‘Gerry loved the game more so than the Association’

IF there’s something more shocking than realising someone you knew has just passed away, it’s learning they passed away some weeks ago.

It was only reading this paper’s bumper end-of-year sports supplement that we learned the Gaelic Games analyst and statistician Gerry McDermott at 59 had joined the list of those who left this mortal coil in the year we just waved bye to, his on-off battle with the dreaded big C finally getting the better of him in November.

Almost every journalist or pundit regularly commenting on Gaelic football over the past decade would have come across Gerry, often upon him initiating the contact. Normally it would have been some reference you’d have made to some rule in his beloved Gaelic football that would have triggered him to pick up the phone or the pen, and if per chance you had criticised the sport’s tackle, you were in for a particularly lengthy phone call or letter.