Death is sad at any time but particularly so just before Christmas. But this past week, as people were scurrying around racking up huge bills on their credit cards, football lost one of its best. The news didn't make headlines, indeed had it not been for a quick scan of last Sunday's newspaper I would not have known about the death of Harry McNally until Tuesday when I called Ronnie Moore on his mobile only to catch him at Harry's funeral.
I suppose many of the modern generation might ask, Harry WHO? But the answer is, a football man, through and through who managed at the lower levels of league football, gave many a player his chance and who went on to a career in scouting when the demands of the modern game cast him aside.
I first came across Harry, David Bedford moustache, et al, when he was manager of Chester City at their old ground Sealand Road. Away fans visiting Chester City's new stadium, in the heart of an industrial estate, would have to pass the site of the old ground. Home fans will know all about Sealand Road and Harry McNally's reign there.
Harry didn't suffer fools gladly but if you were a football person it gave you a head start with him. It was nearly 20 years ago when I first started to cover Chester City and I turned up at the ground, just before training and although he was preparing for that day's work on the training field, Harry made time for me and answered honestly, and with genuine interest, as I plied him with questions for the club's telephone information service.
Job done, I started to make my way out until invited to stay for training, an invitation that needed no second ask.
Harry McNally started his managerial career when, in his own words, he was 'thrown in at the deep end at Wigan, where we had no money at all'.
* Interesting to note then at the Ipswich v Wigan game on Tuesday how moving it was to see how superbly EVERYONE at Portman Road gave great respect to the man who had started on the slippery road of management at the Lancashire club which now, on the verge of the Premiership with Dave Whelan's millions behind it, is unrecognisable from the outfit Harry took on.
And if you looked closely at the eyes of Paul Jewell, the Wigan boss, when the intrusive camera closed in, you could see how intense was the feeling inside Paul for the man who gave him his chance, 20 years ago, with the Latics.
'Been there, got the T shirt and the video' could have been written for Harry. He has been a manager, an assistant-manager, coach, scout and I know for a fact he washed the kit at Chester, and therefore falls into the category of someone who MUST be listened to when it comes to football, a rarity in itself in this world of self-anointed claims to be 'the voice of football' etc.
He could spot a player as well, something he proved time and time again when he discovered and developed the likes of Alan Mahon, Mike Newell and Brett Ormerod, to name but three, so a McNally opinion was one to listen to.
Stories about Harry are woven into the fabric of football, like the time he told me Chester FC had to sell the antique boardroom table so they could pay the players' wages.
My favourite tale was the one about his reaction when his centre half conceded a soft goal just 15 seconds from kick-off. Harry ran on to the field and shook the 'offending' defender warmly by the throat and would have done serious damage had other players not prised his hands from the jugular.
I had the pleasure and privilege of working with Harry a few times and interviewed him on numerous occasions. When I heard of his passing, aged 70, I delved into my archive and dug out an interview I did with him a few years ago when he had just returned to football as a scout for Stockport County.
Amongst the pearls of wisdom and common-sense I discovered his answer to the question that is often put to managers when they are sacked but still bounce back into that precarious position…why do you do it?
Harry answered: "It's in your blood. I am 66 and it makes you feel young. It's a young environment and that's what it's all about….but the pressure, there's so much pressure."
If you know what Harry meant then you too are a football person. Harry was and he will be missed. Harry's game just won't be the same.
