The first chairman of Neale Daniher’s FightMND charity has opened up about his last conversation with the AFL icon last Thursday, revealing how he knew it was the last time he’d ever speak to his great mate.
Bill Guest, who also served as the vice-president of the Melbourne Demons when Daniher was coach, said the 65-year-old was his usual good-humoured self despite almost being at the end of his battle with motor neurone disease.
‘I saw him on Thursday afternoon, which was very much a goodbye, sadly,’ Guest told Channel Seven.
‘I walked into where Neale sits … in their living room and he had wires up everywhere and it was clearly the last time I was going to see him.
‘Still had his humour, we still cracked some jokes.
‘I was with [FightMND co-founder] Pat Cunningham and I knew when we left we’d never see Neale again. It was very sad.
Two of Neale Daniher’s closest mates have revealed their last conversations with the footy icon after his death from motor neurone disease (Daniher is pictured with Melbourne Demons star Max Gawn)
Bill Guest (pictured) was the vice-president of the Demons when Neale coached the team
Guest (pictured) said he knew he’d never see Neale again after visiting him on Thursday
‘Even today when [Daniher’s wife] Jenny rang this morning you still shed a tear even though you know it’s going to happen, and we’d known what was going to happen for a long time.
‘It doesn’t change who he was and how you feel about it.
‘I remember him as selfless, incredibly honest, unbelievably stubborn … he was very stoic … just incredible ability, and strength and perseverance.’
Guest added that Daniher did an amazing job with a ‘s**t team’ when he coached the Demons.
He remembered wanting to raise $100,000 when FightMND was first launched, and said the next Big Freeze event ‘will probably raise about $20million’.
Another of Daniher’s great friends, Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan, also paid tribute to him on Monday night.
Fagan got his start at the AFL level through Daniher, who made him an assistant at Melbourne, and the pair remained close.
‘We became friends and our families became friends, our kids got together a lot,’ Fagan said.
Guest was the first chairman of Daniher’s FightMND charity. He believes its Big Freeze event (pictured) next week will ‘raise about $20million’
Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan got his big break in the AFL courtesy of Daniher. He said the footy legend was ‘like my big brother’
‘For me personally, coming from the outside, a bit of a no-name, he made me feel like I belonged, that I had an important role to play.
‘I was lucky enough about five or six weeks ago, I went to watch Melbourne play Gold Coast Suns at the MCG because we were playing Melbourne a couple of weeks later.
‘I look across and there was Neale in his wheelchair, so I was able to go along and have a little chat to him.
‘I’m ever so grateful for that because I didn’t realise that would be the last opportunity, but there he was watching his beloved Dees and telling me we might have a bit of trouble with them in a week or two’s time — and he was completely correct about that.’
Fagan also said Daniher was ‘like my big brother’.
‘I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for him,’ the Lions boss told Nine Newspapers.
Daniher will be honoured with a state funeral after his family accepted the offer from Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.
‘We’re with [the Daniher family] right now and we’ll continue to be with [the family] as we keep up Neale’s fight against ‘the beast’ and find a cure for MND,’ Allan said after the news of the Bombers legend’s death broke on Monday.
