Top: Pearcedale Football Club players clapped Shaughn O’Connor onto the ground when he played his 300th game for the club in 2007. By Bridget Brady
THE day before he died, Pearcedale Football Club player and treasurer Shaughn O’Connor said all he wanted to do was get out of bed and play footy.
Mr O’Connor, known as ‘Bomber’, was the treasurer of the Pearcedale Football Club for almost 10 years and was farewelled by more than 500 people last week.
The “easy-going” man who had reached his 300-game milestone with the club died from skin cancer on Father’s Day aged 37.
His wife, Danielle, said the pair used to joke that football was “his other woman … he loved it. It certainly did take up a lot of his time and I used to be at home and think ‘surely he can’t still be at the footy club’.”
Mrs O’Connor said it still felt like her husband was away on a holiday.
“It was sad to watch him deteriorate and it’s still so hard to believe. We’re just in a bit of shock,” she said. “I know we’ve got a bit of a road ahead of us getting used to not having him here.”
Mr O’Connor, from Mornington, first discovered that a mole on his back was a melanoma in 2007. He had it cut out that year and continued to play football and have regular check ups until he discovered a pea-sized lump under his right arm in January.
He had surgery in March to remove all of the lymph nodes in his right arm. During that surgery doctors found another lump.
“On 12 August a scan showed the melanoma had spread and was in his liver. Unfortunately it showed that it was quite aggressive.”
Mrs O’Connor took her partner of 10 years to emergency the week before he died when his condition worsened.
“It all happened in about two weeks and it came on so quickly and suddenly. We thought we might have a few months and a bit of warning.”
Mr O’Connor continued to play football during his treatment and played his last game for the over-35s Cranbourne Superules Football Club on 23 August.
Mrs O’Connor has two sons, Mitchell and Braiden, and the pair has a four-year-old daughter, Sage.
“He never hesitated to treat the boys as if they were anything but his own sons.”
Mrs O’Connor said she and her husband felt a little uneducated about melanomas and encouraged everyone to get any moles checked.
