MELBOURNE Football Club greats including Ron Barassi joined hundreds of family and friends to farewell Geoff Tunbridge in Ballarat on Thursday.
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A triple premiership player who joined the Demons in 1957 and played 117 games with the club, the 82-year-old died on Monday after a short battle with cancer.
A father to five children, two step-children and with 14 grandchildren, Mr Tunbridge was also a respected teacher at Ballarat Grammar, where his funeral was held.
Delivering his father's eulogy to almost 200 people packed into the school's chapel, Peter Tunbridge remembered a man loved by all.
"In 1957 he joined the Melbourne Footy Club, and he did alright by all accounts ... if you ask him," Mr Tunbridge said of his father's humour.
"Although, he thought he was a good player who played amongst great players, in a great team."
He also touched on his father's love of acting and his prowess off the football field, as a respected teacher.
"Dad was an actor. He loved an audience. He performed in numerous plays with the Ballarat National Theatre and he even won awards in that," he said.
"We know he could play footy, but he was a very good teacher and mentor to young adults and students.
"He was a gentleman and a gentle man. He had a great sense of humour, and he didn't take things too seriously, or himself too seriously.
"He loved the Melbourne Footy Club, he loved the Ballarat Footy Club, he loved Norm Smith and Jack Dart (former headmaster at Ballarat Grammar) ... he loved teaching, he loved his children, he loved his grandchildren, and we loved him. But most of all he loved Fiona (his second wife)."
Former Melbourne player John Lord spoke of the team's love of their great mate "Tunna" and said he was a notable man who was hard not to like.
"He had a unique character with an almost swashbuckling style to his football skills which I've not seen before in our era," Mr Lord said.
"He had this funny kicking style, which was effective, but one wondered where it would go. He ducked his head when he marked overhead ... couldn't run. He glided at a pretty rapid rate. He marked on his chest... but he got away with it.
"He was a treasure. Not just to the team, but to the members of the G... those true believers can only dream of a Robbie Flower wing with a Tunna flank."
In a fitting exit paying homage to the man himself, his coffin, draped in a Demon's jumper, was carried out of the church with the club's theme song blaring.
