Ronnie Long a giant among volunteers keeping every sport on the road

Mungret man Long’s phenomenal recall, energy, and enthusiasm for Irish athletics will stir many fond memories for the legions of volunteers and unpaid administrators who have soldiered in the same trenches

The World Cross Country Championships in Limerick, in 1979, crowned by John Treacy’s historic success, is recalled in Ronnie Long’s recent memoir ‘The Long Road’. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

A Welsh suffragette, Elizabeth Andrew, summed up their essence well when she said that: “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.”

They don’t much feature in the glitzy award shows and the autobiographies that crowd elite sports’ rarefied marketplace at this time of year, yet volunteers are the lifeblood and the vital pumping organ of it all.