In the hundreds of tributes to Tommie Gorman on social media on Tuesday, one Sligo Rovers fan noted that the last time he saw Tommie in early June, he watched him walk around The Showgrounds after a game, simply taking in the surroundings.
It may have seemed unusual, given he would know every inch of a compact and sacred ground.
It makes a little more sense now.
For those that knew him, picturing Gorman's walk stirs the painful emotions many of us try to avoid after someone's death.
It was a theme he often wrote about.
In 2014 before a Europa League qualifier for Sligo, a match programme article began with: "Love never stops. Grief reminds us that sadness and loss are never far away from love."
What does that have to do with football?
Tommie could make it so.
His storytelling and reporting was to take a complex tale and make it simple.
Name an individual within his beloved club and he would tell you their mother and father's redeeming quality. Their ancestral Sligo history.
Somehow you felt you knew a lot more.
Then he would tell you their dispositions, their dreams and why they meant so much to someone.
His reporting was to get to the heart of the matter and speak to those closest to it. When it came to Sligo Rovers, he could play both sides.
The roaming microphone in The Showgrounds was his own, whether it was welcoming legends back to the club, new signings or even raffle draws.
On a Friday where he would interview some of the most powerful figures in this country or the UK to a massive televised audience, Saturday could bring the announcement of seventh prize in the Bit O' Red Annual Draw, to see who won a voucher for the local meat supplier, all to a couple of thousand fellow devotees.
Both were passions.
Political leaders north and south paid glowing tributes yesterday, each acknowledging the last time they saw him was in the football stadium in Sligo as he helped club officials present development plans.
As retirement projects go, trying to secure a future for the game in the north-west could not have been better.
That work will continue in his sad absence, with Sligo officials admitting his knowledge and skillset took an ambitious project and made it realistic.
Forever associated with Northern Ireland and his reporting of the transformation to peace, perhaps his greatest accomplishment was being trusted and respected by both sides where division was so apparent.
In the unique existence of the Bit O’ Red, fandom can quickly pass to officialdom.
So it was when in 2012 Tommie opted to join the club’s management committee.
The club was on the cusp of a first league title in 35 years and needed to strengthen the off-field guidance.
It was not something to pass up. Work commitments could be managed, this was a dream to chase. Tommie brought his passion, love and drive to that endeavour - few could match his attributes in these areas.
Being in the centre of conflict reporting in his day job may have prepared him for life behind the scenes of a volunteer League of Ireland club rich only in history, emotion and demands.
But how sweet it was.
The club needed €250,000 to build a new stand to host a European game and ensure big crowds could attend the final home games of the run-in.
Together with chairman Dr Dermot Kelly, the duo paid visits to the business community looking for €2,500 at a time, for nothing in return but to build a bigger home for a football club.
The chairman was the salesman, his colleague sold the sentiment behind it. The nylon salesmen as Tommie called them. The money arrived quickly, the stand even faster.
Four months later came the crowning moment. On the night the club won the league trophy, Rovers brought a hardened journalist back to the days of growing up.
He looked into the crowd, at old school mates smiling back while he thought of those gone, knowing one day his time would come.
Always the family man, he wrote in the days after: "I went to the game with my son. Afterwards we bought a feed of sweets, went home and rewatched it over and over again.
"Sometimes I think about death. If I'm cremated, I'd love to have the ashes scattered over The Showgrounds.
"It's not a morbid subject. I know that what happened that day means I will die happy. Even if I never see another league title, I will die happy.
"This miracle of a season. When we all pulled together. When the sum of our parts made us the best team in the league."
A personal letter I received from the late Tommie Gorman during a very difficult season for Sligo Rovers (2020 Covid season) During the pressures of being club captain in a relegation battle it was very much appreciated back then, that I kept it safe from that day. A gent RIP pic.twitter.com/ibBYkvWFrs
— DavidCawley (@DavidCawley22) June 25, 2024
The sum of the parts of Sligo Rovers contained its most passionate and unique son, who treasured his own family and that of his club.
Last February, the club’s current manager John Russell pinpointed a weakness, that their playing squad of recent years may not have appreciated playing for a club run by its community and the history before it.
Tommie got the call.
Despite dispatches around the world during a career spent working in news and current affairs, it was a presentation to 20 footballers on a pre-season training camp in Westport that would give him his greatest honour.
The most inexperienced team in the league and likely to face a relegation battle – with its oldest player just 25 – listened to the knowledge of a life steeped in Rovers and grew taller.
As funeral details were published this morning, one line stood out.
It read: Family flowers only. Donations in lieu, if desired, to the Sligo Rovers Stadium Development Fund.
The love affair never ends.
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