Tony O'Donoghue: Before Google and Wikipedia, Jimmy Magee was the internet

I won’t be alone among my peers in broadcasting, and indeed in the ranks of the many sports stars that he interviewed, in saying that Jimmy Magee moved easily from his status as hero of mine to becoming first a colleague and then a friend whose warmth, kindness, and good humour was as legendary as his memory, writes Tony O’Donoghue.

The train journey to Dublin from Cork had become a familiar one, so much so that the guy on the catering trolley would enquire, “two sugars, isn’t it?”. As a freelancer on RTÉ Radio Cork in the mid-90s my ‘gig’ was presenting the Friday evening Drivetime slot — a mix of music, traffic news (Patrick Street was bumper to bumper, the Quays heavy but moving) and weekend sports previews.

When the opportunity arose to become involved in a major new sports show on ‘National Radio’, I jumped at the chance.