When Paddy’s death was confirmed on Friday, the sad news not only inspired the attention of more than two million pairs of eyeballs on various chattering sites – irredeemably lachrymose, no doubt – it was among the 10 most-read articles on the Guardian’s website, testimony to the stature of one of the industry’s charismatic football sages.
A couple of long-time colleagues, Jon Henderson and Mike Collett, Paddy and myself met last Monday at his club near London’s Trafalgar Square, a fashionably shabby hideaway where retired rascals can swap as many myths as time will allow.
The son of an actor (the Hungarian-born Guy Deghy, who appeared in 60s TV staples such as The Saint and Danger Man, as well as the film Where Eagles Dare), Paddy would not have looked out of place as 007 – but decidedly uncomfortable in a substandard eating house.
For all that he wrote for most of the nation’s best newspapers at one time or another – as well as inheriting some of his father’s actorly elan on television and, latterly, explored the jungle of social media – the Guardian was his spiritual home.
Born in London, he gazed on occasional postwar British acting celebrities as a small boy, before the family moved to Scotland, where his grandfather imbued him with a love of Dundee FC and a peculiarly Scottish addiction to football.
.jpg?trim=0,255,0,254&quality=75&auto=webp&width=1000)