Saturday brought distressing news that Jackie Fullerton's days of of commentating on Northern Ireland matches are over. It's time to reflect on the features which made 'Results from Northern Ireland' so great/annoying.
It used to just butt in.
There was no question of Steve Ryder, or latterly Ray Stubbs, pausing and warning us what was coming, perhaps saying, 'now we're going to have regional sporting updates' or 'now we'll have the results where you are' (not true in the case of non-licence fee payers in the Republic) or 'look away now if you don't want to know the score between Crusaders and Portadown (now or ever).'
No, no, some time after the classified Football results from England and Scotland were in and just as Ryder was about to launch into something else, Jerome Quinn or Mark Sidebottom or Stephen Watson used to just appear on screen and announce that from now on we would only be having results from Northern Ireland.
Here are five glorious icons who will be remembered by anyone who was too lazy to get off the couch and switch the channel whenever 'Results from Northern Ireland' came on.
Joey Dunlop
Motorsport in Ireland has always seemed fairly Nordie-centric. From Eddie Irvine to Joey Dunlop to the fact that the country's principal motorsport magazine, RPM (rarely watched and went out in a shocking timeslot) was presented by reedy voiced Belfast native, Alan Tyndall.
Joey acquired a significant percentage of the vote in an RTE poll to find our greatest sports person a few years ago. The fact that he died, Aryton Senna like, in the middle of a race, in the year 2000, contributed to his emotive appeal, but still many southerners felt the pitch was being queered somehow with so many Ulster folk voting for Joey.
Southerners are familiar with this tactic. About 12 years ago, the BBC World Service ran a typically grandiose, self-important campaign to find the world's favourite song only to see the poll topped by 'A Nation Once Again' by The Wolfe Tones.
Pegasus
Growing up in the 1990s meant spending sleepless nights worrying how Pegasus would get on at the weekend. Pegasus were the big noise in women's hockey in Northern Ireland. Or perhaps they were just memorable because they had a name that stuck in everyone's head.
Hockey was serious sport up north in the 90s. Or at least, it received a lot of coverage. The games were reported upon but there never seemed to be anyone at them.
Jackie Fullerton
The Jimmy McGee/Micheal O Mhuircheartaigh of sport in Northern Ireland, Jackie Fullerton was the twinkly eyed grandfather of sports broadcasting up there.
Down here, he was notorious for his obvious discomfort when it came to grappling with the nuances of GAA broadcasting. During the early 90s, he was the much pilloried presenter of the BBC's Gaelic Football coverage.
Met BBC Jackie Fullerton today. 1st time he read GAA results on Radio he said " Antrim3-9 Down 2-13 so well done to whoever won that one"
— Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) March 7, 2013
Stephen Baxter
Approximately 80% of all loyalist sports people were called 'Davey', so the ones who weren't inevitably stood out. Hard though it is believe, Linfield missed out on a couple of league titles in the 1990s.
Crusaders scooped the 1994-95 Irish League and the 1996-97 title, the latter with Dublin footballer Mick Deegan featuring in their line-up. Their support was solidly unionist and they had so many Christians in their team, they were nicknamed 'The God Squad.'
Intriguingly, they were owned at this time by Bohemians and Shamrock Rovers legend Tony O'Connell, the man who starred in the LOI's 2-1 win over the English Football League in 1963 and was the last person born in Kerry to earn a senior international cap.
However, the man whose name kept appearing on the BBCNI coverage, largely because he was the man who seemed to score all the goals, was Stephen Baxter, Mr. Crusaders. As with so many cult heroes up north, he later managed the team he played for. This is usually an emotional decision taken for the wrong reasons, but Baxter seems to be doing okay and has been the Crues boss since 2005.
Jerome Quinn
A doughty battler for the GAA at the heart of the BBC Northern Ireland enterprise, Jerome's arrival should have really pleased Jackie Fullerton given that the latter was relieved of responsibility of introducing Ulster championship games (and the ensuing mathematical complications).
However, during Jerome's unfair dismissal case against the BBC, he alleged that the boy Jackie was the beating heart of the anti-GAA brigade within the organisation. Jerome was sacked in the late noughties after it was rumbled that he had been criticising the BBC anonymously on internet forums.
Since then, he has become a noted GAA web journalist.
Read more: Here's The Last Irish Soccer International From Every County In The Country
