John O’Brien
Hi, I’m Jack O’Connor, president of the Greymouth Athletic Club. On behalf of the whole club I’d like to pass on our condolences to John’s family.

Family is what John been part of at our club for 61 years and he will be sorely missed, at the end on a measuring tape or on the stopwatch. He was roped to help while many of our officials were away at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.  And we never let him leave !

He was still measuring discus, javelin, shot, hammer and time keeping at the start of this season until the weather packed up and his health issues began. If you thought he was frail then think again, he moved damn quick when a 2kg discus or a 800gram javelin were coming his way. Almost Gazelle like.

The crazy thing was that he never competed and only ever officiated which is totally unheard of these days. He was also secretary for 13 years and vice president for many more.

By the numbers I’ve roughly calculated he’s measured well over 1 million throws & jumps and timed over somewhere around ¼ of a million races. Probably rolled up 200,000 tape measures & raked who knows how many sandpits.  If the old adage that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert then John well and truly qualifies as a “master official” of track and field.

But John never mentions those things, he was more proud of things like He & Eddie Gray were the only people to see Dave McKenzie off from Greymouth Airport on his way to Boston marathon success but there were 1,000s there to welcome him back. He often mentioned the pride of seeing Dave running in the club singlet on the World stage.

His infamous fundraising ‘antics” with Roy Williams raised 1200 lbs towards the new ANZAC Park pavilion. Some suggest the same chook was raffle 52 times but that was only hearsay !!

He helped plant the pines trees that finally came down 2 years ago for safety reasons.

John feigned attention for his deeds however he was awarded the West Coast Sports Administrator of the year in 1988 & when nominated for a Badge of Gold award in 2001 to recognise contribution to grassroots sports, he initially declined it until Margaret Swinburn pointed out the club got $500 and a night with Sir Richard Hadlee. He quickly changed his mind.

This season John wasn’t able to officiate as he wanted but he took great pride in the performance of the WC Mahar Cup team of 15 mostly young people who finished second to Nelson. He was excited to see the youngsters returning and proud to have played his part in that performance.

Personally I shared an interest in horse racing with John and we regularly crossed paths at the Aussie Hotel TAB. I was there one day and this guy kept calling him Moses. I knew John was religious and asked him what the story was, being called Moses . He said well, in the bible God told Moses to go fourth, well unfortunately that’s exactly where most of my horses I bet on end up – Fourth !!

John, was a life member of the Greymouth athletic Club and if ever a double life membership were available he would be most deserving.  He had many other passions and gave the same support to St Johns, the Greymouth Trotting club, the Workingmen’s Club and many other organisations.

John, we celebrate you as a gentleman and all round wonderful person who gave your time for the benefit of others. There are “givers” and  ”takers” in this world and John was definitely a giver.

Thank you for the privilege of knowing you.