The President, Board, Staff and Members of the Collingwood Football Club would like to express their sadness at the passing of Jack Coventry - a former U19 player, a member for over seventy years and a great friend to many at the club.

John ‘Jack’ Sydney Coventry was born on 4 July 1923, the second son of four boys to Syd and Gladys Coventry.

He grew up watching his famous father, Syd, captain Collingwood through one of its most successful eras where the Magpies won a VFL/AFL record of four premierships in a row between 1927 and 1930.

Jack’s grandson, Dirk, says Jack remembered going to Collingwood games during the Great Depression and felt privileged because his father’s football career helped support a better life for his family when many others were not so fortunate.

Coventry went to Melbourne Tech to study Mechanical Engineering where he met his future wife, Eunice Cramer.

He and his eldest brother Hugh Coventry enlisted with the Royal Australian Air Force at the outbreak of World War II.

Syd refused to sign Jack’s papers, so he forged his father’s signature so that he could serve in the war. Jack served the Allies valiantly as a Wireless Air-gunner attached to Bomber Command with 200 operational hours to his name flying over North Africa, Italy and Western Europe.

In 1945, he returned to Australia in 1945 to marry Eunice, and he maintained his involvement with Collingwood throughout the years of Syd’s Presidency of the club (1950-1962) and was a regular frequenter of the Collingwood Social Club, clocking almost 70 years of club membership.

Jack played a number of games with the Collingwood reserves on his return from the War and later went on to run hotels and eventually became a hotel broker, selling hundreds of hotels throughout Melbourne and Victoria.

Dirk says the favourite day in Jack’s calendar was ANZAC Day, when he would march with his comrades in the ANZAC Day parade before watching Collingwood take on Essendon at the MCG.

At the age of 87 and with his eyesight failing, Jack attended the 2010 Grand Final Replay to see Collingwood win.

Jack is survived by his wife Eunice, daughters Karin and Janice, sons in law Brian and Tony, grandsons Blair, Rohan, Dirk and Jack and great granddaughters Lucy, Winifred and Georgie - all of whom, bar Brian (Hawthorn), are avid Collingwood supporters.

Collingwood would like to extend its deepest sympathies to Eunice and the Coventry family.

Side by Side We Stick Together.