As well you know, football heroes and villains abound in the AFL. Thankfully, we have been blessed with the former at our Club. My favourites have been Troy Cook, the fabulous Dale Kickett and the unflappable twig of integrity Shane Parker.
You can now add everyone's hero, Shaun McManus.
It's a rarity that I find a message in Dolly Parton's lyrics, but she seems to be singing about our Macca.
These are the times of the everyday hero
This is the battlefield of the working man
Trying to survive, staying alive, giving it all that he can
With a fire in his soul that keeps burning
And a dream in his heart that won't die
Living day to day, there's no easy way in this everyday life.
Macca trod a the Fremantle Road that wasn't easy to tread. He fought. He dodged the slings and arrows. And he maintained the path that any other man would have dismissed as too hard.
Macca wasn't the sublimely skilled, pretty-boy midfielder who polished off the hard work of others. He was the hard work. He was the chaser. The in-and-under player that everyone relied upon. The man who wanted nothing more than his Club, our Club to succeed.
His dream was our dream. Macca was and is our everyday hero.