By Roxanne Moates, Family of League National Wellbeing Manager
A group of touch footballers will assemble on Monday, March 9, at Queensland University of Technology’s Kelvin Grove campus, to play the first game of the season.
For this unassuming venue and its regular devotees, there will be nothing particularly special about this night compared to the hundreds that have come before it.
However, when the referee lifts the whistle to his lips to signal the commencement of play, they could be forgiven for not noticing the slight shake in his hand, the catch in his throat, or the extra moisture in his eyes.
For him, the butterflies and nostalgia flooding through his body will reflect what this moment truly represents for him.
That unremarkable Monday for most will quietly welcome the beginning of a new journey, one that has been a long time coming. His last official refereeing appointment was back in 2018, and for a long time, he never believed he would feel this again.
This is his story.
Brad Spinks grew up with rugby league in his blood. He began playing junior football in Darwin before moving to North Queensland, where he spent six years involved in the game and eventually made the jump “over the fence” into refereeing in Mackay.
The whistle, the routine, the sense of belonging, rugby league was not just something Brad did. It was part of who he was.
But from the age of 11, Brad was also fighting a battle most teenagers never imagine; a rare and aggressive ocular disease began attacking his eyes after a herpes-related infection in childhood. By the time he reached his Higher School Certificate year, his condition had deteriorated so severely that he was facing the very real possibility of permanent blindness.
Brad’s vision loss was not sudden – it was cruelly progressive.
As a child, he had chickenpox, and then shingles at just 10 years old, which affected both eyes. This led to recurring and intense bouts of ocular herpes simplex virus, eventually causing keratoconus, a disease in which the cornea thins and bulges outward.
In time, the keratoconus advanced to the point where the cornea in his left eye ruptured, causing a condition known as hydrops.
The result: total blindness in that eye.
His right eye also deteriorated to the point where Brad could no longer drive, work, or even tolerate being outside during the day, despite multiple surgeries and the best efforts of leading eye specialists.
For someone whose life had revolved around sport and community, the loss was more than physical. It was isolating. It was frightening. And eventually, it forced him to step away from rugby league altogether, not because he wanted to, but because he could no longer safely participate.
His only chance of saving his sight was a corneal transplant.
The timing could not have been worse. Brad had been placed on the public health waiting list in September 2020, but the estimated wait time for this type of complex surgery, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, stretched between two and three years.
For a young man whose vision was deteriorating rapidly, that wait was devastating.
In a desperate attempt to raise funds to access private surgery sooner, Brad’s family set up a GoFundMe page.
It was through this that his story reached the Townsville Wellbeing Officer, Helen Sugars, after a community member in Mackay, where Brad had played most of his junior football and refereed, raised the alarm.
From there, the story found its way to Family of League.
A wellbeing grant application was completed, the funding for Brad’s eye surgeries was approved, and suddenly, hope arrived.
After funding was approved, a tissue donor was found, and Brad underwent his first corneal transplant at the Gold Coast. Prior to surgery, he reported his left eye had no usable vision at all, he described seeing only a white “cloud.”
Post-surgery, that same eye is now better than his “good” right eye.
The recovery is long and demanding: two years of healing and rehabilitation, followed by a further wait before his second eye can undergo surgery. But for Brad, the future looks different now.
Brad, now 27, lives in Bongaree and, for the first time in years, is planning again.
He is in his second year of a business degree, working towards a career in e-sports management and marketing, while also undertaking part-time work.
He is beginning to imagine a life that includes independence and opportunity.
In his own words:
“I will be forever grateful for the assistance provided to me by Family of League, not just for helping me undergo life-changing surgery, but for walking beside me and constantly checking in during a time when I felt the most alone,” he said.
Brad’s story is not just about medicine. It is about what happens when a community chooses to notice.
When someone sees a GoFundMe page and decides to make a call. When a local wellbeing officer listens. When a foundation steps in and says, “we’ve got you.”
The road ahead for Brad is still long. There is another surgery to come. There is more recovery. More patience required. But now, there is also light – literal and symbolic – returning to a life that had grown frighteningly dark.
Throughout all of this, Brad held onto the hope that one day, perhaps, he wouldn’t just be watching the game again, he’d be part of it.
Come Monday, March 9, in an inner Brisbane suburb, that dream will become a reality.
