Rarely have football scarves been sobbed into so gustily or twisted so tightly or comforted so many.

Rarely has a crowd so large stood so quietly and calmly for so long in the middle of Melbourne.

Never has a footballer in this football-mad town had a send-off like the one they gave Jim Stynes.

To understand why is, in many ways, to understand Melbourne.

And also to comprehend the love felt so universally for a man who transcended beliefs, borders and ball games with such energy and spirit.

Tributes to all that Stynes achieved in his 45 years, particularly the 27 he spent in Australia, were spoken in St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday.

Across the road at Federation Square, the tributes were wordless, but equally heartfelt.

Around 1200 filled the cathedral and three times that number in the square watched the service on large screens.

Most wore the red-and-blue of the Melbourne Football Club that Stynes joined as an 18-year-old straight from Dublin.

But it wasn’t only Melbourne fans who came to farewell one of the game’s finest players.

Every AFL club had its colours on show, along with the green of Ireland and the blue-and-white of Stynes’ Gaelic football club in Dublin, Ballyboden St Enda’s.

The mourners inside the cathedral heard that through the Reach Foundation, the youth organisation Stynes co-founded, he had worked directly with more than 200,000 young people around Australia.

Many of them were in the crowd outside, supporting each other and smiling with wet eyes at their memories.

As the service ended they moved with the rest of the crowd towards the road between them and the cathedral.

And as the coffin emerged they broke into spontaneous applause and wept again into their footy club scarves.