My partner’s father, John Moogan, who has died aged 85, was a PE instructor, headteacher and international javelin coach.
John attended two Olympic Games as a coach, first with Tessa Sanderson in Montreal in 1976 and then in Los Angeles in 1984 with Sharon Gibson. He also took Sanderson to the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada, where she won gold, and the European championships the same year, where she gained silver. From 1985 to 1988 John was Great Britain’s national coach for javelin.
He was born in Wolverhampton to John, an engineer, and his wife, Leah (nee Potts) and was educated at St Chad’s college. Living a short walk from Molineux, the home of Wolverhampton Wanderers, he became a lifelong fan.
John trained as a teacher at St Mary’s College in Twickenham, south-west London, and took up his first teaching job in 1960 at Holy Trinity school in Bilston, West Midlands, before a further year studying PE at Chester College. During this time he met Ann Corrall, whom he married in 1965.
They settled in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and over the ensuing years John taught at Francis Leveson school in Willenhall, where he became head of PE, at St Anthony’s school in Wolverhampton (1974-78), St Thomas More school in Walsall, where he was deputy head, and finally at St Joseph’s in Rugeley, Staffordshire, where he was head until his retirement in the early 1990s.
For almost all of that time, from 1968 to 1987, John was senior club coach at Wolverhampton and Bilston Athletics Club, where he began coaching Sanderson. He held a variety of other coaching positions at national and regional level, including Midlands staff coach from 1970-75 and national coach to the junior international javelin squad from 1979 to 1985.
John’s motivation as a coach was a desire to help others fulfil their potential – all the roles were unpaid – and he made sure equal care and attention was given to all his throwers. As one of his former international athletes, Stephen Pearson, said: “He coached us all, irrespective of our abilities, with the same commitment.”
In retirement in Shrewsbury, John volunteered at a stroke rehabilitation centre and at local heritage sites, did fundraising for various charities and organised a breakfast club for friends who had lost their wives.
Ann died in April this year. He is survived by their three children, Cate, John and my partner Kerri, and grandchildren Rachel, William, Oscar and Henry.