What was not to like about Jim?
His list of achievements has been incredibly well documented in
Most of us would be happy to have achieved one or two of the things he did, let alone have compiled a whole list of them.
From a football point of view, we’ve got to be glad that Jim was good enough to win the Brownlow medal, as it would be sad if he was best remembered for running across the mark and gifting Hawthorn entry into the 1987 Grand Final.
Yet it seems that it was his off-field endeavours that have created a more lasting impression. Naturally, he was in the news more and more after his cancer diagnosis in 2009, but that should not tarnish the tremendous work that he did – work that had been going on long before he was struck down with the horrible disease that would eventually claim his life.
Someone who knew Jim well told me in July 2010 that the big Irishman wasn’t expected to make it to Christmas. The fact that he lasted 15 months longer says as much about his fighting spirit, as it does for the medical treatments he underwent.
Thousands of people are morning the tragic loss of Jim Stynes. A funeral has been planned with live television coverage and a list of celebrities as long as your arm.
But in the “media scrum” that his death has created, spare a thought for his wife and two young children, for his extended family that are grieving, and for the tens of thousands of people worldwide who are also struggling to give cancer the boot.
It’s at time like these that you are quickly reminded that football is just a game, and that life is something that should never be taken for granted.
RIP Jim Stynes – your work, both on and off the football field, will never be forgotten.