Hannah McGuire spends final night of her life at her home football and netball club as Clunes reveals tribute.
Hannah McGuire’s netball teammates should be running out alongside her at Clunes today but instead they will be wearing black armbands while remembering the last night they spent with her.
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Today was meant to be a happy and historic day for Hannah McGuire.
She should be preparing to pull on her familiar and favourite black and white netball uniform in preparation for her return to the Clunes Football/Netball club after having played last year at Beaufort.
Instead her teammates, with whom she had happily trained, dined and drank with in her final hours will be wearing black arm bands in her honour.
It is hard for the Clunes community to come to terms with the fact that last Thursday night, Hannah was training on their home court, preparing to play netball again for her home club before having dinner with her friends and family at the Clunes pub her parents own.
But just a few hours later her life would be tragically cut short and her body found in a burnt car in Scarsdale, near Ballarat, on Friday, April 5.
McGuire’s ex-boyfriend Lachlan Young has been charged with her murder and is yet to enter a plea.
The Clunes Magpies should be welcoming her back today, but instead they are grieving the player who had such a decorated career in juniors in the Central Highlands Football Netball League.
In 2015, Hannah was the CHNL best and fairest for the competition, claiming 38 votes during the season to win the award.
“We were all expecting that come round one she was pulling on the dress for the Clunes Football Netball Club and was starting her time back with us,” Clunes president Andrew Stinchcombe said.
“It was a massive hit for the football and netball club.
“We’re very much in shock and it was one of those things of disbelief.
“It was not something anyone would have been thinking about (happening).”
Hannah spent the final hours of her life doing what she loved at the club she loved the most.
She trained with the netball team on Thursday night before most players at the club went to the National Hotel at Clunes to have dinner.
The club will now rally together to celebrate McGuire’s life in their first match of the Central Highlands league 2024 season against Waubra on Saturday (today).
“We are going to be doing a minute’s silence between the first and second quarter of the B-grade netball, which will coincide with the reserves finishing and the seniors starting in football,” Stinchcombe said.
“Our plan is to be up on the netball court and have the A’s, B’s and C’s of the netballers along the sideline of the court with the reserves and seniors football side.
“We’re playing Waubra Football Netball Club and they are more than happy to help and are going along the same lines.”
Both teams are expected to gather at 2.20pm with players wearing both black and white armbands – black being the colour of mourning, with white a show of support for the White Ribbon Foundation, which is in support of ending domestic violence.
Stinchcombe said the club was a long-time supporter of the White Ribbon as it had been struck by a separate tragedy in the past.
Each year Clunes and Learmonth, another club in the CHFNL, play in support of the White Ribbon Foundation after Sharon Siermans was murdered in 2013 by Jason John Dinsley.
Siermans was a player and volunteer at both clubs.
“Family violence is something our club is against,” Stinchcombe said.
“What we want to do on the netball courts (on Saturday) should actually show a good front in relation to it.
“We want to stand up against it.”
McGuire’s previous CHNL club Beaufort will also have a minute’s silence and wear black armbands in tribute.
Beaufort and Daylesford will conduct the minute’s silence at 2.20pm at Daylesford’s home ground.
Meanwhile some clubs in the nearby Ballarat Football Netball League will also pay tribute to the three women lost in the off-season to violence.
Ballarat’s community has been rocked not only by the death of McGuire but the loss of Samantha Murphy and Rebecca Young in February.
BFNL Operations & Netball Manager Gemma Murphy said some clubs and players wanted to show their support for the female community.
“Some are wearing armbands and some are drawing on hearts with the number three in them to represent the three women we’ve lost over the past few weeks,” she said.
“We’re all connected with these women, it’s a small place.
“We all know them through friends or family or sport.
“It has a massive impact on all of us.”
Some football teams are also set to wear black armbands and the hearts symbol with a three on it.
“If the netball setting is doing something like that, the football will follow,” BFNL football manager Matt Newton said.
“It’s dependent on how close (the deaths) it is to members in the club as to what they will do.
“There’s no directive (from the league to do something) but we are supportive of anything they may do to honour those women and women in general.”
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