Jim McDonagh - Jacko to us all - was a wonderful and very considerate mentor and coach to a crop of Beechwood players. He showed - with ease - how ordinary boys could throw off their limitations. He could always identify the one nugget of ability that each and every child possessed, however slight.

Nobody could set a team up like he could. His calmness, coupled with the devotion of his players, lead our under 17s (now aged 27) to all of the three available trophies in a single, glorious and memorable year. Myself, Stephen Dorman and Michael Carvill unjustifiably took some of the credit as ‘managers’; we were lucky enough to carry the balls and send the texts.

He lived and breathed football and had played as a very skillfull centre back with Bohs and the 4-in-a-row Shamrock Rovers team, before having a very successful career in France with Nimes Olympique, with Warreghem in Belgium, and Oxford United and Derry. He was capped at all youth levels and three times as a senior under Eoin Hand and was awarded FAI young player of the year.

While coaching the lads, he was unfortunate enough to break a leg in a very testy Veterans International against England. He invariably gave a tirade of highly amusing advice from the touchline, half of it in French….’throw it to his feet, not his head, he’s not a seal!’ When sent by the FAI to study youth coaching in Barcelona and Ajax, he was somewhat sceptical, distilling that trip down into “just let them play ball” on his return. The boys loved him.

He will live long in all our memories and it is a great sadness that he had to experience the indignity of debilitating illness over the past four years. It is a testament that so many feel so deeply for him, and that his wonderful family and many close friends supported him to the final whistle.

Thank you Jacko.

Message shared by Larry Ryan

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