The life of an Irish teenage rugby star cut short: ‘I pulled the sheet back and there he was in his kit’
John McCall was the middle child of three to Ian and Carolyn, alongside older sister Rebecca and younger brother James. John collapsed and died during the first half of Ireland’s opening match of the under-19 World Cup against New Zealand. Ian explained: “I remember when the news broke John and I were sitting with a sort of TV tea on our laps. John said: ‘I know that guy, Dad. He’s from Benburb,’ which is only four or five miles from us. I asked John how he knew him. He said that they trained in the same gym.”
Ian, a former first-team captain with City of Armagh RFC, eventually put away his rugby boots about 10 years ago, aged 57. By his own reckoning it was a sport that gave him so much, including mores and friendships that endure to this day, and a chance for the farmer’s son to test his mettle physically. Old school values and principles, any animosity cleansed with the first sup of a pint.
“With regards to his career and where he was going, he had been accepted for architecture at Queen’s . That was his pathway. The rest of us couldn’t draw a straight line. He had this gift. From an early age he would have been drawing cartoon characters.” Ian continued: “John’s death changed things. At one stage we were going down one road and then we came to a T junction and went a different road. Like any parents we were looking ahead as to what our kids would do and what sort of path they would take without trying to direct them ourselves.
“We had lost John, but we hadn’t lost Rebecca or James, and we had to be mindful of how they were grieving and finding it very difficult. We had to be there for them. It was also important not to put John up on a pedestal.”In the wee hours of the Sunday morning Ian’s father John, or Jack as he was known and after whom his grandson was named, a farmer and a farmer’s son, knocked on the door. “My dad was a hard man. He fell out with his father in 1939 because he enlisted in the army.
“I opened his eyes and I looked in. His pupils were just tiny, and I turned to my friend, Sam Wilson who had come with me and said, ‘Sam. his soul has left his body.’ That just came out. I have seen so many people over the years, close friends, and my own parents and I have never really thought of it like that.”
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