AN end of an era. One of the most over-used phrases you’ll ever read or hear.
In my career as a sports journalist I’ve been guilty of using this well-worn phrase a thousand times over – but until today I suppose I never truly appreciated its simple and yet awesome magnitude.
Thomas Hawkins, our sports editor, my sports editor and friend, retires after 20 years in the role.
A bit like when Alex Ferguson was manager of Manchester United, you could never imagine the club without the fiery Scot at the helm.
It's still hard to imagine 'T' not on the WhatsApp group after today.
Thomas has always been present, his lightness of mood, his affable nature, the kind of man reared with good grace and manners.
The difference between Ferguson and Thomas was that Thomas never used the hair-dryer treatment. He didn’t need to.
There were times over the years you’d get angry with him, but the anger never lasted. How could it with his consummate people skills?
When I entered The Irish News offices in January 1999, Thomas was a sub-editor. A couple of years later, the big job became vacant and he slotted into the role.
In 2001, he made me Republic of Ireland correspondent for the newspaper. It's only the best job in the whole place.
A year later, this wide-eyed reporter was in far-flung Japan with a dodgy lap-top, trying out local sushi, drinking pints with Logie and Albert, formerly of UTV Sport fame, and sitting in press boxes watching the World Cup finals.
Niigata, Ibaraki, Yokohama and on to beautiful Seoul for that unforgettable encounter with Spain.
Early one morning on my day off, I jumped on a bus and visited the DMZ that separates North and South Korea before attending Brazil versus Costa Rica in Suwon to watch the great Ronaldo in the flesh.
It’s probably the best day off I ever had. Over the past 20 years, my passport was stamped that many times it ran out of pages.
Tallinn, Nicosia, Bari, Catalonia, Copenhagen, Moscow, Tehran, Belgrade, Tbilisi, Tirana, Paris, Vienna, Gelsenkirchen, the breezy Faroes, Gdansk, Poznan. I’ve forgotten the others.
As a kid, I always wanted to go to the World Cup. I promised my father I would take him to Italia ’90. Due to the giddy flaws in my financial plan, we never made it to Italy.
But 12 years later that dream came true.
It was actually better than I’d ever imagined too, as not only was I at the World Cup, I was reporting at one, and telling Irish News readers what I thought about Roy Keane leaving the Irish camp.
In professional terms, I'd reached the top of the mountain, thanks to Thomas's trust.
In life, you need breaks. Thomas gave me the biggest break of all.
Even though the Republic of Ireland failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, I went anyway courtesy of my track record with FIFA four years earlier.
Of course, Thomas and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye. There were rocky moments along the way.
I never forgave him for not sending me to Las Vegas for Floyd Mayweather versus Oscar De La Hoya. I told him that it didn’t matter neither fighter was Irish!
In 2012, he didn’t send me to the London Olympics. He sent me to Euro 2012 finals in Poland instead.
Even though the Republic of Ireland crashed and burned in qualification – again - I thought there was solid rationale to send me to the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil. Just for a couple of postcards.
The Copacabana beach and the famous Maracana Stadium.
Surely, I thought, The Irish News’ tight purse-strings could be stretched a little more to massage a journalist’s out-of-control ego.
Didn’t happen.
I watched on with envy as my colleague Neil Loughran texted me from the famous Maracana at the 2016 Olympics while that same summer I read Andy Watters’ fine prose from Euro 2016 as I nursed our new-born and jumped around the room when Robbie Brady headed home against Italy.
In between all those great days, we had to make do with running up Clones hill on balmy Ulster final day and feeling the goose-bumps on the seventh floor of Hogan as the All-Ireland football and hurling finalists walked behind the marching band.
You couldn't hear yourself for the noise.
All the while and far away from the incredible din, Thomas coordinated everything from the unromantic quiet of the Donegall Street offices every Sunday afternoon.
The reporters got the glory. We got our names in the paper. Thomas was the unassuming, steady metronome quite content to remain in the background.
If your GAA club - or any sports club for that matter - needed a bit of coverage in The Irish News, Thomas always found space.
For him, it wasn't always about the big games; he'd quicker celebrate the little club's fundraising push because he had a deep appreciation of the newspaper's pride of place in the sports-mad towns and villages around the north.
In the role, Thomas never had any grand designs on himself either, and nobody loved a laugh more than him.
In fact, when Thomas and Kevin Farrell sat down for an editorial meeting at around four o'clock of an afternoon to discuss how they wanted the sports pages to look the following morning, the pair became known among their peers as the Chuckle Brothers.
Never within ear-shot to determine exactly what these two men often found so hilariously funny, their meetings would start with shoulders gently and rhythmically moving.
A bit more chat between them and their shoulders would begin to move harder and quicker.
Within minutes, their silent laughter in the bottom right-hand corner of the editorial floor would finally erupt. Tears would be literally streaming down their faces at whatever they found so amusing.
You actually found yourself laughing at them laughing.
There was always more to the sports editor's job than met the eye. There were meetings about meetings. Budgets. Marketing. Advertising. Complaints. Digital. Photographic. Games to cover.
And that was before a sports story hit the pages. Arguably his greatest strength over the past 20 years was that he trusted you to get on with the job.
His was a light-touch managerial approach - with a bit of fun regularly thrown into the mix.
For the last 20 years I have thoroughly enjoyed my job. Not many people can say that.
My sports editor deserves immense credit for making the department a happy place to work.
On behalf of all the sports guys, we wish you well in the next chapter. Enjoy spending more time up in the hills of Donegal where Geraldine will no longer be threatening to hide your mobile phone.
Take care, Thomas. And thanks for the breaks.
