The death of Tony Dunkerley has saddened the whole football community in Victoria and Australia
He was probably best known as President and Commissioner of Football Federation Victoria during the transition from the Victorian Soccer Federation, but he had a long and distinguished career as coach and mentor to generations of football players at all levels.
He was born in England in 1940 and while the male members of his family were away in the services during the war, he was sent to the Isle of Bute in the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, which was a bit too close to Glasgow which was also being bombed at the time.
He came to Australia as an assisted migrant when he was twenty years old.
Like many single young men he was very lonely initially and found his way into Australian society through sport, particularly but not exclusively football.
He was also an excellent cricketer and tennis player. He played football at Springvale City in Melbourne and found that he had an aptitude for teaching becoming coach of the reserves and then the senior team in 1979.
Tim White, who was Victorian director of coaching, helped him into coaching at state level primarily with juniors and youths.
All this was done while he held down high-level positions in a UK based multi-national company.
His coaching career included stints with the Joeys and several Victorian representative teams.
Generations of Australian players at all levels benefited from his mentoring and his enthusiastic approach to football and personal development.
He had a deep sense that one has only a life interest in the game and that you must do everything you can to leave the sport in a better position than it was when you became involved.
So he worked as hard at grass-roots level as he did at peak of the game in Victoria and Australia.
He became the president of Old Mentonians Soccer Club, where his son Cameron played.
It was as a senior official of the VSF and FFV that he made some vital contributions to the development of the game.
He was a commissioner of the Victorian Soccer Federation from 1996 and was reelected in 2003 when women and juniors were given voting rights for the first time.
He presided over the implementation of the FFV’s Strategic Plan in 2008–2011 and the rolling out of the Victorian Champions League (Summer League).
He set up the history committee of FFV and put in train the writing of a history of the game in Victoria which was launched in 2009 at the president’s dinner in Young and Jackson’s Hotel where the Anglo-Australian club had met to organize the association game in the colony in 1884.
He was appointed as a Life Member of the Victorian Soccer Federation and Football Federation Victoria in 2000.
The funeral will take place at St Andrew’s Church in Brighton on Tuesday 30 December at 10 am.