R.I.P. Danny Frawley

[saynta]

It could have been a medical episode
He may have been distracted momentarily
There may have been an animal on the road

It's pointless and presumptuous to claim it was self harm unless there are mitigating circumstances or evidence comes out from people close to him that had contact with Danny in the minutes and hours prior to the accident

Everything written everywhere has said self harm.

It’s suicide. We don’t know all the facts, the cops will know a lot more and probably won’t ever release them publicly.

Correct. This is what it is. There is an arrangement between news outlets and VicPol that when it is suicide, they print the LifeLine and BeyondBlue (& sometimes, Headspace) numbers. It’s an organised campaign in trying to de-stigmatise suicide.

Our beloved Spud was a man deeply uneasy in his own skin. His issues consumed him in the end and as Jeff Kennett said - we couldn’t save him. No one could. It was Spud’s fight to fight for as long as he could. The issues mentioned in Chip LeGrand’s article would be enough to make a sane man resort to drastic measures; let alone one with self acknowledged mental health issues.

Seat belt, no seat belt - it doesn’t matter. It is what it is and the outcome is horrific.

This shouldn’t define Spud. It’s just a sad episode in an otherwise beautifully lived life.

Well said

[saynta]

So it was his birthday.. He was in Melbourne got on the piss with his mates.. Drove home fell asleep at the wheel. Most likely scenario.

No. He spent his birthday with family in the area he grew up in.


What you are naively suggesting would make Danny a fool, something he certainly wasn't.

[magnifisaint]

So it was his birthday.. He was in Melbourne got on the piss with his mates.. Drove home fell asleep at the wheel. Most likely scenario.

No. He spent his birthday with family in the area he grew up in.


What you are naively suggesting would make Danny a fool, something he certainly wasn't.

According to the papers he wasnt at his own birthday function and missed his psych appointment also.

[saynta]

So it was his birthday.. He was in Melbourne got on the piss with his mates.. Drove home fell asleep at the wheel. Most likely scenario.

No. He spent his birthday with family in the area he grew up in.


What you are naively suggesting would make Danny a fool, something he certainly wasn't.

According to the papers he wasnt at his own birthday function and missed his psych appointment also.

Didn't know that. Paper I read said that he had spent the day with rellies in the country and that he was intending to shift back there to live.

My experience is there is not much that you read in the papers that you can accept as gospel. Oh well...

[saynta]

Joffa and bucks remember spud.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/ ... 3a3e3c73c6

"Geoff “Joffa” Cunningham was older than Danny Frawley but knew he could play — and that he loved a laugh. One night he asked ‘Spud’ why the club raffle was always being won by the same trio. Plus Nathan Buckley’s emotional Frawley tribute.
Jon Anderson, Herald Sun

AFL: Danny Frawley is being remembered as a great friend and colleague after passing away in a car accident on Monday.

Back in the late 1980s, Geoff “Joffa” Cunningham was as confused as every other St Kilda player when a trio of their teammates enjoyed a remarkable run of luck in the club’s regular Thursday night raffle.

The winner was always drawn by the naturally gregarious club captain Danny Frawley.

And the prize was always typical of the times: a chook or Victoria Bitter stubbies.

Coincidentally, Cunningham recalls, Frawley was travelling up and down from Ballarat for training sessions with “Plugger” (Tony Lockett) and “Burnsy” (Greg Burns).

“As captain, Danny would read out the winners,” said Cunningham, 60, who played 224 games with St Kilda between 1977-89 and these days lives in Brisbane.
win.

“For about three or four weeks in a row, he would call out ‘and the winner is, No.41 which is Greg Burns’, or ‘No.38 which looks like Tony Lockett’.

“Of course the prize they won always happened to be the dozen stubbies.

“I got wind of it eventually that the Ballarat contingent kept winning the stubbies. Danny, being such an honest guy, couldn’t lie very well.

“So I asked him one night after ‘Plugger’ had won again and he just broke down laughing.

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“It was a good rort while it lasted, those three drinking the 12 stubbies on their way home to Ballarat.”
Like Frawley, Cunningham had been recruited from the rich Ballarat-based region, and while four years older, knew of young Danny after playing football with his older brother Michael Frawley at East Bungaree.

