IN life, there are things we take for granted such as a family, a roof over our heads and food on the table.
For one former St Helens Grand Final winner, however, one of those suddenly went missing after a devastating house fire that gutted his family home.
John Stankevitch, 43, made his name with Saints in the early 2000s, registering almost 150 appearances in five seasons for the Merseyside club.
During his five seasons at Saints, Stankevitch won one Grand Final and one World Club Challenge before a spell at Widnes Vikings took him to retirement.
But, never in a million years did the former back-rower believe he would have to put his whole home back together after heartbreak struck last April.
“It’s been put back to a liveable standard now,” Stankevitch told League Express. It’s our family home. It was the home that me and my sister grew up in with my mum and dad.
“We are getting it solved, but it’s a little bit daunting for the kids to go back into it after what went on as it was one hell of fire. It destroyed the whole house.
“It happened in the early hours of the morning, for our youngest who was 8 at the time, it was quite frightening. My dad is selling it as we are looking for a clean slate again and move on.”
The 43-year-old emphasised that it wasn’t about the material goods, but the loss of sentimental items that cannot be replaced.
“It was tough, really tough, all of our possessions were in there. We lost a lot of sentimental stuff, so when my mum passed away a lot of her things were in the loft as well such as her weddings dress,” Stankevitch continued.
“There were a lot of photographs of our kids when they were younger and a lot of other things you keep like their first shoes. All of me playing shirts went up in flames too so I lost all of them.
“There were a lot of sentimental things that you can’t get back but everyone says it could have been worse, we could have not been here now.
“It was a sentimental kick in the teeth, losing all of our possessions and starting all over again meant we had to buy everything from scratch.
“It’s just the upheaval more than anything and having to get ourselves back on our feet again as well as looking after the kids.”
After he finished playing, Stankevitch moved into coaching. But, it was just a short-lived career change as the ex-Saints man found that the sport no longer fulfilled his desires.
“When I finished playing in 2005 I was at Widnes at the time. I fell into the coaching with the senior academy back then. I progressed through to assisting the first-team coach and then I got a head coach’s job over at Doncaster. I went back to Widnes, and then became a head coach with Rochdale.
“I walked away in 2013, I just got to the point where I got a bit disillusioned. The travelling was taking a lot out of me and at the time we had really young kids.
“One of my little ones was 10 and Oliver was 6. I just found out that i was spending a lot of time away from the family and it got too much so I decided to walk away.”
