Tobin Brothers Support : Gach Nyuon

On Sunday 20th September, Tobin Brothers Funerals were pleased to announce that Gach Nyuon was the 2015 winner of the Tobin Brothers Young Multicultural Player of the Year award. Gach was awarded $2500 on Future Stars and to recognise their support of Gach throughout his career, Tobin Brothers were also proud to present The Reach Foundation with a further $2500.

Just last week, The Age reported that Gach Nyuon from the Dandenong Stingrays now has 45 games under his belt and “is hoping that at least one club has seen enough to give him a chance in one of next week's drafts”.

Gach “was born in South Sudan, the fifth of eight kids but part of a much larger family. His biological father still lives in Sudan, but Gach is named for his mother's first husband, William Nyuon Bany, a politician who became second-in-command of the 210,000-soldier Sudan People's Liberation Army that came together during the second civil war to fight for South Sudan's liberation from the north. He was killed in 1996, assassinated not long before Gach was born. Nyuon's mother was one of Bany's 12 wives, and the teenager has 71 siblings: 17 in Melbourne including his direct family, two in South Australia, two in Western Australia and the rest in Sudan, Canada, the US and various other countries. Some, he knows well. Others he will never meet.”

Gach moved to Australia when he seven years old and “was 14 when his friends saw something in his lunchtime kick-to-kick technique, and asked him to come down to their local club. He wasn't sure he wanted to, then turned on the TV one day and saw Andrew Lovett taking a high mark for Essendon on the MCG and decided to give it a go. In his first game he had absolutely no idea where to run, what to do or when to do it. But he wanted to play more. "I liked the coach," he said. "And I think the coach liked me”.

His decision was not a popular one at home. "I don't like that footy," his mother told him, worried he would get hurt, but he persisted, and knew he would talk her around. Mary Jock saw her son play for the first time on the MCG earlier this year, as part of the AFL Academy, and has barely missed a game since.”

His mother now sees Gach as an inspiration to Sudanese kids, she says “they are good people and strong people but they will just go up to drug people on the street because they don't know about all the places they can go for work and opportunities”, and now they can look at Gach for inspiration, “They know there's a lot of opportunity, because if you don't want to study you can go to sport. The kids here know what they can do now, because Gach is the one showing them."

We too believe that Gach is an inspiring young player, we are proud to support him and we wish him all the best for this week’s AFL draft!

For the full article about Gach’s story, click to read here.

James MacLeod,

Managing Director, Tobin Brothers Funerals