{"id":397241,"date":"2026-01-07T10:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397241\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T10:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:04:11","slug":"clive-churchills-wife-joyce-dies-aged-99-rugby-league-immortal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397241\/","title":{"rendered":"Clive Churchill’s wife Joyce dies aged 99, rugby league Immortal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joyce Churchill – the wife of rugby league icon Clive<\/a> – has died at the age of 99.<\/p>\n

The champion fullback, who was one of rugby league’s original Immortals, died in 1985 and was survived by his wife and his son Rod.<\/p>\n

Joyce had been a feature at many NRL events after her husband’s passing, most notably handing out the coveted Clive Churchill Medal<\/a> after the grand final.<\/p>\n

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She famously attended South Sydney’s drought-breaking 2014 grand final victory, which marked the first premiership since Clive coached the side to glory in 1971.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Joyce Churchill presents Sam Burgess with the Clive Churchill Medal in 2014.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The league released a statement on Wednesday night paying tribute to Churchill.<\/p>\n

“The ARLC and the NRL are deeply saddened by the passing of Joyce Churchill, aged 99,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“Joyce Churchill was a staunch and passionate supporter of rugby league and proud representative of her late husband, Immortal Clive Churchill.<\/p>\n

“The legacy of the Clive Churchill Medal will live on thanks to the extraordinary contributions of Clive and Joyce Churchill.<\/p>\n

“We send our deepest condolences to Joyce Churchill’s family and friends, as well as those who were touched by her generosity and support.”<\/p>\n

Churchill played 158 games for the Rabbitohs during his incredible career and is still regarded as one of the sport’s greatest-ever players.<\/p>\n

\"Clive<\/p>\n

Clive Churchill.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

He played 38 games for Australia and was dubbed “The Little Master” due to his immense skill despite being small in stature.<\/p>\n

After hanging up the boots, he coached South Sydney on 229 occasions as well as leading Northern Suburbs and Canterbury.<\/p>\n

Churchill also coached 29 games for Australia and three for Queensland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joyce Churchill – the wife of rugby league icon Clive – has died at the age of 99.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-397241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}