{"id":397327,"date":"2026-01-07T10:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397327\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T10:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:57:09","slug":"nrl-2026-joyce-churchill-vale-immortal-clive-churchills-widow-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/397327\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026, Joyce Churchill, Vale, Immortal Clive Churchill’s widow passes away"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ARLC and the NRL are deeply saddened by the passing of Joyce Churchill, aged 99.<\/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

In 2014, Joyce Churchill presented the medal for the very first time to a Rabbitohs player when Sam Burgess proudly won the coveted award after playing 79 minutes with a fractured eye socket, suffered in the first tackle of the game.<\/p>\n

In what was an emotional touch of nostalgia, Joyce wore the red and green pork-pie hat that was worn by her husband in grand finals when he was coaching the South Sydney club.<\/p>\n

Rabbitohs chairman Nick Pappas said<\/a>: \u201cToday, our cub is in deep mourning for a woman who carried the historic name \u2018Churchill\u2019 with dignity and grace. We will always remember Joyce as a woman of great humility and principle who cherished the club her late husband Clive will always be synonymous with.”<\/p>\n

The NRL and ARLC sends its deepest condolences to Joyce Churchill’s family and friends, as well as those who were touched by her generosity and support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ARLC and the NRL are deeply saddened by the passing of Joyce Churchill, aged 99. Joyce Churchill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-397327","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\/397327","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=397327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}