I’d like to take time out to pay tribute to Joe Lennon who passed away yesterday. One of the leaders of a great Down Football team in the 1960’s he was in many ways more than a player, more than a captain.
After his playing career he went on to become a teacher and coach at Gormanston College where he taught me to play a sport I have always loved.
He introduced the forerunner of the National Coaching Conference at Gormanston when coaching was still seen as more about inspiration than the science it has become.
He was a thinker about the game and earned a PHD in the Philosophy of Sport for work he did on the importance of the thought that goes into the values that lie behind any great sporting club or organisation.
He will forever be remembered as part of that three time All Ireland winning team who brought Sam Maguire north of the border for the first time in 1960.
One of the beauties of sport is the thread with which it ties generations together, how its place in history changes over time but always remains.
In tribute to Joe Lennon here is a short film from the archives of that Down triumph in 1960, watched at Croke Park by 88,000 customers and with Eamon De Valera handing over the trophy at the end of the game.
