It's been a very emotional few days. On Thursday morning, I was rushing around getting ready to drive 250 miles to Cork to see Joe Bonamassa Play Rory Gallagher at The Marquee. If you don't know, Bonamassa is one of the great blues guitarists of our time and a huge Rory Gallagher fan. Recently, none other than Johnny Marr from The Smiths cited Gallagher as one of his main influences. If you love guitar solo's you'll love RG and JB! The first time I remember hearing Gallagher's name mentioned was when he died in 1995 and my housemate at university told me his older brother was heartbroken by the news and sat up all night, drowning his sorrows but got worried about drinking alone so poured some in the dogs bowl so he could join him! There was a CD shop on Royal Avenue in Belfast that sold classic albums for a fiver in the early 2000's. One day I went in and bought Morrison Hotel by The Doors and Against The Grain by Rory Gallagher. That was the album that got me into the former Taste front man. In Cork, there were 15,000 people over 3 nights to hear Bonamassa bring back to life the music of the man claimed by the city on the banks of the River Lee. Gerry McAvoy, who played bass with Rory, rolled back the years when joining the band on stage for a couple of numbers and also provided a link back to the great man. The Gallagher family were there too. People had travelled from everywhere to see this gig. We spoke to two brothers and a son from Belgium, one of them had seen Rory play in his country in the late 70's.
I was at the gig with one of my best friends who I haven't seen very much of in recent years as work and family take precedence but we made the effort back in November last year to book tickets for a show in July and worry about the logistics later. Over the following months, on Whatsapp, we put well considered plans together, added another friend to our number, he sorted us out with discounted hotels and he then added his friend of many years from New York now living in Co. Clare. I offered to drive the northern contingent rather than get trains, if I got too tired someone else could drive for a while or do the drive back the next day. In the end, there was no need. The anticipation on the way down filled the car with energy, a decent nights sleep, a good breakfast (saw a man in a Liverpool jersey on the way down) and a stroll around Cork at midday set me up for the trip back up north. No rush. Six hours and a couple of pit stops later, we were all home, safe and sound.
I knew I had another drive ahead of me on Saturday evening. I'd got tickets to the Only Fools and Horses Musical in Dublin for me, my parents, brother and sister. We all love the tv show and it was a good chance to do something together as a family (also an easy Christmas present for them all). Arguably the 1996 episodes of John Sullivan's great British sitcom about the trials and tribulations of a pair of market trading brothers from Peckham in south London, marked the end of the series. Amongst all the hooky gear they'd collected and stored over the years, there was something that finally made them the millionaires they'd worked so hard to be, prompting the older brother Del to update his famous line to "This time next year, we'll be billionaires". There were further episodes up until the early 2000s but none of them are that memorable to me. Even 20 plus years since the show ended and 40 plus since it began, fans still love the Trotter family characters originally played by David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, the late Lennard Pearce and Buster Merryfield. I collected everyone and drove the 100 miles to Dublin (The car park attendant had a Liverpool tattoo). We cheered and laughed and applauded every line we recognised, we sang the theme tune and our sides split at the actors perfect impressions of the family we'd grown up being entertained by. It was the final night of a ten month run and Paul Whitehouse, who played Grandad and Uncle Albert, welcomed members of John Sullivan's family who were in the audience.
Greatness never dies.
On Thursday morning before we left for Cork, I got my hair cut and then filled the car up with diesel for the journey. My son, Arlo, was with me, waiting to be picked up for football camp by his friends mum. I got a few messages while at the petrol station. The one that caught my eye first was from my brother "Did you hear the breaking news?" My first thought was - is Trump dead? Ten seconds later, I was sitting in the car telling my Liverpool mad, 10 year old, son that Diogo Jota had died in a car crash. I was stunned too "Jota's dead. He died in a car crash" I said at the same time as proving it by showing him the news headline on my phone. "Can he not be saved?" was his reply "No" I said sadly, "So that's it, he's just gone?" he asked angrily, I nodded a shrug and watched him turn away, mouth open, unable to comprehend the news. The day before, we had been talking about the Nantes forward, Sala, who had died in a plane crash on the way to sign for Cardiff City. We were driving in the car, ranking the best games he had been to and one of them was Nantes v Toulouse in 2023. We were on holiday in the area and went to a match. It was as loud a game as even I've been to and I've been going to football at various levels for nearly 40 years but this was one of Arlo's first ever games and it made a deep impression. The amount of Nantes fans wearing canary yellow shirts in honour of their late centre forward must've been part of his overall memory at Stade De La Beaujoire.
