It was the people’s chance to farewell Jim Stynes, but it only took two people to capture the impact the Irishman had on Australia.
A teenage tearaway and the prime minister both honoured the man whose football deeds and community work impacted all walks of life.
A month after he lost his fight with cancer and a day before what would have been his 46th birthday, the Jim Stynes Tribute Match at the MCG on Sunday was everyone’s moment to hail the foreigner who became an AFL and community hero.
Sixteen-year-old self-confessed “smart arse” James Rogers said he was speaking on behalf of “the hundreds of thousands of young blokes Jim Stynes inspired” when he remembered a man who saw the potential in everyone.
And, in a televised message broadcast on the scoreboard, prime minister Julia Gillard said Australians were proud of and grateful for Stynes.
The MCG before a match between his Melbourne and her Western Bulldogs, she said, was the appropriate place to pay tribute.
“Here at the people’s ground, this is the people’s chance to say thanks Jim and farewell,” Ms Gillard said.
In between the street kid and the PM were what his mate Garry Lyon described as Stynes’ three families – his own flesh and blood, the Melbourne Football Club and the youngsters he inspired at his youth charity Reach.
They came to remember a remarkable story of an Irish teenager who came to Australia as an experiment and ended up playing 264 AFL games, winning a Brownlow medal and saving his ailing football club when he took over as president.
Along the way, he changed the lives of thousands of troubled youngsters.
For all his great deeds, however, Stynes’ memory couldn’t inspire the Demons on Sunday.
Despite a third-quarter rally that got them within a point, Melbourne remain winless for the season after going down 13.10.88 to 9.13.67 in a lacklustre match between two of the league’s worst-performing teams.
Around 8000 of the ultimate crowd of 33,565 turned up an hour before the bounce for the tribute which opened with Stynes’ former teammates Russell Robertson and Lyon and included a brace of musical and video tributes.
But it couldn’t get in the way of the footy. The Bulldogs and Melbourne players were both on the ground warming up during a haunting rendition of Irish folk song Danny Boy – one of Stynes’ favourites.
The tributes concluded with a guard of honour made up Stynes’ three families and a rousing rendition of the Melbourne theme song to welcome the club’s players through a banner which read “Farewell Our Hero” and featured his two jumper numbers, 11 and 37, and a green shamrock.
The Western Bulldogs’ cheer squad paid respect, but also took it upon themselves to remind their players not to get too carried away with the emotion.
“Yes, today we’re here to win. We’re also here to remember Jim.”
And they did, both.
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