It is with great sadness that I must report the passing away of a great friend and legendary Survivor, Nick Van Gelder. He was with us on the pitch from 1999-2000, and with us off the pitch until his untimely death on July 18 of this year. One week prior to that date, he suffered a massive heart attack from which he was unable to recover. Nick was healthy, fit and young...the attack was just a case of horribly bad luck.
On the pitch "Lovey Dovey" played with us memorably on our tours to Saigon, Vietnam in the fall of 99 and to the Guam 10s in our first appearance there in 2000. It was in Guam that Nick played his final game of rugby. After leading our team to two victories at the start, he suffered a terrible leg injury in the third game and was taken to the hospital with multiple tears in his knee. We didn't win another game in that tournament after that. Suffice to say losing him was the end for us as well. He was an exceptionally good back and had the ability to turn a game with his clever passing and running.
Perhaps it was in his genes - his father, Malcom, played a few games for the Wallabies back in the 1960s. After retiring from rugby, Nick continued to be an ardent supporter of our club and of rugby in general. He got us our first big (and to this day still by far the biggest) sponsorship deal through his company, Macquarie Bank. This sponsorship deal did a lot towards gettting us going in the first Yellow Sea Cup. As well, he did a lot of work trying to promote rugby in Korea - he organised the Macquarie Bank sponsorship of the Korean Rugby Union that resulted in the Friendship Cup fixture between Korea and China played at Oryu-dong in September 2006.
Nick's work moved him and his family to Singapore in 2007 - I was very sorry to see him leave, but glad in knowing that he would still be coming to Korea a few times a year for work. Nick could always be counted on to show up at Scrooge for a few rounds whenever he was in town. I often wondered, though, if he was just checking to make sure I was taking good care of his ex-baby - the bike I bought from him before he left! Sadly, his last visit here was just shortly before he died, on June 17th, where he took a final spin on it. Neither one of us had any idea at the time that we wouldn't be seeing each other again.
Nick is survived by his wonderful wife, Samantha, and his two beautiful daughters, Alex and Anna. My heart goes out to them all.
It is with great sadness that I must report the passing away of a great friend and legendary Survivor, Nick Van Gelder. He was with us on the pitch from 1999-2000, and with us off the pitch until his untimely death on July 18 of this year. One week prior to that date, he suffered a massive heart attack from which he was unable to recover. Nick was healthy, fit and young...the attack was just a case of horribly bad luck.
