On behalf of the Football Club’s family, past and present, I wish to extend our sincere condolences to Andrea Evans and her family at the sad passing of her husband, Ron Evans earlier today.

Ron Evans has had a long involvement with football as a player, a board member and President of the Essendon Football Club and board member and Chairman of the AFL Commission, up until his retirement from that post a month ago.

Ron has also had an outstanding commercial career and he brought his extraordinarily high standards and values to his leadership of the AFL in such a way that all of us within the Code have been the beneficiaries. No-one should ever underestimate that while Ron provided a very steady hand on the tiller of the development of Australian Rules Football, that is not to infer that he was not prepared to take risks to develop the Code.

All of those that knew Ron will miss him as an individual, but it is not often until someone has left us that we fully appreciate the extraordinary leadership they provided throughout their career.

On behalf of all associated with Hawthorn, we say farewell Ron, we say thank you for your endeavours, we send our sympathies to his wife and family, but we will not forget the extraordinary legacy he left for us all and the standards that you set are the standards that those who remain must ensure never slip.

Jeff Kennett
President
Hawthorn Football Club