Jim McGuinness will be known to the newest generation of GAA fans as a coaching icon in his native Donegal but, for many years, he was a more-than-handy footballer for both club and county.
McGuinness was a squad player when Donegal won the All-Ireland for the first time in 1992, and played for the county for over a decade in midfield.
He was manager when they won their second All-Ireland in 2012 and has now returned for a second stint in charge. However, between the first and second Sam Maguire triumphs, McGuinness' playing career came to a painful end in a club game with Naomh Connaill.
In 2005, McGuinness was named as a substitute for his club's clash with Killybegs, a game he should not have been playing in.
Donegal county players were not meant to be playing for their clubs at that time of year but, with his club stuck in a tight spot, McGuinness agreed to take a seat on the bench.
Unexpectedly called on as a substitute, McGuinness was soon on the receiving end of a heavy tackle from Donegal teammate John Ban Gallagher.
Writing in his 2015 autobiography, McGuinness says that the tackle came as he scored a goal and, with his right leg holding all his wait, the hit snapped both his cruciates and shattered his lateral collateral ligament.
The injury was so severe that McGuinness says he still remembers the look of panic on his teammates' faces as they carried him off the pitch.
It was a long way back to recovery for the then-33-year-old.
An incredibly generous gesture from Irish football legend Roy Keane was to prove immensely helpful to McGuinness.
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Jim McGuinness tells incredible Roy Keane story in autobiography
In his 2015 book 'Until Victory Always,' Jim McGuinness recalled the 'miserable' aftermath of his horrendous knee injury.
At the time, he was not acquainted with Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane. However, when Corkman Keane learned of McGuinness' plight, he made the remarkable gesture of putting him in contact with the United surgeon.
The following months were just a miserable joke.
I had an MRI scan and the notes got lost and I had to have it done again. I was told to run on it after seven weeks, which was the result of a misdiagnosis. I ended up having to have a second operation in Manchester and I paid for it myself.
It came about through happenstance: Roy Keane was at a function in Mayo and someone there told him what had happened to me. He gave this guy the number of the Manchester United surgeon and told him to have me call him. That message was passed on to me.
It was so classy of Keane to try to help out someone he didn't even know.
Within a week, McGuinness was in the theatre with the surgeon, and his surgery was not long coming.
So I rang the surgeon, not sure if anything would come of it. I phoned on a Friday evening and was in the operating theatre the following Wednesday for a scope and then booked in for an operation a week later.
The surgeon was wonderful. He explained everything.
He ended up using one of my hamstrings and the middle third band of my patellar tendon to replace what I had severed. There are two pins in my leg to this day.
It felt great, even if it cost me £13,000 - a lot of money and even more when you are a student.
It's a wonderful story of generosity from one Irish sporting icon to another.
Five years later, Jim McGuinness would take over as Donegal senior football manager and the rest, as they say, is history.
