CUSHENDALL’S senior hurling manager Brian Delargy has paid his own personal tribute to the late John McKillop as they prepare for Saturday’s championship opener with Ballycastle after a “few tough days” in the parish.
‘Wee John’, as he was affectionately known, died last Sunday morning and was laid to rest on Wednesday at St Mary’s Church in Cushendall.
It’s not the championship build-up Cushendall had anticipated as they come to terms with one of their biggest supporters no longer on the sidelines.
“It has been a tough few days,” said Delargy. “I’d say if anybody was down at the house during the week will know how proud we were of John.
“In a way, we’ll probably not have to mention him that much – but deep down our thoughts will be with John and his family, especially ahead of this first fixture.
“When it comes to Saturday’s match (Cushendall, 7pm), John will be in our thoughts - and every day we take to the field. Winning a match on Saturday won’t do justice to what John gave to our whole community.
“You just want to do him proud, you want to go and compete – and that’s all John ever wanted.”
Delargy’s abiding memory of ‘Wee John’ was around the time he’d stepped down from playing for the club and became part of the coaching set-up.
“I retired early because of injury and Terence McNaughton and James McNaughton – God rest him – brought me in just the year after I’d finished playing.
“I was a bit nervous going out to take the warm-up. I set all my cones out and when I came back to do the warm-up, John hadn’t lifted the cones, but he’d moved them enough to mess up the drills. And I remember looking over at him and there he was nudging Terence McNaughton, laughing and pointing at me!
“He was a devil too and real good craic.”
While virtually non-verbal, John could communicate in other ways with the players and management.
“John knew what sort of mood everybody was in,” Delargy said. “If things were tense, John would come into the group, done something or taken the hand out of a player. He just cut through everything and brought everything back down. We’ll all miss him.”
Delargy hopes he doesn’t have too much difficulty focussing his players after an emotional week against a Ballycastle side that have shown encouraging signs of a revival on the championship stage.
Missing their best attacker Ciaran Clarke after a serious knee injury, the McQuillan’s narrowly lost to St John’s at the quarter-final stages last season.
Still without Clarke, Ballycastle have a skilled nucleus of players as they make the 16-mile journey to the north Antrim village on Saturday evening.
Delargy added: “We didn’t finish in the top half of the league with boys injured at the start of the year and coming back, so the league campaign wasn’t great. But we’ve started to build a bit of momentum with boys coming back from injury. So, we got enough out of the league. It’s all about gearing up at this time of year.”
After a brilliant career with club and county, defender Arron Graffin has hung up his boots – but Neil McManus still leads the Cushendall charge having run four-in-a-row champions Dunloy close in last season’s county final.
St Enda’s and Loughgiel Shamrocks complete Group Two with the pair clashing at Pairc Eanna on Sunday (2pm). Elsewhere, Dunloy open their account away in Group One to Clooney Gaels, also Sunday (2pm).
West Belfast rivals St John’s and O’Donovan Rossa face one another in Group One at Corrigan Park on Saturday evening (7pm)
