Watch the touching tributes from AFL stars to Michael Turner in his final days
In the final days of Cats and Falcons legend Mick Turner’s battle with pancreatic cancer, some of the AFL’s biggest names sent videos to tell him how much he meant. Watch them ahead of the Dare To Hope game.
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They’re the video messages that gave Geelong team of the century member Michael Turner a sense of satisfaction and pride in his final days.
In the lead-up to Christmas last year, a group of current and past greats who had their football futures – and their lives – shaped by Turner sent him their best wishes and gratitude as he bravely fought the last stages of pancreatic cancer.
The insidious disease was about to take him after 23 months of fighting.
But as he was surrounded by his wife and soulmate, Karen, and their sons, Turner also felt the love from a small sample of the hundreds of young footballers he had guided with his unique mix of tough love, care, life lessons and astute footy nous.
The man who organised the videos, Geelong star Patrick Dangerfield, will spare a special thought for Turner when he leads the Cats out against Hawthorn on Easter Monday for the fourth annual Dare To Hope clash.
Dangerfield told this masthead Turner’s impact – as a player and later as a talent spotter and father-figure to a host of players chasing their AFL dreams via the Geelong Falcons – had been seismic.
“Mick, for me personally, was such an important figure in my junior career,” Dangerfield explained.
“His contribution to the Geelong Football Club as a player and captain, and also his role at the Geelong Falcons … that part is well known. But when there is a personal connection, as there was with so many of us, that’s the sort of thing that you just can’t measure.”
Dangerfield organised the video messages from AFL premiership captains Luke Hodge and Cameron Ling, Brownlow Medallists Gary Ablett Jr. and Jimmy Bartel, Geelong premiership hero Matthew Scarlett and one of Turner’s favourites former Saint Jack Steven.
This masthead was granted permission from those players – and Turner’s wife Karen – to use some of those messages as part of this year’s Dare To Hope campaign.
Turner died on December 30 last year, less than a month after his 70th birthday, and eight months after helping to promote the 2024 Dare To Hope match.
This fixture has become one of the signature AFL events, raising awareness and much-needed funds for research into pancreatic cancer – one of the most deadly, underfunded cancers, which kills almost 4000 Australians a year with survival rates barely changing in the past 40 years.
Dare To Hope was set up as part of the legacy of Hawthorn’s 1991 Norm Smith Medal winner Paul Dear, who died from the disease in 2022, aged 55.
Dear’s wife, Cherie, and their children, have kept the Dare To Hope momentum going, in trying to educate on a cancer that has no early detection test and that has such a high death rate that it takes the voices of those suffering so swiftly that they can barely tell their stories.
It’s fitting now that two great footy rivals – Hawthorn and Geelong – have combined to put the focus on the fight against pancreatic cancer, with the Dare To Hope game.
Dangerfield’s message to Turner came from the heart and centred on his ability to get things done that others couldn’t.
How else can you explain how Turner was able to get the AFL – and the Crows – to agree to a teenage Dangerfield playing with the Geelong Falcons (as he was still at school), even though he had already been drafted by Adelaide.
“Mick, it’s Paddy here, I would love to say (I’m) your favourite, but we both know it was Jack Steven,” Dangerfield said in his message.
“I’ve called on some of your greatest ever graduates to put together a few little videos around their favourite memories at the Falcons, and the impact you had on their careers – good, bad and indifferent.
“Mine goes back to 2007 … I get drafted … You helped strong arm or twist the AFL into allowing me to play for the Geelong Falcons whilst being listed by Adelaide.
“God knows you would have had a huge amount of blow back, not only from the AFL but I am sure from other clubs. But you have an incredible way of impacting and – how do I politely put it – getting your own way, to be honest.
“My family, mum and dad particularly, will always be indebted to you for that and the enormous impact you had on my career … you are at the very top mate.”
Scarlett, one of the game’s greatest defenders, this week told us that he would have never played any of his 284 games without Turner’s guidance and support.
In his message to Turner late last year, Scarlett said: “You have been a really special person in my life, mate, and I can’t thank you enough. So I am sending out my best wishes. I love you mate, good luck.”
Hodge is another who knows his illustrious four premiership career at Hawthorn – three as captain – may not have happened without Turner teaching the kid from Colac the dedication and professionalism required to be an AFL footballer.
“Hey Mick, I can’t thank you enough for the support and guidance that you have shown me since I was a kid, bringing me up as a 15-year-old to the Falcons,” Hodge said.
