VALE DAVID CAINS

It is with great sadness Gordon Rugby Football Club acknowledges the recent death of esteemed member, supporter and sponsor of the club David Cains from a heart attack. Many of you may not know of David or indeed or the role in which he played in the survival of the club in years past. Whilst David never played for the club, he was a long-standing sponsor through one of his business entities, ARMS Global Pty Limited. Indeed, there are probably still a few rugby balls going around at training bearing the ARMS Global logo.

David was a very unassuming man who came to the club via his connections with the Wahroonga Tigers. Despite never having played for the club, David had a deep love for the club and the players. David was involved in debt recovery and risk management activities and it was this expertise in those areas which first alerted him to some of the financial problems which the club was encountering in the period from 2008 onwards.

David’s support for the Gordon Rugby community was widespread and included such activities as organising with Peter Matthews some 3,000 sample bags containing a Gordon T-shirt, sample CD’s courtesy of Dennis Handlin at Sony Music (one of our other great sponsors of the era), Gordon Rugby car stickers and other bits and pieces for them to be delivered to all our junior clubs for distribution to every registered junior that year. He was also a great supporter of club fundraising events, often going home with a framed jersey or guitar or whatever else it was which took his fancy (much to the distress of his family, no doubt).

In recent years, David has been living up on the family property in the Hunter Valley and has been an infrequent visitor to Chatswood Oval. Some of the older members might recall David doing countless laps of Chatswood Oval during home games, so he could report back to his family and his doctors that he had been following the exercise regime they were trying to impose upon him.

David joined the Board and served as a Director in 2013 and was immensely helpful during that time in establishing schemes of arrangements with various creditors and ensuring that all of our external creditors were paid in full.

David is survived by his wife Rose, his daughters Tara and Cian and his son Piers.