“He was a highly-talented young kid who liked a practical joke and loved a laugh,” Cunningham said.
Frawley enjoys a win with ‘Joffa’ Cunningham, coach Darrel Baldock, Lockett and Nicky Winmar.


“He was always popular and a leader, although when made captain at age 23 he had to learn the process and he did fairly quickly, probably more so when Ken Sheldon took over.

“He was a running and attacking defender in his early days and Tony Jewell used to sometimes play him as a pinch-hitting centre half-forward and he was good at it, until the day he kept Gary Ablett kickless.

“From then on he was a full-back who had the attitude nobody was going to kick goals on him, and not that many did.

“A lot of people die, but I just can’t get my head around how Danny died.

“To think he must have been such a dark place is very, very sad.”

Danny Frawley “just wanted to be loved and needed”, an emotional Nathan Buckley believes.

The Collingwood coach played against Frawley before the former St Kilda captain joined the Magpies as an assistant coach between1996 and 1999, describing him as one of the fittest people he had ever come across.

But he was also one of the greats, Buckley said.

“He just wanted to be loved, and needed, and sometimes for some people you can give all the love you want but it’s not enough, mate. I think that was the thing for Spud,” Buckley said.

“He just wanted to be important to people, he wanted to make people laugh, and that made him a great teammate and it madehim a great captain.

“It made him a great person, because he wanted to make everyone’s life better, and then get that reflected feeling of importanceand being special. I think that permeated through his whole life.

“I really feel for (his wife) Anita. I can imagine how much love that she and the girls have provided for Spud over the years.I’m really feeling for them today.”

Foxsports1:28
Emotional Bucks honours Spud
AFL: An Emotional Nathan Buckley remembers Danny Frawley as not only a great player but an even greater person, when spe...

Buckley said Frawley — who passed away on Monday — “was a gun” footballer who put some of the game’s top players in the shadeon the training track.

And that was even after he had retired.

“He could have been a big-bodied midfielder — he was one of the fittest blokes that I ever knew, and I didn’t really knowhim until after his career,” Buckley said on SEN.

“I was a 24, 25-year-old midfielder and Shawry (then-Magpies coach Tony Shaw) and he would go for long runs. They’d run with the players and Shawry would want to bust blokes because that’s just what he did, and if there were ever any 400s or 800s, Spud was unstoppable.

“He just set it at 90 per cent and he wouldn’t slow down, he’d just run through the line and be laughing all the while. He was a very fit unit.”

Frawley, who played 240 games in defence for St Kilda, took on the game’s great forwards including Gary Ablett Snr, JasonDunstall, Dermott Brereton and Tony Modra throughout his time in red, white and black, which Buckley believed would have taken a toll that he said was “really unfortunate”.

“He played against some of the best players in the competition and how tough is it mentally when you’re doing everything youcan and they’re still kicking sevens or eights? But the job you’re doing is stopping them from kicking 14,” he said.

“The mental resilience, the toughness but also the toll that takes on a person when you can’t quite deliver to the level.
1997.

“I’m pretty sure that Spud would’ve felt that he was never enough, which is really unfortunate. He’s not the only person, I think it’s a very human thing, but Spud definitely wore it on his sleeve. And I think that endeared him to a lot of people.”

Frawley had been open about his battles with his mental health, following what he described as a mental breakdown in 2014.

Buckley said “Spud” would “find a little bit extra to give when someone would think there’d be no more”.

“When things were dark, when things were bleak, when it looked like all was lost, he was a top bloke that would see that asan opportunity to be the person who could provide more,” he said.

“That was his real strong attribute and it was also his cross to bear, because I think it was done, clearly, to make the placebetter and to assist people, but he also wanted to stand out.

“He wanted to have people realise that he was prepared to do anything that he could for them and to be seen as someone ofimportance and someone special.

“And he never had to do that, because he already was.”



ps.I left in the reference to the photo with the doc, spud, plugger and cuz because it is a keeper. You should try to access a look at it.

