‘We could come out of Croke Park and there’d be maybe fifty, sixty even a hundred people, and they’d all stop talking to Weeshie’

I’VE great memories I was honoured to work with the man. It was a pleasure to be in his company really, because we travelled the length and breath of Ireland, all over the place, with him. A lot of the time it was the two of us who were in the car and long old drives to Donegal and up to Tyrone and Croke Park.

He was an institution. I don’t think you’ll ever again see another Weeshie Fogarty. His knowledge of all sports was immense and definitely, of course, GAA.

He’d a certain way of articulating a match. People would say to me afterwards ‘it was great commentary’, but the commentary was only as good as what Weeshie was and Weeshie was always good. I never had a problem at all articulating the day’s unfoldings or whatever from Croke Park because Weeshie did that and he did it in his own unique way, and I don’t think anybody else will ever match him or equal him the way he was able to paint the picture.

It was just a pleasure and it’s only really now that I’m appreciating that it was me that was chosen to get the chance to work with Weeshie because not many others got that opportunity.

He was just a complete gentleman. Real down to earth guy and a lovely fella to work with.

We just did it naturally. It was like having a drink together or having a tea and a sandwich together and that’s the way it was. I remember when I came on board first in 2004 Weeshie said to be

‘look, be your own man, do your own thing, don’t get too worried about the fact you’re doing live radio and you’re doing it to a huge audience.

It’s like you’re painting the picture to one person at home’ and that was the kind of advice I always took on board.

To say that there’s only one person listening to you and that one person is as good as a million people to me listening all over the world, but it was Weeshie who brought the calmness about everything. Like I said he could paint the picture so brilliantly that my job was only calling the shots of what had gone over the bar or had gone wide and it was after that that Weeshie kicked in.

We complemented each other well I think. I remember back to a county final or a few years back when South Kerry played the Legion and we got an awful lot of comment after that to say that it was the most unbiased commentary every because it was hard for Weeshie being a Legion man and it was hard for me being a South Kerry man, but it was harder for him because Legion was his club.

At least South Kerry was my district. South Kerry wasn’t my club so it was very hard for Weeshie, but he called it the way he saw it and that’s the way we always described it and that’s the way we went about our business.

Always call the game, it’s not what you’d like to see it’s what you saw, and I think we bounced off each other very well and in a lackadaisical way and I think it worked anyway. What I found really good,

and people would say it was unusual, but it wasn’t, we could come out of Croke Park and there’d be maybe fifty, sixty, even a hundred people, and they’d all stop talking to Weeshie. And I’d be going away quietly as I could to the car because nobody knew me and they all knew Weeshie and I was delighted with that.

It’s not that you don’t want to be taking pictures with people – you do – but Weeshie would be signing autographs for the bones of a hundred people, he’d be more popular than the Kerry footballers. And then there was a few times when I’d have to come back from the car and have to say ‘Weesh come on, we’ve a long drive to go’ and then he’d say to me ‘We have and of course you’ve an extra hour of a journey when we reach Kerry’ and I’d say ‘I have, yeah’.

Sure we’d talk all about it on the way down and he’d be well able to. And it was very funny, before games because he would predict more or less how players would play because he’d know the form they were in.

He’d say ‘I expect a big game out of this guy today’ or another guy ‘no I’m hearing he’s not going too well in training’ or ‘from what I’m seeing he’s not doing too well’ and you’d know nine times out of ten he’d be right.

That player who mightn’t have been playing well would be substituted early and the player that Weeshie would have said was jumping out of his skin at the moment he more or less would end up as man of the match, so he’d an unique ability to call that.

Of course his own background of being an ex-player was outstanding. He was unlucky to come under the umbrella of Johnny Culloty. Johnny was his great friend, of course, but Johnny was also the number one goalie at the time and Weeshie was the number two.

Then of course he’d often tell me about the days he was refereeing and games he would have refereed and teams that he trained and winning his All-Ireland junior. He was an immensely proud man and he was a mine of information.