{"id":689506,"date":"2026-05-23T13:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689506\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T13:13:16","slug":"kingsley-cats-football-community-pay-tribute-to-teammate-steven-mattaboni-after-tragic-rottnest-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689506\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingsley Cats football community pay tribute to teammate Steven Mattaboni after tragic Rottnest death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arm in arm the Kingsley Cats Footy players gathered on Kingsley Oval to honour their teammate, whose life was tragically cut short last week while spear fishing off Rottnest Island.<\/p>\n

Steven Mattaboni, 38, was in the water with four friends about 1km offshore at Horseshoe Reef \u2014 north-west of the island \u2014 last Saturday when the predator, reportedly a great white, attacked just before 10am.<\/p>\n

On the oval in the fading sunlight, the arms of a crowd of men linked as supporters lined the boundary, listening to a speech read out by a fellow teammate.<\/p>\n

\u201cMattas brought energy, excitement and plenty of laughter into every room he walked into,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever shying away from contest, or stirring up a bit of banter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe put other people first no matter what, even if you were wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheCamera IconThe Kingsley Cats FC hold a miniute of silence in honour of team mate Steven Mattaboni. Credit: Justin Benson-Cooper\/The Sunday Times<\/p>\n

The atmosphere was filled with heartbreak as teammates, friends and family reflected on the devastating loss of a much-loved member of the community.<\/p>\n

Near the centre of the gathering, Mr Mattaboni\u2019s wife sat on the pews sobbing, holding her baby tightly in her arms.<\/p>\n

Around her, people stood in tears, clutching their chests as emotion swept through the crowd.<\/p>\n

Club officials addressed the players and supporters, speaking of Steven\u2019s loyalty, his passion for football, and the way he brought people together both on and off the field.<\/p>\n

\"ShireneCamera IconShirene Mattaboni attends the tribute football game in honour of her late husband. Credit: Justin Benson-Cooper\/The Sunday Times<\/p>\n

They spoke about mateship, family, and the importance of standing beside one another through unimaginable grief.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mattabonis will always be part of the Kingsley family,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Following the speeches, the siren sounded and the oval fell completely still for a minute\u2019s silence.<\/p>\n

Heads were bowed across Kingsley Memorial Stadium as the football community paid its respects.<\/p>\n

As the silence ended, players and supporters united to sing the club anthem, \u201cteam of the Red and the Blue,\u201d with emotional voices echoing around the ground.<\/p>\n

\"PlayersCamera IconPlayers held a minute of silence ahead of the clash on Saturday. Credit: Justin Benson-Cooper\/The Sunday Times\"ItCamera IconIt was sombre scenes among the community. Credit: Justin Benson-Cooper\/The Sunday Times<\/p>\n

For many in attendance, it was a moment that captured both the pain of loss and the strength of the Kingsley Cats family.<\/p>\n

The club isn\u2019t a stranger to tragedy, in October 2002 after celebrating the club\u2019s first-ever reserves premiership, a group of 20 young players and officials flew to Kuta, Bali, for an end-of-season trip.<\/p>\n

Just six hours after arriving, they were partying inside the Sari Club when a car bomb detonated directly outside, killing seven teammates and wounding the remaining 13.<\/p>\n

The Kingsley survivors were offered the opportunity to fly straight home from Bali – but they chose to stay and search for their missing teammates who were never found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arm in arm the Kingsley Cats Footy players gathered on Kingsley Oval to honour their teammate, whose life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85,45],"class_list":["post-689506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689506","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=689506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}