into the lady who would become the love of his life at Flinders Street station in 1953. Determined not to let her go this time, John met up with her the next day, presented her with a violet posy and asked her to marry him. Fortunately for all of us, she said yes.

John and Evelyn married at St Joseph’s Church in Hawthorn in November 1954 – John wearing the suit that I’m wearing now - and started a family soon after. Stefan was born in September 1955, with John, Anthony, Jamie, Katie and Andrew following over the next 10 years. John became an important part of the parish of Sacred Heart, always willing to lend a hand in the development of the Sacred Heart community. As I grew up, I remember him taking on many roles, helping out at working bees, reading at Mass, singing in the choir and doing countless visitations as a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society. He was a man of strong faith and Jesus was a guiding light for him throughout his life.

For his entire working life in Melbourne, John was employed at ICI in Deer Park, forming many friendships with his colleagues there, as well as through the Sacred Heart community. One of the people he met early in his time at ICI was a man by the name of Hugh. Before he met him, John had seen his name written down, and with English not being his first language, he decided to pronounce the name the way it was spelt: H-U-G-H. Upon their introduction, he said, “Pleased to meet you, Hoog-her”.

John in fact had a very strong grasp of the English language. He read voraciously and was always looking to improve himself. But he did struggle occasionally with the nuances of English pronunciation, grammar and syntax. I remember he used to ask, “How did Bulldogs go today?” Not, “How did THE Bulldogs go”, just, “How did Bulldogs go?” He also sometimes got words in the wrong order, or at least not in the order WE’D use. Instead of trial and error, it was error and trial. And with him it wasn’t the Big Bad Wolf, it was the Bad Big Wolf. And I remember him talking about the seven lives of a cat.  Perhaps in Slovakia things were so bad that cats couldn’t afford nine lives.

Slovakia in fact was never far from Dad’s mind. Once technology made phoning overseas a simple process, Dad would ring his sister Marca, regularly, catching up on all the latest news from his family and friends in his homeland and passing on news from faraway Australia.

Dad also never forgot how welcome he was made to feel when he came to Australia and he was keen to make others feel just as welcome in later years. He spent many a Sunday in the 1980s visiting the migrant hostel in Maribyrnong, helping out new arrivals – most from Vietnam – in whatever way he could.

Above all, John was devoted to his family, his wife – our mum – Evelyn, his six kids and 15 his grandchildren. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for us. He happily did the grocery shopping and he ferried us to and from swimming at dawn, or cricket on the weekends.

Mind you, things didn’t always go to plan. Once when shopping at the supermarket, he left baby Jamie waiting in the pram at the turnstile while he popped in and grabbed a few grocery items. (You could do that sort of thing in those days and no-one batted an eyelid.) After collecting and paying for the groceries, Dad went home and it was only when Mum asked, “Where’s baby Jamie?” that he realised he’d left him behind. Jamie was still there sleeping happily in the pram when Dad got back there in record time.

Dad was our barber when we were kids, even my sister Katie’s, which led to her looking like just another one of us boys in her early years. One time his aim was slightly askew and he snipped the top of Jamie’s ear off. Being the resourceful man that he was, Dad just sticky taped the tiny bit of ear back on. Amazingly, it worked!

Dad had a thing about hair. He thought men should be clean-shaven, with short hair and that hair should most definitely NOT be parted in the middle. When I started to grow my hair long (parted down the centre) and not shave very often in my late teens, he HATED it. One time we got into a huge argument about it, and Dad shouted “Real men don’t have hair like that!” It was at that moment that I realised he was standing under the picture of Jesus that was a permanent feature of our lounge room. I simply pointed at the picture and Dad turned around to see an image of our Lord, wearing a beard and long hair, parted down the middle. It was one of the very few times I saw him speechless. Dad had the last laugh on that one, though. Even if I wanted to grow long hair now I couldn’t!

But if he differed with his family on issues – and his political views differed vastly from mine and those of several other family members – he was always respectful of the right of others to have those different views. He would argue black and blue against them but he didn’t love his family and friends any less for having those views.

He loved us all very dearly and we all loved him as much. Thank you Dad for being a wonderful, loving husband to our mum Evelyn, a fantastic, caring father to all of us kids and a happily devoted “Starky” to your 15 grandkids.

Dovidenia, Starky

For Jack Clancy: 'No-one ever sat on a bench as well as Jack Clancy', by Ray Wilson - 2014

3 April, 2014, The Boulevard, Kew, Melbourne

Most of the tributes to Jack have emphasized his extensive range of disciplines and interests. But we at University Blacks, given his 59 years of commitment to the club, could be forgiven for thinking it was his sole passion. Sort of an upmarket version of Collingwood’s Joffa.

