We should be judged on how we deal with our most vulnerable
UNSUNG HERO STEPHEN BALL ON BEING ON THE FRONT LINE WHEN TRAGEDY STRIKES FAMILIES
WHEN tragedy or trauma strikes in rugby league, Stephen Ball is the sport’s representative at the front door of the devastated relatives involved.
Ten years ago it was the Purdham family home after former Workington and Whitehaven player Garry was one of Cumbrian taxi driver Derrick Bird’s 12 murder victims.
When Danny Jones collapsed and died while playing for Keighley Cougars because of an undiagnosed heart issue in 2015, it was Ball who reached out to widow Lizzie and their baby twins.
It was the same after the heartbreaking deaths of Archie Bruce just hours after his professional debut for Batley in France last year, and 17-year-old Ronan Costello following a tragic accident in a Huddersfield Giants academy game in 2016.
But in his decade as general manager of the Rugby League Benevolent Fund – an independent charity that provides assistance to players and their families after life-changing injuries – Ball has also seen his fair share of triumph. Stories like that of London Broncos academy player Matt King, who qualified as a lawyer despite being paralysed from the neck down from an injury sustained on the field.
Or leading amateur Pete Stephenson, who learned to walk again and has transformed his life since shattering his back during a game. More recently, Ball – a man steeped in rugby league having played, coached and been a director at Batley, Hull FC and Leeds – has been at the bedside
of Hull KR prop Mose Masoe, who suffered a career-ending spinal injury in preseason this January. “I said to him ‘you and I are going to become good friends – whether you like it or not’,” said Ball, 62.
“Our game should be judged by how we deal with the most vulnerable people,” he added. “It’s not all about stars – it’s how we look after people who put their body on the line 20 years ago and who have been unable to enjoy ordinary lives since. “When death occurs in such circumstances, for families, it doesn’t come with a script.”
The first instance that Ball vividly remembers is the Purdham family home a decade ago this June. Garry, above, who had moved into the amateur game with Egremont after spells with Workington and Whitehaven, was mass murderer Bird’s ninth victim, shot and killed while repairing a fence. “I met the family two days after,” said Ball. “Going in, I got very emotional. When you see the hurt and pain in people’s hearts and faces, you can’t help but be touched.
“That’s a good thing and that humanises you as well.
“The Purdhams are a tight-knit family and said they only expected a couple of dozen people at the funeral but I asked them to humour me and let us pay for the cost of some loudspeakers because we knew the rugby league community of Cumbria would want to pay their respects.
“Around 2,000 people came to express their support for the family in tragic circumstances.”
Five years later Ball had to make the same call at the home of Lizzie Jones following the sudden death of husband Danny.
Ball said: “I knocked on the door, Lizzie’s dad answered it and said I’d better come in. There was a slight mistrust in his eyes over who this man was who’d come to speak to his daughter in those circumstances.
“They asked me all the right questions and I gave them the answers. Then the dad pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted a beer. Now he didn’t want a beer and I didn’t want a beer, but we had a beer together because we both knew that it was symbolic of him accepting me into his family, and that I’d come for the right reasons – to help his daughter.”
● You can support the work of the RL Benevolent Fund by donating via the independent charity’s Justgiving page, https://www.justgiving.com/ rfluk