Chairman of Well-Being Australia Mark Tronson says it has been his privilege to have been a receiptent of wisdom from numerous such people leading up to and during his 18 years of founding the Sports and Leisure Ministry, 17 years as the Australian cricket team chaplain, and 29 years in faith financed mission.
One of these people was Tony Dunkerley.
Mark Tronson continues the story: In 1984 Tony Dunkerley contacted me after reading an article in "Sports Coach" on my ministry with Australian Cricket.
Tony was the Melbourne based Australian Joey's Soccer assistant coach and has coached many Victorian junior teams. Tony and Jenny are committed Christians and was very keen to be supportive and be encouraged in his own sporting life.
An Englishman, Tony was the Australian Managing Director of a UK multinational. He was well versed on the chaplaincy with English Soccer in both the Premier League and football clubs throughout the UK.
Tony and I established a friendship that continues to this day. We provided each other mutual support in many different ways.
I supported Tony as a Christian man, in his coaching and he became my confidante to better recognise aspects for my wider Executive Ministry. Our first face to face meeting Tony collected me from Whitley College where I'd been visiting the then Principal, Dr Ken Manley. We headed to a Jaguar dealership as he'd been allocated such a vehicle, and he commented: "Let's visit the Jag Shop!"
On another occasion we lunched at a restaurant where the waiter was done up to the nine tails and Tony said, "We should be serving him!"
When Melbourne was bidding for the '96 Olympics the then Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne the late David Penman invited me for afternoon tea to discuss Olympic Ministry. I asked Tony, an Anglican, to accompany me. They had mutual friends.
I invited Tony as key note Speaker for the Sports Ministry's 10th anniversary in 1993 where he kept everyone on the edge of their seats with humour as to his radio and on-site soccer commentary stories.
He launched my book "No Orchestra, No Trumpet" at its 1994 Melbourne launch. Tony Dunkerley is a pleasure to be with.
Tony Dunkerley speaks at schools, youth functions and churches as a sports evangelist and the Dunkerley family have experienced the heartache of cancer with Jenny who has been in remission now for some years.
Tony Dunkerley was elected President of the Victorian Football in 2007 and continues in that role along with coaching and media commentary. He was heavily involved in development of both Melbourne Soccer syndicates for the Victorian sides in the A League – Victory and Heart.
Moreover Tony Dunkerley has accompanied me on many Country Town Tours as a role model and speaking about mentoring, a speciality of his. He was interviewed on the Australian Missionary News IPTV and that video interview can be viewed at
tv.bushorchestra.com/Professionals/videopages/tony_dunkerley.html
Tony Dunkerley says: "We meet so many people in our lives. I wonder what impression is left. I am amazed that after 30 years of coaching that young men approach me whom I coached as juniors, and they remember the opposite to what I do.
"They remember what I said about preparing for the future (study) and how important it is to enjoy soccer.
"Recently Mark Viduka (former Socceroo World Cup captain) spoke to me at the Telstra Dome. Mark came to Japan with the Victorian U/13 side. He asked me about a particular quite small boy who toured Japan with us, how he was going, did he still play (such was his personal interest) and what fun he had with his host family.
"These now men with families of their own still refuse to call him Tony, it is always Mr D. These are treasured moments in the Lord."