[To the top]

If the descriptions now in the media are correct this is a tragedy beyond description

To find yourself in those circumstances leading to the outcome we have seen with Danny defies any commentary because no commentary is in any way adequate

There are no words

Danny had the profile he had - and what is a criminal indictment on society is that Danny is not the only one who could see no way thru the challenges life and living was introducing to them

You never presume to judge others by self

If you lunch at Doyle’s at Rose Bay and wander up to the Heads you see material every few steps asking people to think again and to seek assistance and support

Confronting

And now Danny, who appeared on the surface to have everything

And that adds to the distress everyone is feeling

[saintspremiers]

If the descriptions now in the media are correct this is a tragedy beyond description

To find yourself in those circumstances leading to the outcome we have seen with Danny defies any commentary because no commentary is in any way adequate

There are no words

Danny had the profile he had - and what is a criminal indictment on society is that Danny is not the only one who could see no way thru the challenges life and living was introducing to them

You never presume to judge others by self

If you lunch at Doyle’s at Rose Bay and wander up to the Heads you see material every few steps asking people to think again and to seek assistance and support

Confronting

And now Danny, who appeared on the surface to have everything

And that adds to the distress everyone is feeling

Danny had everything but in the end had absolutely nothing. This is what defines his demise and that of too many others.

For us who are sane of mind and spirit we can’t comprehend it, but we must somehow accept it.

[To the top]

I repeat, never judge others by self

[The Barometer]

If the descriptions now in the media are correct this is a tragedy beyond description

To find yourself in those circumstances leading to the outcome we have seen with Danny defies any commentary because no commentary is in any way adequate

There are no words

Danny had the profile he had - and what is a criminal indictment on society is that Danny is not the only one who could see no way thru the challenges life and living was introducing to them

You never presume to judge others by self

If you lunch at Doyle’s at Rose Bay and wander up to the Heads you see material every few steps asking people to think again and to seek assistance and support

Confronting

And now Danny, who appeared on the surface to have everything

And that adds to the distress everyone is feeling

Well said. Very well said. Thank you.

[markp]

If the descriptions now in the media are correct this is a tragedy beyond description

To find yourself in those circumstances leading to the outcome we have seen with Danny defies any commentary because no commentary is in any way adequate

There are no words

Danny had the profile he had - and what is a criminal indictment on society is that Danny is not the only one who could see no way thru the challenges life and living was introducing to them

You never presume to judge others by self

If you lunch at Doyle’s at Rose Bay and wander up to the Heads you see material every few steps asking people to think again and to seek assistance and support

Confronting

And now Danny, who appeared on the surface to have everything

And that adds to the distress everyone is feeling

Danny had everything but in the end had absolutely nothing. This is what defines his demise and that of too many others.

For us who are sane of mind and spirit we can’t comprehend it, but we must somehow accept it.

Eighteen years ago today people were jumping off a burning building in NYC rather than burning to death.... Everyone has a breaking point, no one can know someone else's pain.

[To the top]

A week or so back there was an article on CNBC Business and Finance quoting Buffet then Gates on life

It is an interesting read

Basically we are only as strong as those around us - and in regards those relationships your bank balance does not count

They both refer to their relationships with their spouses as central - and the impact their spouses have had on them

No man is an island

[asiu]

Danny had everything but in the end had absolutely nothing. This is what defines his demise and that of too many others.

with respect to this thread
and towards your point of view
(seeing that we seem now to be discussing
the cause not the event)

can you unpack that statement for me ?

it seems a bit headwobblerish to me

For us who are sane of mind and spirit we can’t comprehend it, but we must somehow accept it.

in relationship to the first statement

‘sane of mind and spirit ...’
... can you unpack that for me as well

asking for an earlier self
who sat crying with a loaded .22 touching his palate.

[Moods]

I don't reckon it's disrespectful to acknowledge it was suicide. The police are not including it in the road toll. That tells you more than you need to know. His marriage was collapsing and he was on the verge of financial ruin. Enough to break any man.

R.I.P. Spud. Appeared to be a great bloke. Was certainly a fantastic footballer and entertaining character.

P.S. - Bob Murphy wrote a great article on him as well in recent days. Didn't know him as well as others but appears to have captured his spirit beautifully.

[johnnyrayflamingo]

RIP Spudder. The no 2 will go down in Saints history.

Battler.
Brother.
Top bloke.
Skipper.
Teammate.
Coach.
Spud farmer.
Larrikin.
Entertainer.
Husband.
Father.