“I still remember vividly when I was summoned to Jack’s boot room (at the Falcons), it was like I was going to the principal’s office.
“I thought I was going to get expelled. You tore absolute shreds off me for my professionalism … how fat I was, how much weight I had put on, and it wasn’t muscle. But at the end you finished it off by saying that I won’t live up to my potential if I don’t switch on and it is something I’ve remembered to today.”
Then Hodge added with a smile: “The other thing which was a bit confusing was you used to get the bus pick-up from Warrnambool to Geelong at the Colac McDonalds and what else was a fat kid from Colac supposed to do apart from having a couple of double cheeseburgers before training, having the pizza after training up at Geelong, and then finishing with a cone and chocolate flake on the way home. Perfect night for a 15 or 16-year-old kid.
“I can’t thank you enough for everything you have done and the support you have shown me over the years. Cheers mate.”
Ling said: “G’day Mick, you are a bloody legend. I have got so many good memories of all the times we had at the Falcons together.”
“I appreciate everything you have done for me throughout my footy career. I loved those Falcons days. You are an absolute champion. All the very best mate!”
Turner’s wife Karen said the videos meant the world to her husband, whose impact on the game spread across half a century.
He was named on the wing in Geelong’s Team of the Century – his father Leo was selected on the other wing – courtesy of his 245-game, 285-goal career from 1974 to 1988.
His impact rolled on for almost another three decades as the talent manager of the Geelong Falcons, as he helped to get 134 players drafted into the AFL and AFLW system.
Geelong chief executive Steve Hocking said the club was proud to work alongside Hawthorn for the Dare To Hope game, as part of its ongoing gratitude to Turner.
Hocking, who was a former teammate of Turner’s, said: “Mick had a real presence about him, what you saw in him as a player was similar to what he was like off the field.”
“He knew how to own a room. He had a bit of magic about him. I remember coming in as a youngster and him just embracing you … he was like that with everyone.
“He was an incredible person … There are so many guys here (at Geelong) to this day who have been impacted by him.
“(The Dare To Hope) game is huge … It’s our home game this year and we are looking forward to having something like 85,000 there.
“The awareness of the Dear family and the Turner family is so important. Hopefully we can work together and make it even bigger.”
Dangerfield told this masthead: “I loved him and it is so sad for the family and for Karen … but this is a wonderful cause.”
Asked about his favourite personal story, Dangerfield said: “(One day) I thought I had an OK game. I had 37 in a TAC Cup game, but he mustn’t have seen the stats. He came in and said: ‘You’ve been really average tonight, really average’.
“Then he came back afterwards (after he had seen the stats) and said: ‘You’ve had 37, but I don’t think it was your best game’. He was stubborn, he was never wrong.”
Geelong forward Gryan Miers, one of 14 current Cats recruited from the Falcons, said Turner’s tough love was one of the reasons why he is playing AFL footy.
“Mick was amazing,” Miers said. “He was really hard on me in my two years at Falcons … but he made it a professional environment which made the crossover to AFL so much easier.
“I absolutely loved the place (at Falcons) and loved working with him. I was so lucky to have Mick as part of my life, and for us to all be a part of his as well.”
Miers said one moment with Turner stands out as being incredibly beneficial to his footy future.
“After our last game for the Falcons before finals … I had just been diagnosed with glandular fever. I was feeling terrible and I played terrible. He stood next to me and said: ‘Well, you’re not getting drafted mate, you might not be good enough’. I said: ‘Fair enough, Mick’.
“Then he said to me: ‘You’ve got one game to prove (you are)’ … and fortunately enough I was best on ground in the grand final’. I owe it to Mick. He (deliberately) got me fired up.”
Miers said it was a privilege to play in the Dare To Hope game, saying: “Mick had an amazing life, but it was cut too short.”
“It is important that the community get around his family and other families who are struggling (due to pancreatic cancer).”
Cherie Dear said her bond with Karen Turner had grown from their respective loss: “We married two straight-talking, courageous men and they chose women who won’t be quiet when it comes to raising awareness and funding to fight this aggressive and horrible cancer.”
“Knowing what we know now, we can’t stay quiet. We don’t want to talk in euphemisms. This is an ugly cancer with terrible outcomes. We have to do something about it.”
Help raise money for research and honour those we’ve lost to Pancreatic Cancer by making a donation at daretohope.com.au
Originally published as Watch the touching tributes from AFL stars to Michael Turner in his final days
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