There wasn’t so much a twinkle in his eye as a bursting supernova of mischief and uncertain possibilities. Patrick Barclay has left us, at 77, and, as Hamlet said of his father, we shall not look upon his like again. Or, if we do, we will be gladly entertained.
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.
What might have amused the enthusiastic gourmand about his Guardian listing was the fact he was sandwiched between the review of an apparently dreadful restaurant across the river from his home in south London and a story about James Bond.
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.
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. He grew into a natural teller of tales and glory and loved nothing better than an anecdote, new, old or vaguely believable.
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. It was one of our regular lunches and we recycled some tired jokes, raged at pet foibles, generally behaving as if the world and football would stop spinning without us.
Now we’ve lost our supernova. As Joni Mitchell sang, you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone. That sense of loss is felt most deeply by Paddy’s family, of course, and that is where our sympathies must surely reside. There will be grieving, too, among the scores of his long-time friends, inside and outside the business, where he moved with panache and authority.
A good style of a man, as an earlier generation used to say, Paddy was not without ego, and he blushed when I observed once that his neatly trimmed sideburns had been shaped at a rakish 45 degrees. He kept them that way for some time … even when his hair began to thin beyond redemption.
It was in the press box where Paddy left his most indelible impressions, as he settled down alongside the pack at internationals and big domestic matches, with no preconceptions and some strongly held views. In the early days, for instance, he did not see the need for a foreign manager of the England team, although he mellowed.
He was hardly ever wrong – but there were moments. I remember (and he liked to forget) the time on Quiz Bowl (Channel 4, Friday nights, when many of the sports media big hitters put their egos on the line), as he failed to recognise Dundee FC as a correct answer. It was a rare lapse, because his football knowledge was encyclopaedic.
While his professionalism dictated that he would not appear wildly partisan (unlike some of his contemporaries), two fellow Scots hovered above most others in his estimation: Hugh McIlvanney and Alex Ferguson. He toiled, starry-eyed, alongside the former (for three of his five years at the Observer) and wrote a fine book on the latter.
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.
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From its old base in Manchester, it was his first “big paper” after he’d learned his early craft on the Dundee Evening Telegraph. I like to think the Observer was in a fond second place; others might have different rankings. Whatever, we shared space in these pages, as well as many adventures, and nobody could have wished for a finer companion.
Paddy could be quirky. When rung at home once to confirm a detail in his copy, the timing was awkward, apparently. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed, “I’m in the middle of my cheese on toast sandwich.” Extraneous noises in public could disturb his otherwise shiny demeanour. An enduring memory is Paddy remonstrating with a nearby diner for the loud chatter on his mobile phone. The poor man finished his call and left.
It wasn’t just his Caledonian charm and natural effervescence that made Paddy a joy to be with, although that could be as intoxicating as his favourite red wine. It was his modulated and lightly worn expertise on the sport he loved that lit up any conversation, whatever the setting. While Dens Park inspired his early enthusiasm, Craven Cottage became his London venue of choice. Otherwise, the world was his footballing oyster.
He was his own toughest critic, too, not always logically so. “I’m putting too many ‘indeeds’ in my copy,” he complained once. Well take them out, we said. “Easy for you to say,” he replied.
Not many could match Paddy for stories stretching back to the 60s, but he never lost touch with contemporary issues. Among his latter projects was the splendid look-back podcast, Football Ruined My Life. Friday’s edition, his 80th, was withdrawn out of respect for his passing.
We are left, meanwhile, with a body of work that few in his time could match for insight and wit. Raise a glass to Patrick Barclay, one of the very best.
