Late QC was also a very handy footballer

I REFER to your obituary of Charles Quin QC (News, July 30), who died in the Cayman Islands on June 7.

I played football with Charlie for 6th Bangor Company of the Boys’ Brigade in the Belfast Battalion leagues during the late 1960s.

We had some early success, however our entry into the Senior League after 1967 was not as successful.

In Charlie’s final year in the BB he was approached by the Bangor Parish Football Club, the same parish church which housed 6th Bangor Boys’ Brigade, and asked to play for them.

However, Charlie’s father was the archdeacon at the church (later to become Bishop of Down and Dromore), so much moral pressure was put on Charlie to play with the Boys’ Brigade, which he accepted with his usual good grace.

That season Charlie was invariably the best player on the pitch, but the rest of us could not give him the support he deserved and we suffered many defeats.

One reason was that we were playing against teams packed with 18-year-old boys, while most of our players were 14, 15 or 16. Charlie would have been the oldest player in the team.

In that same season Charlie was picked to play for the Belfast Battalion against BB representative teams from other UK cities.

In one match Belfast won the match 3-0 and Charlie scored a hat-trick.

Charlie was one of the best footballers I had the privilege to play with and I feel enriched to have known him, even if it was only for a few years in the Sixties.

BARRY McCLELLAND

St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex