Читать книгу The Boys of '93. Derry’s All-Ireland Kings онлайн

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On Tuesday afternoon, as our family cars trail the hearse to South Derry, I notice a long line of cars filling the hard shoulder of the motorway. One by one they fall in behind us, the Oak Leaf county bringing him home. And for the next three days they descend; the mourners seem to pour from the skies. Over the brow of the hill they come, across the fields and down the lane. Minibuses are run from the clubhouse to his simple Loughshore home. The pitch where he was forged is now the car park for his wake. It’s like his hallowed St Trea’s grounds are paying homage to their most glittering prize, not the Sam Maguire but the local boy who brought him home: the man who carved a footnote for them in the history of the sport they were built to serve.

There’s coaches from Cavan and Athlone; they come from Kerry, Cork and Down; there’s Mercs with politicians and bigger Mercs with priests. There’s one man in a wheelchair who has no time for football but for ‘the man who, every Sunday, helped me into my car after Mass’. His club mates and his townland take his memory in their arms and they allow us as a family to feel, already, the legacy of the man. On the morning of the funeral, the club’s youngsters line the lane and the boys of ’93 lift him on their shoulders once again.