An ode to football man Philip Lynott

It might sometimes feel to us greybeards like it’s only yesterday that the boys were back in town and we were all dancing in the moonlight but — however much you roll me over and turn me around — there’s just no getting away from fact that it is now 30 long years since Philip Lynott died.

The life and death of the Thin Lizzy mainman are much on my mind this weekend, since I’ve just begun delving into Cowboy Song , a newly-published biography by Graeme Thompson.

In truth, I’m approaching the book with equal parts anticipation and trepidation, the former because I’m a long-time fan who, through my Hot Press connections, was lucky enough get to know Philip a little bit back in the day, and the latter because, well, none of us needs to be told that this is not a story with a happy ending. Indeed, advance reviews — including an excellent piece by another fan, Joe O’Connor — have made it clear that, even though Cowboy Song has been written with the co-operation of the Lynott Estate, there is nothing sanitised about its painful description of his terminal decline.