17th October 2025

Matt Eastley                                   

      Remembering Tony Linnett

We recently learned of the death of Tony Linnett, one of three brothers to attend St Mary’s. Tony started at the school in September 1969, leaving in the summer of 1976. There follows an extract from his eulogy by his younger brother Peter.

Tony was born on the 29 March 1958 in Newcastle upon Tyne, following his brother Paul (1955) before Peter (1959). His parents Tom and Monica lived in the city because, as a civil engineer, Tom was working in the Northeast at the time.

After moving to Glasgow in 1961, the Linnett family relocated to Sidcup in 1967 where they stayed for the next 40 years with all three brothers attending St Mary’s

Tony was always very sporty enjoying rugby, football and cricket but also loved other sporting themed games such as Subbuteo and the horseracing themed Escalado.

Tony made many friends at St Mary’s, staying in touch with many of them.

Tony graduated in 1979 with a history and politics degree from Reading University, where more life-long friends were made.

After developing an interest in horseracing during a school summer holiday job on a site where Tom was working, Tony left his first (brief) job out of university in advertising signage, to take up an assistant racing manager role at Catford Dogs. Tony’s success here led to a promotion to racing manager at Wimbledon Dogs.

Tony’s mum was somewhat doubtful about his choice of employment, and described Tony as being in ‘sports management’ to her friends of the time.

The impact on his social life eventually made Tony seek a career change and he was recruited as a Schools Link Officer for the YMCA, which involved going into secondary schools to set up sponsored fundraising events and educate youngsters on the dangers of drug taking. This led to more lifelong friendships.

A job change after three years at the YMCA took him to a fundraising job for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. This was a community role, working with a variety of people who were committed to raising funds for cancer research in memory of their lost, loved ones.

However, Tony’s experience working in schools stirred an interest in him to become a teacher. In 1989, Tony started a PGCE qualification as a primary school teacher as he was keen to teach across the subject spectrum and saw the opportunity for him to get involved in developing children through sport.

Tony progressed from his first teaching job in Oakfield Primary School, Dartford and within three years was appointed Deputy Headteacher at Edenbridge Primary School, to be promoted to Headteacher within two years at the same school.

In 2005 Tony moved closer to home as he became Headteacher at Hurst Primary School, in Bexley where he spent 12 years leading the school to great success establishing a modern and forward thinking foundation for the school that the current head teacher states everyone still benefits from today.

Retirement in 2017 didn’t see Tony putting his feet up. In his first year, he became a headteacher mentor one day a week, became a director of Dartford Golf Club, and committed to volunteering for the Independent Monitoring Board at the prison for young men at Belmarsh. Monitoring and reporting on prison regimes including education which was delivered as part of rehabilitation of young inmates gave Tony great satisfaction.

This chronology of Tony’s life tells us something about his character but there is so much more. Tony was very much a family man. After a 9-year courtship, Tony married his love Jennie in 1990 at St Lawrence’s RC Church in Sidcup. He and Jennie went on to raise three wonderful children Matthew, born in 1991, Celia, born in 1993 and Joe born in 2002. Laughter and love were and are constant features of Linnett family life.

Indeed, whilst most definitely a formidable educator, fundraiser and volunteer, many of you here today will be just as familiar with Tony’s warmth, habitual wit and penchant for mischief.

Tony, a Charlton Athletic fanatic, loved football and back in 1984 Tony had the idea of setting up a team consisting of friends and ex pupils of St Mary’s Grammar to play friendly games against local opposition. Originally Tony gave the team a nickname, after one of his favorite racehorses of the time, ‘Dancing Brave’, and the symbol of the horse remains the badge of the team today. The original team was made up of a rag-tag group of friends but in time this group evolved into a fully functioning club with multiple teams, playing on Saturday afternoons. The club still runs to this day after 39 years. Tony, over all of these years was the Chairman and fixtures secretary and part of the committee which included old friends and original members of the team (Paul Burton as treasurer – from school and Pete Smith as secretary – from Reading University). Although not the original intention , the impact the club has had cannot be overstated. It has created friends for life, tightened family bonds and, in today’s language, had an outsized positive impact on the mental health of literally hundreds of young men down the years.

Old Saint Mary’s Football Club currently has two teams playing in local leagues and it was very fitting that the annual start-of-season friendly football encounter against local rivals Old Sedcopians, just a week after Tony passed away, became the inaugural Tony Linnett Memorial Cup match. The trophy was won by Old St Mary’s on aggregate, with sons Matt and Joe playing together and Joe scoring his first Old St Mary’s goal. Tony was very much watching from above that day.

