Australian rules football has been left reeling after Phil Walsh, a senior figure and the coach of the Adelaide Crows club, was stabbed to death and his son charged with murder.
Walsh, 55, was treated for multiple stab wounds but died at the scene after police and paramedics were called to a house in Adelaide, South Australia, on Friday.
Walsh’s wife, Meredith, was being treated in hospital for non life-threatening injuries from an incident that left players, organisers and fans of Australia’s own football code in shock.
Cy Walsh, 26, was arrested and detained for a psychiatric assessment. Police later charged him with murder.
Phil Walsh was widely regarded as making a successful start to his coaching career at the top level this season. The Adelaide Crows sit in seventh place, having won seven games out of 12.
Gillon McLachlan, the chief executive of the Australian Football League, said Sunday’s AFL game between Adelaide and Geelong would be cancelled, saying it would not be fair to ask young players to play “in these circumstances”.
The chairman of Adelaide’s board of directors, Rob Chapman, said the short term was “all about wrapping our arms around all of these guys, all the people in our footy community, and offering them all the support that we can provide”.
Players had been told to “make sure you ask each other how you’re going at the end of the day. And whether you’re a player, fan, father, mother, just talk, talk to people”, he said.
He paid tribute to Walsh, who had taken over the club late last year: “He’s a coach, he’s a leader of men. Unambiguous, straight up and down, clear messaging, inspiring, genuinely cared,” he said.
Politicians and sporting figures from the many clubs he was involved with expressed their shock and grief at the killing.
The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said there was “a pall” over Walsh’s home town, Hamilton, and “a pall over AFL more generally today”.
“I certainly would want to extend my deepest condolences to his family, to his friends, to his colleagues and perhaps we might just pause for a moment or two of silence,” he said.
McLachlan said earlier Walsh was a man of “boundless energy and enthusiasm”.
“Our industry is grieving today, and we send our love and support to the Walsh family, the Crows staff and players, Phil’s wider circle of friends, the other clubs he worked with and his many colleagues across the AFL,” he said.
South Australia’s premier, Jay Weatherill, also expressed his condolences. “My thoughts are currently with Phil’s family, friends, as well as the players, officials and supporters of the Adelaide football club. These thoughts extend to everyone who has associated with Phil throughout his career.”
Nathan Brown, a former player at Richmond Football Club and a TV commentator for Australia’s Nine Network, said the death was shocking and would affect many AFL clubs.
“He’s been at half the AFL clubs,” Brown said. “This is going to touch so many people.”
The Adelaide-born Australian education minister, Christopher Pyne, tweeted that Walsh’s death was a “terrible tragedy”.
Phil Walsh's death is a terrible tragedy for his family and all who knew him @Adelaide_FC. My thoughts are with them. #AdelaideCrows
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) July 2, 2015
Walsh, the youngest of seven siblings, rose from a rural setting in Victoria to reach the game’s biggest stage.
The son of a second world war veteran, he trained as a teacher in Bendigo, Victoria, before making his debut in the Victorian Football League with Collingwood in 1983. He won the equivalent of the Rising Star award for best young player, and was poached by Richmond the following year. He joined Brisbane in 1987, picking up the club’s best and fairest award.
A handy wingman, it was as an old-school coach – “a hard man, a hard taskmaster,” Adelaide legend Graham Cornes said – that Walsh left his biggest imprint on the game.
He became strength and conditioning coach at Geelong football club in 1995, joined Port Adelaide as an assistant coach four years later and then the West Coast Eagles in 2009. In 2014 he re-joined Port, before applying for the vacant spot at the Crows and winning it.
“He bloomed, it was the opportunity he had been waiting for,” Cornes said on Friday.
However, his obsessive focus on football left little room for anything else. Asked if he was a good father, he admitted “that’s a really hard question”.
“The bonus of me taking the Crows job is my son is 26 and my daughter is 22, so the collateral damage isn’t so big. But have I been a good father? To my son, I had a disconnect because of footy,” he said.
“In a selfish way, I taught my daughter to surf, and that’s my release, so when I go surfing, I take her. Now I’ve got my son into it as well and that’s what I should’ve done a long time ago.
“A couple of months ago we all went surfing together at Middleton and it was almost the best day I’ve had ... ever,” he said.
