Heaven knows why anyone wants to manage but Jim was an expert

YOU would imagine the natural place to start the Felix Healy story would be at the World Cup.

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After all, very few League of Ireland players can ever say they played in one. But those games in 1982 don't define him. Not even close.

Instead the beginning and the end has to be in Derry because it was here where it all began, his childhood years spent on the Lone Moor Road, his bedroom window overlooking the goalposts on the southern end of the Brandywell.

He was there on the night Lyn Oslo were defeated in the 1965 Cup Winners Cup. And he was there on the days when soldiers walked those streets and playing football for Derry became impossible.

The saddest part of the Derry and by extension - the Felix Healy story isn't the games where they were beaten but the years that were lost.