Rest in peace brother.
Your journey has ended.

[Enrico_Misso]

Memorial service Wed 3pm at Linton St.
Lap of honour 5pm.

[st.byron]

I watched the finals on the weekend and there was a minutes silence before the games for Spud. If anything good can come out of such a tragedy, my wish is for the mental health issues that men suffer from to be brought even more out of the shadows, so that blokes don’t feel they have to suffer alone. Isolation and shame are the biggest killers.

Six men a day kill themselves in Australia. Six. Spud was one of six on that day. Imagine if six whales a day were beaching themselves - there’d be an outcry and ‘something would have to done’. But six blokes a day ending their own lives.....barely rates a mention.

[CQ SAINT]

Danny had everything but in the end had absolutely nothing. This is what defines his demise and that of too many others.

with respect to this thread
and towards your point of view
(seeing that we seem now to be discussing
the cause not the event)

can you unpack that statement for me ?

it seems a bit headwobblerish to me

For us who are sane of mind and spirit we can’t comprehend it, but we must somehow accept it.

in relationship to the first statement

‘sane of mind and spirit ...’
... can you unpack that for me as well

asking for an earlier self
who sat crying with a loaded .22 touching his palate.

My mum, a clinical psychologist, went to work on a small Pacific Island some years ago. She was part of a foreign aid support team that was sent to assist the locals after a Tsunami had wiped out local industries including fisheries, a cannery and some tourist businesses.
There was concern for the welfare of the young men that had lost their livelihood.
To most outsiders the island looked devastated and the docks and wharves were decimated. The bars were closed and the economy had been hit hard.
In talking to one of the elders, my mum was amazed at the sense of relief and joy expressed by the old woman.
She explained that it meant that young men would not be able to afford the bank loans they took to invest in a local housing scheme and they would have to return to their traditional villages and ways of life.
She explained that the fishermen would have to return to the outriggers they had used before the cannery opened and fish only for enough fish to feed the village, going back to only working a few hours a day and being around for there families and communities.
She explained that they would stop going to bars, drinking their paychecks and eating imported foods and would go back to growing food and raising pigs.
She revelled in the fact that nature had restored sanity and normality to the island and that the water had washed away the sickness and depravity of modern society and it's economics.
She saw my mum was a wise and learned woman and thanked her for her concerns but she assured my that her services would be best delivered back in Melbourne where there would no doubt be a great need for them.
For centuries, fisherman had fished and sometimes succumbed to the sea. Warriors had fought and sometimes fallen in battle but for the most her people were happy, healthy and self sufficient. She prayed that the investors and all their promises of wealth and prosperity would never return and that the old chiefs who sold their 'mana' for fishing vessels, tin houses and 4WD's would return to their senses and go back to their customary roles.
Mum stayed there for the duration of her contract, made life long friends and ot affected her deeply when she came home and returned to her practice and the rat race in which she raised us.
For those of us that are mentally and spiritually sane we can't understand it but we must accept it.

[asiu]

nice.

thank you

goodonya


there’s this weird mind game
that we fall for

basically , imo ,
coz everyone else falls for it

which says

it’s not the system thats sucks
it’s our place in that system

when in reality
it’s the dog eat dog system
that sucks absolute coconuts

plus , there’s always gunna be a bigger dog

the only way to ‘win’
in that game
is to close your heart


in relationship to your read

my ‘total loss’ experience
(wife + kids + art gallery + vehicles + self respect)

was the best thing that has happened to me

off the hampster wheel
+ no interest in getting back on

took ten years + a few
for me to do the ‘real work’

where forgiveness ‘n acceptance
has morphed from flowery mental candy
into actual experienced gratitude

now when an emotional issue
with any charge arises

i’m way more likely
to seek my part in it
and confront my lack of acceptance
towards , basically ,

what ALREADY is

much betterer approach for this dickus head

which means
... i’m finally learning how to relax
‘n laugh at my own patheticnesses

AND , thats success , for me.

