Marg Connellan’s final outfit, worn on the day of her funeral, was her Prahran Netball Association hoodie, tracksuit pants and signature puffer jacket, topped by a Geelong footy beanie.
“They were her two loves: netball and the Cats,’’ says Kate Campbell, Connellan’s successor as PNA president following the 70-year-old’s sudden passing in February.
“Some of our rep players - oh gosh, I get emotional even thinking about it - formed a guard of honour for her coffin, which was beautiful. We all sobbed, but it was really a very special moment.
“Netball was very much her life towards the end. She had a career as a medical scientist before that, but all her spare time was really so heavily involved in running this netball association.
"I think we all feel immensely grateful for her enormous contribution to our netball community and also the local community. What she has done for our kids is phenomenal.’’
Connellan was the co-founder, with Bella Parker, of the PNA in the mid-1980s, when Sunday mornings were spent sweeping up the syringes and broken glass from the old Cato St carpark off Chapel St so that the temporary goal posts could be installed and play could begin on the shopping strip's only non-trading day.
Having been a player, coach, umpire and administrator in the decades since, while also spending 2000-07 on the Netball Victoria board after two stints on its State Council, Connellan’s great passion was for young girls and women to have the chance to have fun and be active through team sport.
Her dream: to secure a suitable venue for the netballers of the City of Stonnington to call home.
After decades of dedication to the cause, the shame was that Connellan could not be physically present on June 21 when the local councillors voted 6-2 in favour of starting the building process for the long-awaited $27 million, four-court Percy Treyvaud Stadium in Malvern East.
“Knowing Marg, I think she would have actually got up and said ‘it’s about bloody time!’ She was pretty feisty,’’ laughs Campbell. “I think she would have been thrilled but also really relieved, because it was such a long fight - she’s been fighting for courts since 1988.
“But she just kept going. Whatever (facilities) they could get their hands on they just kept running the PNA, and it’s really been very substandard. It was getting to the point where it’s really hard for the association to grow, and therefore manage costs effectively for the community, so she was certainly worried about the future if we didn’t get any more courts.
“I think we all felt like she was there on Monday. It was hugely emotional - even though she would have gone ‘oh, God, we could have had it built by now, if you hadn’t all carried on!’ She’d be really pumped, and we all felt that. We all had a glass of champagne and a toast afterwards and said ‘for you, Marg’.’’
While long-overdue stadium approval was the big-ticket item, Connellan’s selfless - and unpaid, until 2015, when she started receiving a small administrator’s wage for the first time - contribution came at all levels.
Former Netball Victoria president Jenny Sanchez hailed her “brutally ethical” friend’s ability to think in both the community-based and elite spheres, while always emphasising the connection between the two.
“All the way through, Marg’s been that constant that said young girls and women have to have a place - it’s not a carpark, it’s not a leaky gym, it has to be somewhere they can really progress, and progress with a vision that if they want to they can get somewhere special, like the Vixens.
“You always had to bring a logical argument with good evidence because, if not, she would challenge it... Marg had a really strong understanding of community-based netball and what it took, actually, to deliver it, and how to engage people within it.
"So you could get a really good idea, or so you thought, staff and board, and she’d just go ‘no, that will mean XYZ for us, that will mean more work for us. That doesn’t actually help us.’ You could always rely on her advice to know whether what you thought was good for community netball actually was.
"She was a clever, articulate, introverted but seriously determined woman.’’
A huge outpouring of grief, respect and affection followed Connellan's passing. Stories were shared about Sunday nights spent - still in netball uniform - at The Chevron nightclub, cold beer in hand, dancing around handbags.
Messages were received from PNA alumni around Australia that she had touched, and whose stories she knew and treasured.
“We have parents whose children are playing now who used to play as kids when Marg was around, so our community had a really deep attachment to Marg,’’ says Campbell. “She was there every Saturday, ringing her bell, and telling people off, usually! She was about 5’2”, and came across as really quite gruff and tough, but had a heart of gold and was actually the kindest person you could know.
“Our kids were devastated and, because she ran the rep program, those girls were shattered. We got them to write on a sticky note what they remembered most about Marg, and we spelt her name out on a wall, which reduced all of us to tears.
"But it was hilarious to read, and I have to say one of them was ‘g’day darls’, because everywhere she went it was ‘g’day darls, you right darls, how can I help you, darls?’ That’s what she used to say. And ‘no mucking round. Get on with it’. It was ‘hey darls, how are ya? Yeah, good, right get on with it.’’
The hope is that there will be a permanent tribute at the Percy Treyvaud Stadium - the hard-fought approval for which Sanchez is convinced would never have eventuated without Connellan’s will, tenacity, and persistence.
“It’s true of many stories around Australia in netball: there are key people at key times that deliver key outcomes. Marg’s one of them. She had plenty of people on the journey, but Marg’s the constant. She never surrendered.
“So they’d better call that centre court the Marg Connellan centre court, that’s what I reckon. Or else we’ll fundraise and get a statue put there for her.’’
Picture it. In bronze. Perhaps wearing a hoodie and a beanie. Ringing a bell. Outside a precious new stadium as everyone just gets on with it. Now, darls, there’s been worse ideas.
Written by Linda Pearce
