Memories of the Memory Man whose passion never dimmed

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There’s been so much written about Jimmy Magee in the week since his death that even the Memory Man himself would have difficulty digesting and retaining the half of it.

But the tributes have been entirely appropriate for a man who had been to eleven Olympics and twelve World Cups – and who appeared to be able to remember every detail of every one of them.

He was the soundtrack to our sporting youth, the broadcaster whose unashamed, infectious enthusiasm for every sport was astounding – but that was only part of the story.

What really made Jimmy Magee was his delight in the ordinary – be they things or people – and, while he loved to meet his heroes, he was most at home ordinary sports fans.

He could spend hours debating the footballing merits of Pelé or Maradonna or whether Zátopek or Gebrselassie was the greatest middle-distance runner of all time.

To those of us of a certain vintage, he was the voice of Irish international soccer back when the Boys in Green couldn’t even fill Dalymount Park.

But he brought the drama of those days of Giles and Brady and Givens to life, at a time when our access to live televised football was as rare as a rational tweet from Donald Trump.

Ironically for a man who didn’t drink since the early seventies, Jimmy always saw the glass half-full – and even when Ireland’s international successes amounted to the odd scoring draw in Poland, he bestowed hero status on mortal men through the sheer joy and poetry of his voice.

To say he was a personable man would be to understate the fact. Jimmy Magee loved people and loved life; most of all he loved sport and, away from the microphone, he loved music.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.