Jonny Mitchell, an inspiration for those who have to battle against all odds

SUPPORTERS can share in the rollercoaster ride that is Scottish rugby, and many experience the highs and lows of playing the game, but who can imagine the frustration of a passionate young player when the game he loves is snatched away and replaced by a constant battle with life?

That battle ended for Jonny Mitchell in the early hours of Monday morning when the 30-year-old former North Berwick skipper passed away after his body succumbed to an infection.

That, in itself, highlights the different world that front-rower Jonny moved into when he suffered a spinal injury in a league match away to Hawick Linden in September, 2005.

Infections come and go for most of us, some serious and requiring hospitalisation but most treated with antibiotics. For those paralysed from the neck or shoulders down, however, an infection can take over their body without the person being aware of it. When the spinal cord is so seriously damaged nothing works below a certain point.

Some are fortunate to regain feeling in their arms and hands. Jonny was not. Even a cold was a major worry because he could neither blow his nose nor cough, if he even knew he had a cold.

Jonny could not feel heat until it damaged his skin, could not shiver when freezing, and so even attending a rugby match as a spectator was a struggle in winter or when temperatures fluctuated. It is a small miracle that he managed to retain his love for the game and see as much as he did, most notably supporting North Berwick at Murrayfield when some of his former teammates lifted the SRU Shield two years ago.

Jonny enjoyed the company of a few friends on Saturday but was already talking on Facebook of a sore body and head. He had spent time in the Royal Infirmary recently, but hospital visits were a regular part of life, as was the taking of medication to control or aid the function of parts of the body that Jonny was unaware of. On Sunday night the effects of the recent infection moved with a tragic haste and, this time, his body lost the fight.

His death has been a great shock to the rugby community, Jonny having become an inspiration for rugby players with similar injuries as far afield as Romania and Australia through his down-to-earth approach and clear strength in adversity. The injury threw Jonny’s world upside down but it did the same to his wife Joanne and two doting daughters, girls who learned to grow up quickly as they sought to help and support their hero, their dad.

He had played rugby for over a decade, a talented young hooker who starred on an East Lothian Under 16s tour to France.

And he would go on to become one of the many integral figures in the club game, often spending Friday nights chasing up team-mates to play. Jim Littlefair, the North Berwick RFC President, recalled: “Jonny and I have had a great time watching the club improve and we now have lots of players coming through so he reckoned the recent captains have had it easy!

“It is so, so sad because Jonny was a brilliant character for rugby in this part of the world before his accident when few people further afield knew him .

“But we had many reasons to be thankful to him and, after his accident, when his passion and love of the game continued to provide an inspiration to people.

“He was a ferocious wee hooker, both in training and playing, and he could be a tough cookie to deal with at times. One other former hooker said to me yesterday how he remembered exchanging punches with Jonny in a game!

“It has been very tough for him in recent years, however, and he has had to fight to cope with it all, and so those of us who have been fortunate enough to be close to him have a certain sense of hoping that, as one friend from Australia said, he will ‘walk tall’ now.”

It seemed to me that Jonny never wanted to be treated differently to anyone else and struggled with the sudden and worldwide interest his injury brought. He wanted nothing more than to be able to be there for his daughters, and see them grow, but fought with himself over the difficulties he faced in physically being there in the way many of us take for granted.

In our last conversation, we shared stories of young girls becoming teenagers, in attitude if not quite yet in years, of their desire for independence and growing strength in their own convictions.

“Where does it come from?” he said. There was a moment’s pause and then laughter at the realisation that no daughter of Jonny’s could be anything less than strong-willed.

He had a dry sense of humour and was great company. He regularly asked about the condition of other rugby players who had suffered as he had and there was a deep concern for their welfare while dismissing worries about himself as “daft”.

I first met Jonny three months after the accident, while he enjoyed a couple of weeks out of hospital around Christmas, the enormity of the battle ahead beginning to emerge.

He said then: “Truthfully, it is only in the last few weeks that I realised how it is going to be for me now. When they initially tell you that you won’t be able to walk again, that you won’t have any feeling below the neck and will be on a ventilator for the rest of your life, as they did, well, you’re still doped up then and feel ‘I’ll prove you wrong’.

“I got off the ventilator and worked hard in the gym and over time got feeling back in my shoulders, my biceps and my right wrist. So, every week was just about getting better and I actually felt ‘this is easy’. But then, when I was planning to go to the All Blacks game with Scotland – I was to be a guest of Bill Hogg, of the SRU, in the West Stand, getting the works – it all fell apart. I fell ill with some bug and it meant two weeks of bed rest.

“It was just. . . really hard, because it meant I had to start my time in the [wheel] chair all over again. You have to build it up by starting with half an hour in the chair in the morning, then back to bed for two hours, then another half-hour and then back to bed for the rest of the day.

“The next day it’s an hour up and then back to bed, another hour and back to bed again and it goes on like that each day until you get to eight hours in the chair which classes you then as ‘able’ and can be up when you want. I had reached that point and was so looking forward to going to Murrayfield to see Scotland play New Zealand that it was just so hard to take going back to the start. But I have to get on with it.”

There was a terrific response across the rugby community to appeals for support, famous players taking on patron roles in the charity launched to uncover the £1m-plus funding necessary to cope with the practical side of the sudden life transformation. As public sympathy moved on the rugby charity “Hearts and Balls” and Murrayfield Centenary Trust worked closely with a strong network of family and friends to provide support.

David Millar, the former Scotland under-21 back row, who suffered a spinal injury playing in New Zealand, is helping to drive exciting stem cell research with positive steps in recreating movement and feeling in people with spinal issues.

That will come too late for Jonny Mitchell, but his inspirational legacy is too strong to pass with him. Countless messages of support to his family on Facebook include stories of how Jonny inspired and helped others, before and after the injury.

Many close to him shared in his frustration at how limiting life had become, and the depression from failing to overcome small tasks and be who he wanted to be. But ultimately that only added to the respect they held for him. Many more delighted in the way he overcame that and tackled the challenges with the same vigour he used to launch himself at rugby opponents, with or without ball, and the courage he showed over the past six years. There is a void left, but many will look to the heavens now and smile as they picture the former North Berwick hooker “walking tall”.

His funeral is to be held at the St Andrews Blackadder Church in North Berwick on Tuesday morning, time to be confirmed.