On Wednesday, thousands of people will today remember the life of Danny 'Spud' Frawley during a service in St Kilda. The Courier will publish a special Danny Frawley Tribute print edition in honour of the Bungaree champion. Below is one piece that will form part of that tribute.
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FAMILY man, footballer, captain, coach, mental health warrior, TV star, larrikin or spud farmer; each and every description sums up the man that was Danny Frawley.
In his short 56 years, Frawley packed in more than most people could ever dream of achieving in a lifetime.
He was a man who lived his emotions and, as we've learnt in the nine days since his tragic death, the man we saw was the man he was.
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Whether it was his love of family, his passion for his mighty Saints, or being the butt of every joke, Frawley lived his life with a smile on his face or a tear in his eye.
The stories have come thick and fast. There was the infamous 1990 photograph with Elle MacPherson and his determined effort to keep the photo on display - which his wife continually thwarted. Also, the time as Richmond coach when he stood with a compressor over his head and told the players he "was under the bloody pump".
Even the players whose careers he ended didn't have a bad word to say about him. One of his favourite lines was "you've got the makings of a good footballer, you're just too slow and too short." It was a line where, more often than not, the player would give him a hug as their AFL dream ended.
While he was known publicly for football, the true loves of his life were his wife of 29 years Anita, and their three daughters Danielle, Chelsea and Keeley.
He captained St Kilda, he coached Richmond, but one of his proudest moments was when, at the helm of Old Haileybury's women's footy team, he coached daughters Danielle and Chelsea to the 2018 VAFA Women's Premier B premiership.
The Frawleys were a family that brought people together, whether it be the regular barbecues at their house or the efforts to integrate partners and families of young footballers into their own family and make them feel part of whichever club they were a part of.
One of those he took under his wing was former Tiger and Magpie Andrew Krakouer, who himself went through numerous personal hardships.
"You gave me my first opportunity to play AFL. You took a punt on me, when no one else did. You were so supportive and always there for me and my family. I'm forever grateful," Krakouer wrote after Frawley's passing.
As a footballer, there were few like Danny Frawley. Recruited from St Patrick's College to St Kilda, he would go on to play 240 games, becoming an All Australian, best and fairest winner and until recently, the Saints' longest serving captain.
There were the famous sportsman's nights where great mate Brian Taylor would introduce him on stage as "vice captain of the Saints Team Of The Century". In fact he wasn't even named in the team, but the legend stuck.
Frawley at full-back and another Ballarat product Tony Lockett, a man who would become the VFL/AFL's greatest ever goal-kicker at full-forward, would form a lethal combination which saw the boys from Moorabbin play finals for the first time in 18 years in 1991.
Frawley's efforts to tame Gary Ablett in the 1991 elimination final at Waverley was the stuff of legend.
It wasn't the first time Frawley had tamed Ablett. They'd first met in 1983. Frawley was a 19-year-old forward who had been selected on a wing for the Ballarat interleague team in the Victorian Country Championships by his coach John Northey.
His Ovens and Murray opponent was 21-year-old Ablett. Frawley won the battle that day and always loved to tell the story how he was "Ablett's kryptonite".
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In 1995, after 11 games for Victoria, he was there with Ted Whitten as 'EJ' did his final lap of honour at the MCG. The vision of Frawley leading the blind Whitten will live in folklore.
After his farewell from playing the game, Frawley wouldn't stay away for long.
He joined long-time adversary Tony Shaw as assistant coach of Collingwood for three years in the late 1990s before, as a "100-1" shot, he was appointed coach of Richmond at the end of 1999.
Within two years the Tigers, at that stage perennial underachievers, would make it to the preliminary final, but unfortunately his stint would come to an end after five seasons.
Then came the TV career where he and long-time opponent Jason Dunstall provided the weekly laughs on Bounce. He pioneered "The Golden Fist" a slightly tongue-in-cheek, but in his eyes incredibly serious, award for the always ignored defender.
The TV seeds were first sown in the early 1990s with the children's program AFL Squadron where he spent many mornings alongside Garry Lyon.
But it was Bounce for which today's generation knows Frawley best of all.
His weekly escapades reminded fans the game was meant to be fun.
The Golden Fist "BANG", or the regular sporting challenges such as baseball or table tennis, or dressing up as the Colonel Sanders, was part of the fun.
In recent years Frawley had been open about his battle with his mental health.
"It's funny, he had some time off I don't know how many years ago now, and that blindsided me, because I worked with the guy every week and we had so much fun together and I wasn't aware of anything, I didn't see any of the signs," Dunstall said.
"I'd make a point of asking him every now and then 'how're you going?' until you get to the stage of feeling like you're bugging him so you stop asking. Then you think, 'should I have been more attentive? Should I have seen something? Should I have noticed something? Should I have said more?' What more can you do?"
Danny was man enough to put his own struggles into the public domain. "Manning up in the past was to suffer in silence, manning up now is to put your hand up," he said.
So Danny, your legacy will always live on and not just in your name at the pavilion in Bungaree. Perhaps friend, colleague and long-time Victorian teammate Gerard Healy summed you up best: you were a lot of things to a lot of people but "a decent man above all else".
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