HOW COACH STEPPED UP WHEN

ABOUT this time last year I saw Neil Henry’s name pop up on my phone and cursed out loud.

A few days earlier I had reached out to the Gold Coast Titans coach for the first time.

The Friday Warriors charity lunch I help organise each year was in a pickle. One of our guest speakers had bailed a week before the big day and we were in desperate need of a replacement. A footy mate suggested I try Henry and flicked me his email address.

Within hours he replied: “A tragic story and yes, I would be more than happy to attend.”

Henry didn’t know me from a bar of soap. He had no connection with our beneficiary, a young father left paralysed after a surfing accident. The Titans had a do-or-die match the day after our event.

But he didn’t hesitate to lend his star power to yet another community event.

I was over the moon … until my phone rang two days before the lunch. “Bugger,” I thought when I saw Henry’s name. “He’s going to cancel.” He didn’t.

Instead he told me how he’d had a heap of items in storage for the past couple of years, an obvious flow-on from being a nomadic coach.

That week one such container had turned up at his Gold Coast home and as he looked at the footy memorabilia he had collected over the years, he wondered where he was going to put it all. Then he thought of me. “I’m thinking you might want to auction one of the jerseys at your lunch,” he said. “There’s one here that might get you a few dollars.”

The item? Just a framed 1980 Queensland State of Origin jersey signed by every Maroon who played in that inaugural clash, including the late, great Arthur Beetson.

My heart soared – then sank. I told Henry our auction line-up was pretty much locked and loaded.

“That’s all right,” he said. “Just keep it for next year.”

And that’s what we’ve done, with Henry’s generosity set to benefit Jaysen Searle, the Palm Beach cyclist who suffered critical injuries after colliding with a scrub turkey last year.

While Henry won’t be at our lunch next week, you can bet his name will be mentioned plenty and not just because of his kind donation.