The history of the football club is largely responsible for the hints of orange and green you might notice honouring Tony today. Tangerine and emerald are the legendary colours adorned by players as well as the jockeys who rode Free Love, the horse Tony owned with friends.

Anyone who knows Tony well knows he had a passion (some would say obsession) with horse racing. Appealing to Tony’s interest in data and statistics,Tony loved the puzzle of the racing form. But he was passionate about all the many aspects of the sport: animal welfare, breeding bloodlines, the history and cultural significance of the sport, the variety of the racetracks around England, the odds, the joy of the flutter, and the whole experience of the race day.

This passion led Tony to become a horse owner himself in collaboration with other friends and associates. After having tiny shares in horses in the Heart of the South Syndicate, Tony and five of his closest racing friends, formed the North South Syndicate and purchased a yearling filly at the Newmarket sales in 2015 which they called Free Love.

Free Love went on to win four races and was placed several times which is remarkable for a horse that was purchased at a budget price. The whole fun experience encouraged Tony to write three books about owning a racehorse.

Tony’s talent as a writer was another revelation. Anyone who has read the books, will attest to how easy and amusing they are to read, as well as providing great insight into the sport of Kings. He loved the idea that ordinary racing fans can enjoy the experience of owning, training and racing a horse on a budget. That message genuinely resonated with a modest but passionate community of readers, some of whom became friends with Tony having read the book.

The writing bug continued with Tony working on his fourth book over the past 12 months to chronicle a tour of 13 racecourses he had not managed to visit previously in England during his 40 plus years of race going. This took Tony and Jennie to parts of England they would not have visited otherwise, and they enjoyed the visits with dear friends and family members along the way. A working title of “Unlucky for Some”, Tony struggled to type his prose throughout the last year of his illness with the continuing difficulties with his vision, concluding the final chapter from his sick bed and dictating the final paragraph to Jennie just 24 hours before he passed away. Hopefully the book will be published in the near future.

Tony had many other passions. His love of golf, led him to organise an annual trip to Tewkesbury for a 3 day tournament with 8 friends for over a 20 year period, as well as being a member of Old St Mary’s Golf Society and Dartford Golf Club. He was a lifelong, (long-suffering) supporter of Charlton Athletic, getting to see Charlton win at Wembley just months before he passed away. Just this year, as Tony’s eyesight was failing, he took up the challenge of playing bowls at Bexley Park. On top of this, Tony and Jennie enjoyed a mutual curiosity for the arts and would go to music and arts events that challenged them as well as broadened their passions and interests.

It feels more than apt to touch on Tony’s faith. Tony inherited his Christian roots from his Catholic upbringing. As a regular worshiper at St Vincent’s, Tony also became involved in various ministries. As a reader, Tony’s public speaking voice gained him quite a fan club, and as a children’s liturgist for over 20 years, many primary school children were rapt in Tony’s retelling of the Gospel during the brief sessions when Jennie and Tony took the children out of mass for a more accessible liturgical experience.

With a deep appreciation of all aspects of religious culture, history and lore, Tony and Jennie enjoyed the pleasures of visiting cathedrals around England, regularly taking in Evensong and sacred music experiences.
Tony’s faith was a profound spirituality. A belief in something much greater than us and a total investment in the collectivist Christian culture of loving thy neighbour. Towards the end of his life, Tony’s faith grew all the stronger. He and Jennie pilgrimaged to Lourdes in May of this year which was a moving spiritual experience for them both. Tony dedicated his visit as a thanksgiving for his life. He always acknowledged that there were always people worse off than himself. His faith gave him the perspective and bravery to face death with grace and peace. It meant so much to him to be helped on his final journey by receiving the sacrament of the sick and a final blessing from Father Pat.

To conclude, then. What sort of a person was Tony?
He was a strong family man. a loving husband and a doting father.He was a loving son and a supportive and loving brother.
He was a charismatic and intelligent leader who inspired others to join in his projects, either in the workplace or at leisure.
Tony’s personality and charm meant that he made great friends wherever he alighted.
In reading cards and messages, Jennie has seen regular themes that run through the tributes she has been sent from people in all fields of Tony’s life: He was a great leader, a positive role model, a man of intelligence and good humour, he was fair and a valued friend. He was hardworking and kind. He was fun.

And as well as the above, we saw in the past four years, that Tony was determined, stoic and self-motivated. He was brave, even in the face of death.

To end this tribute to Tony, it seems fitting to quote from Tony’s favourite theologian, the 14th Century Christian mystic, Dame Julian of Norwich, which truly reflects Tony’s optimism borne out of his faith and his belief in redemption through divine love.
She wrote,
‘All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.’

Tony will be greatly missed but not forgotten.