
Share
15th October 2021
11:55am BST

An unexpected lift came to his aid, when another iconic figure in sports management decided to take the time to write to him.
"Some time after the funeral, I got a letter from Manchester: Alex Ferguson had taken the time to write to me. I could hardly believe what I was reading. "He wrote: 'I was always impressed by your achievements with the Tyrone team and how long you've been there. I meant to write to you after what happened to your daughter. I knew I had to write to you after Ronan Kerr.'"He left a contact number for me to get in touch. I remember calling him and he said to come over to Old Trafford. "So we got tickets for a derby game through Martin Logan, a great friend of mine from Galway who spent most of his life in Manchester.
"Myself and the boys went across in October 2011. But we picked the worst day possible: City beat United 6-1. "I called Alex a couple of weeks afterwards and told him about the game we had been to. He said: 'I hope you don't think it's like that all of the time.'"But the trip gave us a lift, something we badly needed. And the boys got a real kick out of it."
Explore more on these topics: