The Late Ivan Neill Ivan Neill has been associated with Gaelic football in Mayo for as long as I can remember. Quietly standing on the sideline, taking notes, covering countless matches every year - U14, junior championship, Connacht senior finals. There was no cherry-picking with Ivan. They were all the same to him. His dedication to his job as sports editor of the Western People was such that he thought nothing of reporting on four matches in a single day. When I joined the staff of the Western People in June 1986, he was extremely welcoming. Ivan was a man of few words and I recall him ringing me to welcome me on board. It meant something. I was based in south Mayo, and he was in the office in Ballina, so we tended to communicate mostly by phone - the pre-weekend call confirming what matches I'd be doing, the half-dozen calls on Monday clarifying and double-checking events from the weekend. Sports editor of a local newspaper is a taxing occupation, particularly in a newspaper that comes out on a Tuesday morning. Deadlines are unforgiving. The Sunday night shift is long and arduous as you try to write up the reports of the matches you covered yourself, and also pick up details of other games from club officials, referees, supporters, players - anyone who would help put together " a few paragraphs." Ivan made little of the grind. I don't ever recall his complaining about the long Sunday nights as this great juggernaut of a paper was constructed. He was fiercely committed to the Western People. He believed in the small and the seemingly insignificant: he was proud of the fact that no other paper in Mayo covered so many games each week. That was the key to the Western People's success. Ivan's wasn't a man you got to know very well. Hew was a private man, but he as an outstanding colleague during my nine years in the Western. His personal boundaries were well-defined and this may have created the impression that he was distant, but that wasn't the full story. I believe he may have been shy, because, once you got to know his ways, he was chatty, playful and loyal. His dedication to the Western People Sports Star awards was legendary. And when the final night came, the night of glitter and glamour. Ivan was to be found on the door of the Downhill Hotel, taking the tickets and meeting the stars and their families, studiously eschewing the limelight. It is hard to believe he is no more. I was told on the day of the Connacht final, just nine days ago, that he was sick and might not pull through. And he was dead inside a week. It was all so sudden and so unfair. Never again will he stand beside a dug-out and ask a helpful club official for an U14 teamsheet. Never again will he double check a final score with a referee. He gave thousands of young sports people their first mention in a newspaper. He was part of Mayo's sporting heritage and the news of his passing will have caused sports people all over the county, and beyond, to utter a silent prayer in his memory. Courtesy of The Mayo News 20th July 2005 By Liam Horan Tweet

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