Down the beach we'd go day after day (the same beach that Bomber Byrne got pummelled on three years earlier), the radio would get turned on to loud and he'd start running down the beach for hours on end like a madman. No doubt Jon and Vangelis were pounding through his cranium and he was dreaming of gold.
This desire to run stayed with him for many years and you can look for him now in any marathon, half-marathon or 10k that is being run in the greater Dublin environs. Sebastian Coe, principal organiser for the London Olympics, has been rumoured to have looked for him when searching for a role model for the over sixties.
The video recording I got of him on the beach in Donegal is old and grainy but I think it shows enough to give you a feel for the determination and will to win he had back in the early eighties.
Truly stunning.
