A matter of life and death

He was our man. He was the man that, when you had the big bullies from the big clubs coming up to us, we’d say, ‘You know what, we’ve got Ryan and Ryan will help us’. And that’s what he did, writes Liam Mackey.

The phrase ‘close-knit community’ could have been coined to describe the League of Ireland, yet it’s not quite so small a world that everyone actually knows everyone around the game.

I didn’t know Ryan McBride. I saw him play, of course, but I don’t think I ever spoke to him and certainly never spent any time even on the periphery of his company.