Tommy Martin: An absence of energy was the defining experience of sport in 2020 

There was the absence of noise, save for that harvested by television companies from the ghosts of crowds past, the sound of silence something shameful to be covered up

Limerick captain Declan Hannon lifts the Liam MacCarthy Cup in an empty Croke Park. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

A passage from Jim McGuinness’s autobiography Until Victory Always sits unaccompanied on the back cover of the book’s original hardback edition.

McGuinness is walking the Croke Park pitch with his brother Mark after playing there for Donegal in 1998. The crowd is long gone and seagulls are their only company in the stadium.