As the GIANTS prepare to face the Western Bulldogs in an Elimination Final, GIANTS Media will tell the stories of those within the GIANTS Family. Their stories are our stories.
“Families grow and families change, sometimes we face a brutal test…”
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Patrick Shannon and his son Jack have been GIANTS from the very start.
The Penrith duo heard Sheedy’s call and signed up to be part of the GIANTS’ family in 2010.
Formerly Swans members the duo have barely missed a GIANTS home game.
“When the GIANTS started in 2010, Jack was only five and I thought then ‘this is an opportunity to get behind something in our area, to be part of something from the beginning’,” Patrick said.
“We went to the first game out at Blacktown in the pre-season tournament and from then on it was going to games, getting beaten and at the end knowing we’d get even better.
“We attended the first home game win over Port Adelaide and from then on it got better.
“You could see that potentially there was something special behind the start of the GIANTS.”
For Patrick, who moved to Australia from Wicklow in Ireland in 1998, and Jack, going to GIANTS games is their time.
With little family in Australia, heading to GIANTS Stadium or the odd trip to UNSW Canberra Oval was their chance to be with their football family and escape the issues of school and work.
“It gives you that chance, no matter how your week is going at school or at work or life, to sit with people and barrack,” Patrick said.
“To win and to lose and accept it. To be there until the final siren and not leave.”
“We went to the first game against the Swans at ANZ Stadium and we became part of the GIANTS culture.”
At the beginning of the 2018 season, that tradition of the Shannons heading off to GIANTS Stadium was halted.
Just two days after his 13th birthday, Jack received devastating news.
“On the 20th of February he was diagnosed in the Westmead’s Children’s hospital as having Burkitt lymphoma, which is a cancer that attacks red blood cells,” Patrick recalls.
“It’s fast acting, fast growing, but fast reacting to chemotherapy. It was a massive shock to the family, not having much family here it was a kick to the guts.
“I reached out to the GIANTS, I could see that Jack needed some happiness in the background, so I tweeted the GIANTS just to ask for a shoutout to Jack.
“The shoutout was immense.”
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Never Surrender.
It’s on the back of the GIANTS’ playing guernseys, splashed across merchandise and it’s the club’s hashtag.
It’s one of the key lines in the GIANTS’ club song.
To Patrick and Jack, they’re more than just words.
“Jack’s Never Surrender scarf was on his bed, it never ever left his bed while he was in hospital,” Patrick recalls.
“It’s something that I kept on saying to Jack and particularly to myself.
“When Jack was going into theatre as he was about to be put under anaesthetic for each of his lumbar spine operations, he’d say ‘never surrender dad and no one is to touch the scarf'.
“It meant so much to him to have it there when he woke up.
“It became part of each session he went to in hospital, regardless who the doctors or anaesthetists were, they saw that scarf.
“Jack was never surrendering to his illness. It definitely pushed Jack through.”
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Stephen Coniglio was one of the first GIANTS to respond to Patrick’s tweet.
The GIANTS’ vice-captain sent Jack a private video message.
Support soon followed.
“After the pre-season game in Canberra, Jack got a call from Leon Cameron and David Matthews, all on the same night, reaching out to myself and the family and Jack saying any help we can give you we will,” Patrick said.
“They wanted to know Jack’s story.
“From then on Leon Cameron came, privately, to see Jack in Hospital and kept in touch with Jack all the time.
“They conversed a lot not even through me, through themselves.”
That contact and support helped Jack and the Shannon family through a tough time.
But with Jack’s treatments meaning he’d spend a lot of time at home or at Westmead Children’s Hospital it meant that the father and son tradition had to be put on the backburner.
As round six 2018 approached, Jack was still wheelchair-bound and was due to undergo his fourth round of chemotherapy on the same day the GIANTS were to face the Brisbane Lions.
With Jack desperate to see the GIANTS play and then to watch The Killers perform live afterward, the hospital agreed to delay his chemo.
After the GIANTS’ 24-point win, the players brought Jack into the rooms to sing the song and then into the post-match meeting where both he and Patrick learned that Leon Cameron had used Jack’s battle as inspiration for the players before the game.
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Three months later and after more treatment and time spent in hospital, Jack was cancer free.
On the day Jack was due to ring the bell at Westmead Children’s Hospital to celebrate the end of his fight, he was joined by his favourite player Jeremy Cameron.
“Jeremy turned up that night to spend an hour with Jack and ring that bell,” Patrick said.
“It was great to see Jeremy there; the GIANTS reached out in February and they were there all the way.
“They were there when he needed them the most.”
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Proud members of the GIANTS’ cheer squad, Jack and Patrick Shannon have resumed their tradition of heading to GIANTS games together.
Their passion for the club is as strong as ever.
“We know there are other families going through the same thing, we’ve seen what Adam Tomlinson does," Patrick said.
“We can see what the club does that others don’t get to see. They’re there to help and they’re there because they want to be.
“We feel like we’re part of it now, we don’t feel like we’re just paying our membership and rocking up.”
Their passion for the club isn’t what it is just because of what the GIANTS did for them.
It’s something far deeper than that.
“You go, you support the club not because of Jack, but because you want to be part of it,” Patrick said.
“I want to be part of the GIANTS in 10 years and when my grandkids are born, I want them to be part of it from day one.
“The club means everything because sometimes we all need that help, we need something to look forward to, to be a part of.”
The Shannons will be there in the cheer squad on Saturday afternoon as the GIANTS take on the Western Bulldogs.
“We just need to barrack hard and get behind our boys, that’s it,” Patrick said.
“It’s important that we barrack hard and cheer them on, because they did for us.”
Jack and Patrick Shannon at the Adelaide Oval during the GIANTS' round 19 win over Port Adelaide.
