Galway United manager John Caulfield paid an emotional tribute to his assistant and close friend Ollie Horgan as his funeral mass on Monday afternoon, describing him as \u201cthe most intelligent person I ever met\u201d.<\/p>\n
Horgan sadly passed away on Thursday morning following a brave battle with cancer, aged 57.<\/p>\n
He was mourned by his wife Anita and their children Emma, Anthony, Brendan, Conor and David, sister Mary and brother Ger during his service at the Christ the King Church in Salthill.<\/p>\n
He will also be missed by Kit, Brian and Caroline and his nephews, nieces and extended family and the wider League of Ireland football community.<\/p>\n
Horgan joined United ahead of the 2023 season but was forced to step away from the role at the beginning of August, although his last match alongside Caulfield on the sideline was on July 11th when they were beaten by Bohemians at Dalymount Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to have a joke that \u2013 you said earlier on father that we\u2019re on a bad run at the moment \u2013 I used to go into him and say \u2018Ollie you need to pick the team this week\u2019, so I\u2019m blaming Ollie for the results over the last six or seven weeks,\u201d joked Caulfield at the beginning of his eulogy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the most intelligent person I ever met; it was a privilege for me to have him around for the last couple of years, it was a privilege to have met him about 25 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the greatest education with him, I spent two and a half years on the Uefa pro license sitting beside him, it was the greatest education I ever had between the stories and the craic, everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cOllie was a big contributor to the fines that were in Galway United, that if you got booked or sent off you had to contribute money. He was a big contributor to that much to the delight of the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut about 10 years ago, I met his parents, and we were up in the house in Salthill. I was managing Cork, and he was managing Harps and when he used to get into a bit of bother on the sideline with Harps his mother would always say \u2018can you not be like that Caulfield lad, he\u2019s a lovely lad.\u2019 This was really bugging Ollie over a long period of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout a year or two later Cork were playing Waterford, there was a bit of a brawl and six people got sent off and I was unfortunate to be one of them. It appeared on the six o\u2019clock news the next evening, much to Ollie\u2019s delight.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was with his mam, and he was showing her, \u2018look at him, look at him. I never made the six o\u2019clock news!\u2019 Caulfield would also go into detail about Horgan\u2019s keen eye for spotting talent, and the lengths he would go to scout potential stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Ollie used to go out scouting players he would be going \u2018how can I get there without being seen. The joke used to be \u2018Ollie, you\u2019re more recognisable than Michael D!\u201d added Caulfield, with the President of Ireland sitting in the front row.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis work knowledge was incredible; he worked so hard. Any time you rang him he was at an airport or on a train because he was always somewhere looking for players.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout two years ago we were trying to find a striker. I went to Manchester to watch one, Ollie had highly recommended him, so I went over but I reported back that I don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe following week it was the 23rd of December. I don\u2019t know Anita where he told you he was, but he flew to Leeds and got a train to Dover, he wanted to have a look at him himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe rang me, I was at home in West Cork, and he goes; \u2018the wind and rain, this is worse than Ballybofey.\u2019 At half time, he rings me again and he says; \u2018forget about him, he\u2019s wearing a pair of gloves, he\u2019s useless.\u2019 \u201cThere\u2019s loads of stories about, he\u2019s a phenomenal character, a phenomenal person.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo farewell my friend, you\u2019re leaving, it\u2019s time for you to go, your friendship was a blessing and we will miss you so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Galway United manager John Caulfield paid an emotional tribute to his assistant and close friend Ollie Horgan as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,18142,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,6435,18143,15,16,5,18144,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-37896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-fai","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-league-of-ireland","20":"tag-local-soccer","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-premiership","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}