Brendan Gosstray was a family man, a community man and a local man.
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He was born at Mooroopna Hospital on September 16, 1965, and completed his schooling in Mooroopna, attending Mooroopna Primary School and Mooroopna Secondary School.
“He then attended Bendigo university for 12 months before transferring to the Ballarat university,” Brendan’s wife, Andrea Gosstray, said.
“He did a degree in applied science in human movement.”
He then moved to a rural town where he met his future wife.
“Once he completed his studies, he moved to Warracknabeal, and he played football for Warracknabeal, and he received a job there with the local council of managing the sports stadium,” Andrea said.
“So obviously, that's where I come into it because I am a Warracknabeal girl, and that’s where he and I actually met.”
She was also a sports lover, being active in the sport stadium, which was a key part in bringing them together.
“So that’s where our relationship picked up,” Andrea said.
Brendan lived in Warracknabeal for three years before moving back to Greater Shepparton, where he got a job with the former Shire of Rodney.
“The council amalgamation saw Brendan moved to the City of Greater Shepparton offices and that’s where he worked for the next 20-odd years,” she said.
“He was overseeing like the recreation, sport and recreation and then obviously, as time went on, he became a manager of the sport and recreation and leisure department.”
He had a great career with council, spearheading efforts to secure millions of dollars in funds and grants for local sport.
“When he left council, he then started working as a consultant, basically in the same sort of industry,” Andrea said.
“He (was) a private consultant himself, and he used to contract back to other councils and so forth.”
Brendan and Andrea got married in 1992 in Warracknabeal before buying their first home together in Mooroopna.
The happy couple had two boys, Fraser and Cooper, in 1998 and 2001, respectively.
Brendan and Andrea were happy just spending time in each other’s company, so they spent a lot of time gardening and building a home together.
“Brendon loved his camping and his fishing, but one of his great joys was watching his kids play soccer,” Andrea said.
“Brendan had a passion for cooking because when he was at uni, he also got a job as a waiter, and he was predominantly our main cook at home, but he did experiment an awful lot with his cooking as well, so needless to say, some meals were a one-off and that was it.”
Brendan was diagnosed with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease where your body produces too much collagen. This causes the skin to become tight and puts pressure on major organs.
“Brendan’s probably battled scleroderma for 20 years, I’d say,” Andrea said.
“It was 2020 that his lungs really started to deteriorate.”
Brendan was put on the transplant list, and while waiting for a set of lungs, was in and out of appointments for tests and scans and everything in between.
“They basically gave him about four months to live, and we probably got down to 2.5 months when we finally got the phone call,” Andrea said.
He had a successful bilateral lung transplant, but he wasn’t out of the woods.
“We then proceeded to have to stay in Melbourne for three months,” Andrea said.
The next year was “full on” with new medications, scans, check-ups, rehab — appointments on appointments.
“He started to get back to the things that he enjoyed and was able to potter around out in the garden and walk freely without having to struggle to be able to breathe, basically,” Andrea said.
“The last six to seven months of his life was probably the best he’d ever been for such a long time.
“He really just pushed through it.”
Things took a turn about a month before he died in December 2024.
He was taken to hospital and was put in an induced coma for a few days.
However, those few days turned into 20 days.
Once he woke up, he was in and out of the Intensive Care Unit at the Alfred Hospital.
“It looked like the same thing, he was going to have to be put to sleep, but Brendan said that’s enough,” she said.
His funeral was held at the Woolshed and was a “beautiful celebration of his life”.
Brendan leaves behind his wife, Andrea, his sons, Fraser and Cooper, his siblings, Rowan and Narelle, and parents, John and June.
Cadet Journalist