Gerard WhateleyUpdated March 22, 2012 12:39:08
ABC Grandstand's Gerard Whateley remembers Jim Stynes not only as a great footballer but a man who leaves an incredible legacy on his adopted city of Melbourne.
He was the adopted son of a city, its indigenous game and the oldest club that bore its name.
He enriched the town through his determination to change the lives of its most vulnerable inhabitants.
He redefined the code, becoming its best and most enduring player, opening its mind and removing its borders.
And he saved his football club for his children's children, providing it with a will and a way at its most susceptible.
In his premature departure he united Melbourne one last time. In grief. And in thanks for the many blessings that was the life of Jim Stynes.
His story might have been the butt of every Irish joke you'd ever heard and some that were yet to be written. The teenage Gaelic footballer imported to play Australian Rules, the game he'd never seen.
The Irish Experiment could have ended in his first season when he wandered across the mark of Hawk Gary Buckenara at the climax of the 1987 Preliminary Final. A mistake born out of naivety that cost Melbourne a place in the Grand Final.
His spirit was stronger than to be crushed by such failure. Instead, four years later he had come not only to learn, but master this most foreign game. His ruck work and pure athleticism carried him to the AFL's highest individual honour, the Brownlow Medal.
He amassed a record-equalling four best and fairest awards with Melbourne and was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame not because of his pioneering spirit but his brilliance on the field.
His skill was matched by a freakish durability. Injury couldn't cruel him. Broken bones, torn muscles, midweek surgery. He came to defy the medics and personify the Monty Python adage "it's just a flesh wound."
He played every match for 11 years and set the consecutive record sequence at 244.
At the end of 264 games his legacy would echo through the generations. It is there in the words of Fijian-born Nic Naitanui. The West Coast ruckman moved to hail the man with a champion's heart: "Jimmy Stynes, if it wasn't for you, blokes like myself from a different background wouldn't be in the AFL."
Whatever debt he felt to Melbourne he repaid when the country's oldest football club teetered for not only relevance but its very existence.
He assumed the role as president and became the touchstone for unity, recovery and ambition. A boy from Dublin saving the club of Barassi, Smith, Mueller, Flower and Neitz.
His motives touched at the core of why football matters so much. He wanted his son to one day come to the MCG with his son to barrack for the mighty Dees. If he expressed one moment of resentment toward the illness that he knew would claim him, it was that he wouldn't live to be there with them.
Stynes saw two more Christmases than medical opinion allotted. He waged bloody war against the aggression of cancer. He routinely left hospital to sit with the Demon faithful behind the goals at the MCG. His presence inspired.
It also ensured football had the chance to tell Stynes what he meant to it. There would be no regrets. No sentiment left unexpressed. Stynes liked to tell the story against teammate and media personality Garry Lyon who confessed that he didn't like many people but he loved Jim.
In the most memorable moment a Brownlow Medal night has known, the community rose two years ago to applaud the man in its midst. It was the same embrace afforded an ailing Ted Whitten as he was driven around the MCG in a car shortly before he died.
Football wasn't the sum total of the man. His most admired deeds came through his philanthropy. He recognised the needs of Melbourne's lost youth. He took his crusade to the streets in the city's darkest hours through the creation of the Reach Foundation.
He didn't speak in platitudes; he spoke directly to those that needed help. To the teenager in foster care full of bitterness and rebellion. The soul that seemed destined to be lost to drugs and crime or the scourge of youth suicide. His gift was the ability to reach across a divide no other figure of authority could bridge. He connected with the most disaffected.
Some of those he touched, the ones he saved, spoke of their gratitude in the hours after his death. The self-awareness the years had provided led them to know Stynes had sacrificed time with his own family to bring them back.
Jim Stynes's death, aged 45, was not unexpected yet it brought with it a pall of sadness that touched even those who had never met him. It settled over Melbourne with the realisation we were the richer for his life and deeds. And the poorer for his passing.
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vic First posted March 20, 2012 14:55:15
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