+ my kids LOVE me
(which helps BIGTIME)

[CQ SAINT]

If I could free myself from the vacuum of grief and despair, just be to be sane of mind and spirit, I wonder if the loss of my son would still matter.
I wonder if my soul would still know the story of my life, should I no longer choose to live it.
I wait, like the morning sun, for a new day, a new beginning, for a different shade of light to define me.
Now older, I am at peace, regardless of my internal unrest, my longing for days unknown and life unlived.
A new family, a new child and all the promises I made to myself unfold.
And still I wait to be sane of mind and spirit.

[asiu]

hmmmm

a ‘dark night of the soul’ experience ,
that one.

.god bless all who sail in Her.

[Enrico_Misso]

Very sad but classy funeral.

[saintspremiers]

nice.

thank you

goodonya


there’s this weird mind game
that we fall for

basically , imo ,
coz everyone else falls for it

which says

it’s not the system thats sucks
it’s our place in that system

when in reality
it’s the dog eat dog system
that sucks absolute coconuts

plus , there’s always gunna be a bigger dog

the only way to ‘win’
in that game
is to close your heart


in relationship to your read

my ‘total loss’ experience
(wife + kids + art gallery + vehicles + self respect)

was the best thing that has happened to me

off the hampster wheel
+ no interest in getting back on

took ten years + a few
for me to do the ‘real work’

where forgiveness ‘n acceptance
has morphed from flowery mental candy
into actual experienced gratitude

now when an emotional issue
with any charge arises

i’m way more likely
to seek my part in it
and confront my lack of acceptance
towards , basically ,

what ALREADY is

much betterer approach for this dickus head

which means
... i’m finally learning how to relax
‘n laugh at my own patheticnesses

AND , thats success , for me.

+ my kids LOVE me
(which helps BIGTIME)

Mate I love you. And most on here.

Keep well. Stay strong - whatever that means I dunno!

[asiu]

ta bloke

i could tell you some stories about freshly dead people
calling past to say goodbye

but then ya might go back to thinking i’m certifiable

so i’ll stick to the ‘love’


ta again.

[CQ SAINT]

ta bloke

i could tell you some stories about freshly dead people
calling past to say goodbye

but then ya might go back to thinking i’m certifiable

so i’ll stick to the ‘love’


ta again.

Go on. I won't think.your certifiable.

Won't say I love you either but I love a good dead person account

[asiu]

interestingly

it was the following

wonder if my soul would still know the story of my life, should I no longer choose to live it.

that prompted my sharing

that line , has arisen into awareness a number of times
since the other morning

i’ve tried to construct a post to answer it twice ,
the 2nd attempt was just prior to my reply to SP

*****

3 times it has happened

my friend was dying of stomach cancer in Slowy ,
we’d had a falling out
from lovers to nothing
hadn’t communicated in probably 4 years

i was moving through the unit in sincity
(just stepped into the lounge room)
and there she was

her energetic field
she then spoke 10 words over my life

‘hey , battered one , you have made your self a friend’

i got straight onto the phone
to be told mart had just passed


my second mum
a highly respected healer
who i spent 22 years with
in clinic
as support
and as the son she never had
also got red dancer of the stomach

her ‘real’ daughter
took over her dying process
and forbid me (and others) to visit

i was repairing shopping trolleys for ikea
in their moore park car parking area

and there was shirley
(her energetic field)

i knew
she knew i knew
i knew she knew i knew

i rang her home
her daughter said

“you’ve got good pickup , mum just passed”

shirls has touched base a few times over the following years
always with the same message

‘keep giving’


chrissy was the third

i loved him
a gun
a talent
a laugh
so fuckn sharp

i was standing in the white kenyans sunroom
looking down into the parade of clevage from her north bondi apartment

and there was chris

NO !!
i shouted it out

i’d tried contacting him the day before
but
sometimes he went off grid

of all people
i rang my ex wife
(who hates me
but who was besties with his ex wife)

and said “chris is dead”

she’d just got off the phone with his ex
saying that
his eldest daughter had just found him cold

it turned out that chris had actually died
two days earlier

i summise
he stayed with his body
until it was found
and then did the rounds saying goodbye

it’s a pity
more of us aren’t listening

another soul
called past to answer a question for me
but that was a bit different

i already knew he had passed
via normal channels
and needed an ‘overview’ on a matter that involved us both

i asked
he shared
and kept going