Tony Dunkerley has been an evangelist to young people on Country Town Tours and travelled innumerable times with the retired Australian cricket team chaplain Mark Tronson over these past 28 years.
This Australian Missionary News IPTV interview with Tony Dunkerley can be viewed at either
tv.bushorchestra.com/Professionals/videopages/tony_dunkerley.html or www.safeworlds.net
Tony Dunkerley said he came to Australia in 1962 as a twenty year old as a ten pound pom and was disappointed that the Australian Government put him on the first flight of 48 hours rather than the six week trip on the good ship Fairstar.
He arrived in Melbourne, lonely, without a friend, very young, but he got involved in football (soccer) and this was where he found his footing in the Australian community.
Tony Dunkerley said that football (soccer) was where he found comradeship and never forgot those early years where he was so lonely and yet football (soccer) was the avenue through which he became part of the nation.
Football (soccer) plays such an important part of many people's lives, Tony Dunkerley explained, as it covers the boundaries of sex, religion, relationships, living with each other ….
Tony Dunkerley married Jenny, had a family of their own, developed his business world and meantime continued with his love and passion for football (soccer).
Jeremy Dover enquired as to his coaching and Tony Dunkerley noted that as from 1979 he's coached the Victorian Under 13, Under 14, Under 15 … all the way up to the Under 21s at national level winning several titles and a number of times, runners up. A highlight was as the Australian Joey's Assistant Coach, looking after the Victorian lads.
Tony Dunkerley said he is most delighted that those young lads are now family men themselves with their own children, and although he's told them now to call him Tony, still refer to him as Mr D! To these household name soccer players, they say, it wouldn't be the same.
It is to mentoring that Tony Dunkerley is most at home. Mentoring to Tony Dunkerley means one cannot do it alone, so whether it is a Minister at the church, a coach in sport, a teacher at school, a friend in life, someone you can trust, a person who you can lean on their shoulder, is a mentor. Tony says we have all been mentors at times.
On Country Town Tours with Mark Tronson is where one sees Mentoring as a highlight, claims Tony Dunkerley. This is a person who has stepped up to the mark, his mentoring is an example to follow.
The challenge is always, that as he and Mark Tronson are both reasonably good talkers, who gets to talk first when speaking to youth groups, schools, men's breakfasts or dinners or sportsmen's nights.
The greatest thing anyone of us can do is to speak to young people says Tony Dunkerley. Young people should never be turned away, they will take us forward, they are the future of our world and they will take us forward.