I didn't have much time to dwell on it but everybody who got into the car that day was talking about Jota and most of them aren't even interested in football. When we stopped a couple of times on the way to Cork, I saw more messages from my other best friends who are Liverpool fans "Tragedy is never far from our club" read one. I still didn't have time to fully reflect on what happened and to be honest that suited me. The longer I could put off having to deal with this, the better. I did wonder if the lung operation that stopped him from flying was related to the rib injury he suffered when a player landed on him in a game but I couldn't remember when that was or who it was against (edit: It was Chelsea in Oct 24). After the concert, we sat in the hotel bar and chatted about old times. Conscious of the drive home the next day, I went to bed about one in the morning and started reading some of the tributes. This was the first time I'd had a chance to try and take it all in. Andy Robertson's words had tears trickling down my face. We just see these men as footballers and we've little perception of the relationships built between them from spending years of their lives together at training grounds, on buses and planes to games, on the pitch, outside of work, watching sport on tv together and messaging on Whatsapp groups. Robbo had just been at Jota's wedding a couple of weeks ago and now this. It was heartfelt. It was devastating. The humanity of it all. The mortality. One of the boys knocked the door of my hotel room and asked could he have the car keys to get the rest of the beers out of the car. I explained he'd never find the car as it was in another hotel carpark so I got dressed and went out and got the beers for him (I did try to put him off first and he probably wished he'd listened to me the next day!). I got a message from Emma saying there were tears from Arlo when she was putting him to bed.
Everyone has had to deal with death on some level. It will come to us all but I've been lucky so far that it's mostly been grandparents who'd lived to their 80's and it was when I was still only young. I remember clearly my mum's desperate sadness at the death of her 84 year old mother and how she told me many years later that she'd never gotten over it. You wouldn't have known. She raised 3 children with my dad, kept the house, worked as a nurse and visited elderly relatives every weekend. You just have to keep going, there's nothing else for it. My grandfather (who I'd never met) died 2 weeks after my nana (who I'd seen at least every week of my 13 years at that point) which added to the deep sorrow. Another soul for the new family plot. My aunt passed away in her 50's a few years later, the headstone amended to feature 3 names and it has remained like that at the time of writing. We got mass cards of them all. It's a laminated card with a picture of the deceased, the dates of birth and death, some sort of picture of Jesus or Mary and a prayer. My mum will visit the grave most weeks. The wider family will attend mass for anniversaries of all the deceased family members. Graveyard Mass is an annual event in the catholic calendar, an open air celebration and commemoration of all those buried there with a final blessing of the graves. Cousins, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunts and uncles will all congregate for these occasions. The grave, the gravestone, the mass card, the anniversaries, the birthdays. Keeping the memory alive.
Growing up as catholic, I was taught that when we die, if we're good and God fearing, we will be resurrected. I now believe the eternal life they taught us or drilled into us to be more accurate, can only be achieved by keeping the memory alive. We've probably all heard that Walt Disney has been cryogenically frozen to be re-animated one day when the technology is available. That may be true or may be an urban myth but it could be possible one day, the hand held device from the 1960's Star Trek television show has long been a reality. Jurassic Park doesn't seem as far fetched when scientists are talking about bringing the Dodo back from extinction using advanced genetic engineering techniques. It is said that Jesus disappeared from the tomb he was buried in, 2 days after dying on the cross. It is claimed he had risen to heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. The mystery of faith. The foundation of Christianity. Eternal life grant unto them O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them.
A lot of what I've learned in life has come from The Simpsons and in more recent years from watching kids films with Arlo as he has grown up. I was in Portugal last week with the whole family to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday. While collecting a rental car, I complimented the Portuguese man behind the counter on his excellent English, he told me he'd learned from The Simpsons - listening to the spoken English and reading the subtitles. Just over a week later, Portugal would be in mourning. The Book Of Life is a kids film set in Mexico about the Day of the Dead - the land of the remembered and the land of the forgotten. The importance of keeping the memory alive. I've watched this film dozens of times with my boy since he was born in 2014 and it has really helped me make sense of the religion I was brought up to believe in. I'm in my 49th year now and over the last few years I've seen more and more friends lose loved ones. Our family hasn't escaped it either. My mother in law, Eleanor passed away in 2022. Our worlds were shattered - none more so than my wife, her brother, sister and father. As I write this, there is a picture of Eleanor, on the chest of drawers in front of me, sitting in her favourite armchair with a beautiful smile on her face. It's a lovely way to remember her and still feel like she is around. She got to grow up, fall in love, get married, teach children in Liverpool, Zambia and Newry, see her children grow, have families of their own, enjoy retirement and grandchildren. All the things that you're supposed to experience in life. She missed big moments as well though. Despite living until almost 80, she never got to see her grandson make his Holy Communion or her oldest granddaughter pass her driving test or her youngest granddaughter turn 16. Her husband did though and Eleanor lives on in him because they were together for so long and she lives on in her children and grandchildren because you can see her in them. We say things like "granny would have loved that" or are reminded of her every spring when we drive up to her house and the garden she worked so hard at, comes into bloom again. We are all keeping the memory alive. I was listening to a podcast with a former GAA star who spoke about his mum passing away after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's and he said he wished he had taken more videos of his mum instead of just photos. There's even more life in a video you've taken on your phone.
