{"id":398768,"date":"2026-01-08T02:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398768\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T02:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:00:09","slug":"rugby-league-world-mourns-passing-of-nrl-immortals-wife-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398768\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby league world mourns passing of NRL Immortal\u2019s wife – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rugby league community is mourning the passing of Joyce Churchill, the wife of Immortal Clive Churchill, who has died aged 99.<\/p>\n

Joyce Churchill was a familiar and much-loved figure in rugby league circles for decades, regularly attending major NRL<\/a> events following her husband’s passing in 1985.<\/p>\n

Most notably, she was responsible for presenting the Clive Churchill Medal each year, awarded to the best player on the ground in the NRL<\/a> Grand Final, a role she carried out with grace and pride in honour of her late husband’s legacy.<\/p>\n

The NRL<\/a> paid tribute to Churchill in a statement released on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ARLC and the NRL<\/a> are deeply saddened by the passing of Joyce Churchill, aged 99,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe send our deepest condolences to Joyce Churchill’s family and friends, as well as those who were touched by her generosity and support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joyce was also famously in attendance at South Sydney’s drought-breaking 2014 premiership triumph, the Rabbitohs’ first since Clive Churchill coached the club to glory in 1971.<\/p>\n

South Sydney released their own statement following her passing, describing Churchill as a lifelong supporter of the club and the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe South Sydney Rabbitohs<\/a> are mourning the passing of Life Member, Mrs Joyce Churchill, who passed away on Monday at the age of 99,\u201d the club said.<\/p>\n

Tributes poured in across social media, with fans and figures from across the rugby league world describing the news as \u201cheartbreaking\u201d and \u201cterribly sad\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rugby league community is mourning the passing of Joyce Churchill, the wife of Immortal Clive Churchill, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-398768","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\/398768","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=398768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}