An Irishwoman's Diary

ON the night of Chick Deacy’s burial, there was a wind that would whip all three Aran islands into Galway docks or further east. A tempestuous storm, the sort that would grind granite, lift limestone and sweep young saplings from firm soil. It seemed more than coincidental, for there were those who felt their Earth had shifted, if not quite tilted, on its axis in recent weeks.

"A great tree has fallen," journalist Jim Carney had said of last month's passing of former Connacht Tribuneeditor John Cunningham; and then, within days, another mighty oak was lost. Capped four times for Ireland, Eamon "Chick" Deacy played with Limerick, Sligo, Derby County, Galway Rovers, West United and was one of 14 players to help Aston Villa secure the English league championship title in 1980-81.

He was selected after he pestered the "Villans" for a trial and had to be a little economical with his age. Donegal-based GP Don McGinley, who was at school with him in Galway's "Bish", remembers how his own favourite fireside chair after a week's work in Derry was watching BBC's Match of the Dayand listening to Jimmy Hill extolling this "new talent" from across the water.

The team lifted the European Cup the following season, by which time Deacy had decided it was time to come home. One of the many highlights of that return was securing the FAI cup with Galway United in 1991. Throughout, he maintained a reputation for versatility and tough tackling, but he was also remembered for his absolute compassion off the field.

His brother Don recalled one such instance of this when he and siblings Des and Chick were part of the West United team that won the Connacht Senior Cup in 1975. Chick’s opposite number was giving him a very hard time, and he floored him with a tackle of such ferocity that the rival had to be stretchered off.

All the team were celebrating a win on the bus home, bar one member. “Eamon was just really worried about whether your man was okay.” Brother Ernie, who runs the family fruit and vegetable shop on Sea Road, recalled at his funeral how it was his job to mind him and his brother Dessie as babies. “Chicken”, as he was nicknamed by his late father, loved nothing more than to kick a ball on land formerly owned by their grandfather in Terryland Park.

Welcoming four former Aston Villa team mates and club director Robin Russell to the service in the Augustinian church, Ernie singled out one of the four, Colin Gibson, for special mention. It was ironic that Gibson should have travelled, given that “the whole of Galway was always praying you’d get injured,” Ernie told him, to laughter. Both Gibson and Deacy had been in competition for the midfield slot.

Ernie recounted how his brother had always kept in touch with his landlady, Peggy, who had promised to be his mum across the water. He described how Chick was always so reluctant to take a wage, and how it was his firm belief that those lucky enough to be selected for a team should always give of their very best.

Ernie also had some advice for Football Association of Ireland (FAI) chief executive John Delaney, who was in the congregation. The sports-crazed Deacy lads had never enjoyed any of the comforts afforded to players today, Ernie told him. They used to run around with a ball for hours without so much as a drink, but would then consume a quart of buttermilk. “So, John, you’re ruining them!” he pleaded. “You’re giving them too much water!”

However, as Fr Dick Lyng noted, it was Chick Deacy’s humility and decency that had struck a chord with so many. He was devoted to his wife Mary, children Dawn and Jake; he encouraged aspiring players, and he had a genuine interest in everyone who crossed the threshold of Ernie’s shop.

Not for Chick Deacy the life of premier football now, he told this reporter in our last brief conversation, after he had reluctantly received a hall of fame award. “It’s big business, not sport any more,” he said, as he hauled a bag of groceries effortlessly into the boot of my car.

Not a week later, dozens of grown men, and many younger, stood silently outside Fr Lyng’s church in Middle Street, tears camouflaged by rain as West United formed a guard of honour. A friend recalled nights in the pub when the BBC was on the screen, and “every time Chick would get the ball the whole bar would erupt in cheers”.

“In a way, he lived out the Roy of the Rovers dream for all that knew him,” Dr Don McGinley says. Catherine La Farge, who bought the Deacy family house in Galway’s St John’s Terrace when she began lecturing at NUI Galway, remembers one of his many touching acts of generosity.

It was her daughter Mimi’s very first “Galway Christmas Eve” and rain was coming down in torrents when there was a knock on the door. Catherine answered, Eamon introduced himself, but would not come in. He was bearing a little navy and white outfit – a spontaneous gift for a child now growing up in the home that he once knew.

“It was a few years later that he was once walking down the street on a summer evening, and I asked him if he wanted to drop in to the house and have a look around, as he’d grown up there. He said no at first, but then did, and I let him be there on his own . . .”