When I got home from Cork and caught up with Emma and Arlo, I went to bed and read some more. Tony Evans piece about the privilege of growing old struck a chord. We just assume we're going to reach those landmarks of life but there is so much to navigate and fatal accidents like this remind us how fragile life can be. The death of Diogo Jota is a tragedy because he was a 28 year old lad from Portugal who leaves behind a wife, Rute, and 3 young children and parents who have lost not just one but also their younger son, Andre, who died in the same crash, at the same time. Diogo's children lost their dad and their uncle. Rute and Diogo had been together since they were teenagers. Friends and family are now the bereaved and many of those friends were at the funeral. Thiago, Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Caoimhin Kelleher are no longer even Liverpool players. Manager Arne Slot, skipper Virgil Van Dijk and many members of the playing and non-playing staff from Jota's club. International team mate, Bruno Fernandes, the captain of Manchester United, our biggest rivals. What does this mean now? When Cristiano Ronaldo tragically lost his baby son during a second spell in Manchester, the Kop showed their respect by applauding and singing You'll Never Walk Alone in a game against United. Some things are bigger than football. Bernardo Silva, key player in Man City's dominance, the team that have kept us from where we want to be, season after season, by just being a little bit better. Not particularly liked by Liverpool fans. Ruben Neves, former Wolves and Portugal team mate flew from playing a game in America the day before to be in Gondomar for the funeral on Saturday morning. May they all find the strength to continue their lives and keep the memories of Diogo and Andre alive in their own ways.
On Friday night, I went to bed and watched a bit of the live stream of Oasis first show of the world tour, 16 years after they last performed. I'm not a massive Oasis fan but I probably know every word of most of their songs. They were part of the soundtrack of my first year at university in 1995. I saw them live in 2002 and there wasn't much chat in between songs. This gig was very much back to that. They let the music do the talking and it sounded good to be fair. I turned it off as the FOMO was getting worse and scrolled through Twitter again, coming across a beautifully crafted video of Jota on the official LFC account. Again tears, were trickling. I went back to Oasis thinking I was on safer ground. At the end of Live Forever, on the screens, either side of the stage, they put up what looked like a mural of Jota in a red Liverpool shirt with his number 20 on the back and that was the cue for full tears. Never did I think that Man City supporting and general football wind up merchants Oasis would be the ones to bring me to tears. An incredible gesture.
Diogo Jota Lives Forever.
LFCHistory.net is a stats based website that I've followed over the years and even more in recent times since Salah has been breaking one goal scoring record after another. Mo's song is probably sang more than any other because he's involved in so many goals. You still hear songs about Luis Garcia, Gerrard and Dalglish at Anfield, long after they've finished playing for us. Salah overtook Billy Liddell and Gordon Hodgson on the all time goal scorers list for Liverpool. Billy Liddell still has a banner on the Kop that is waved before every home game despite not playing for the club since the 1960's. Gordon Hodgson is less well known having played for Liverpool in the 20's and 30's but was 3rd on the all time scorers for the club with 241 goals until Salah broke that record in 24/25 as well. My friend is originally from South Africa and he remembers his grandfather telling him about Hodgson. Diogo Jota's Liverpool career comes to an earth shatteringly premature end with 65 goals in 182 games. 1 less than Steve McManaman and 2 more than John Aldridge. Number 38 on the all time list. He had 22 assists. Liverpool never lost when he scored and that was in 52 games, winning 43. He won the League Cup in 2022, FA Cup the same year -scoring in the penalty shootouts of both finals, he was injured for the League Cup in 2024 and helped bring home number 20 by winning the Premier League in 2025. He won the Nations League twice with Portugal.
Driving back from Dublin on Saturday night, I was diverted off the direct road and through Banbridge, Lurgan and Waringstown. It put about another 20 or 30 minutes on my journey home. Since the news about the sad passing off Diogo Jota on Thursday morning, I'd been reminded of him wherever I went. A man in a Liverpool shirt at breakfast in a hotel in Cork, a lad with a Liverpool tattoo on his leg in a car park in Dublin, the messages and the tweets. My own memory of him is being at the Fulham game with Arlo on my 48th birthday in December 2024 and Jota came off the bench to score a late equaliser on another big weekend for us in the Premier League because Arsenal drew at home with Everton and United beat City the next day. There were many moments that won us the league in 2025 and Jota's goal against Fulham was one of them.
It was just after 1am again when I got to Moira, the last village before home. It was kicking-out time from the pubs. Even with the car windows closed, I could hear a group of young fellas, arms around each other, singing loud and proud:
"Oh he wears the number 20...."
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