With others covering Jack the family man, Jack the academic, Jack the innovator in film studies, Jack the crusader for the ABC, Jack the bon vivant, to name a few of this extraordinary man’s extraordinary talents, my focus falls to Jack and football.

First some facts. After a couple of seasons starring for the Blacks, one week mid season in 1957 Fitzroy selected him in the senior VFL team as a reserve. No interchange then, and Jack never took the field. A knee injury conspired to make it his only game. His coach Bill Stephen spoke at a luncheon in 2006 for Jack’s 50 years of service, and Bill reported that “no-one ever sat on a bench as well as Jack Clancy”.

He returned to the Blacks, played seniors for a few years, and in the University Reds and Blacks Reserves for what seemed forever. He won two best player in the competition awards, and captained and coached teams to premierships. He is in the Reds, now Fitzroy Reds, Team of the Century, and is honoured in the Melbourne University Team of the Modern Era, the period post 1945. Once retired, he held every possible office at the Blacks and the umbrella MUFC from chairman down. As he moved from being a contemporary of young players to an elder statesman, his ability to communicate with, understand and mentor them was amazing. It was all delivered with the hand of friendship and respect for the individual, no matter if it was the star player in the Seniors or the trainer for the Clubbies. I am so pleased my sons Tony and Ned, who are here today, knew him so well. A parent can’t buy that sort of help.

It is commonly said the test of a person is not in times of triumph, but adversity. Jack was one of only two long term supporters who, week after long week, followed the club in its 17 year slide from A Grade to E Grade by the 1990’s. Heroics of A Grade clashes with Old Xaverians and Old Scotch must have been distant memories while watching Blacks players being pulverized in the winter mud at Fawkner and Thomastown. Around such men is a culture moulded.

On the morning of the Blacks winning B Grade Grand Final in 2012, The Age carried a piece on the competing clubs. It quoted AFL legend David Parkin, who has stayed involved with the Blacks since his son coached us 10 years ago, as saying ”I’d have to say that the culture at the Blacks is the best culture of any footy club I’ve been involved with, including Carlton and Hawthorn.” On Jack’s tribute page 1980’s player Nick Heath has written, “Matthew Arnold said ‘Culture is the acquainting of ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.’? Nick added “Seems like he knew Jack pretty well”.

Now Jack was no short term operator. For 33 years the Blacks’ best player count was held in the backyard at Acheron St. Patsy, the award winning translator could accurately translate the French word for tolerance as “Patsy Clancy”. For thousands of men that backyard holds some of their warmest, if foggiest, memories. And for most it is their only acquaintance with the complete works of George Eliot, or Schubert’s Trout Quintet in A Major.

The Blacks descent saw the historically mighty Blacks and the historically sociable Reds in the same grade, so Jack donated a cup. Paul Daffey’s book about grass roots football, Local Rites, records it “In 1998, the Rouge et Noir Cup was struck. The cup was named after the flamboyant 1836 novel, Le Rouge et le Noir by French writer Stendhal. Only in the Amateurs could football and French literature be mentioned in the same sentence.” What Daffey didn’t record was at a lunch to announce the cup Jack made the speech entirely in French, using an Irish accent.

Jack is the central character in a legendary story from intervarsity trips. The University of Tasmania players were on the same overnight train to Adelaide, and a cocktail of youthful competitiveness and youthful incapacity to handle alcohol caused a card game to cease being conducted with the participants remaining seated. The ensuing disturbance led to the police boarding the train at Ararat. A Tasmanian was quick to point to Jack as the instigator, and he was promptly bundled off the train and spent the night behind bars. Days later as the two teams lined up, some Melbourne players informed the Tasmanians that Jack was an absolute animal on the field, and was hell bent on retribution for his jailing. Amazingly his direct opponent was the police informant, who suitably terrified, never set foot near Jack all day, leaving him to kick six easy goals.

I’ve been back at the Blacks for just 15 years. We have won three senior premierships in the past 10 years and were a finalist in A Grade last year. I know that would have warmed Jack’s beautiful heart, by then housed in his failing body. From time to time I’m asked why I do it. I usually answer that a 160 year old club with such an admired culture, a culture which Jack Clancy helped mould in his own image and which has been such a positive influence on thousands of men, is worth the effort. What I hope I told Jack often enough is that his loyalty through the dark days was, and remains, such a powerful motivation that I and others would be ashamed not to follow his lead. All AFL clubs these days have leadership groups. The Blacks had Jack Clancy. I reckon we’ve had them covered for true leadership.

Rob Clancy rang me three weeks ago to ask about holding this function at the new Pavillion at the Melbourne University Oval. Jack would have loved that. But it is not available until May. But it is planned to take Jack back to the oval for a final visit, which fittingly for Jack will last for an eternity, as will his memory at University Blacks.

I have liked, admired and respected so many men and women I have met through football, but I loved Jack Clancy. I’ll miss him so much.