I am honoured to introduce Colin Greaves and his family to tonight’s celebrations, and to welcome him to the select band of Inductees to the Hall of Fame.

Unusually, Colin came to football administration without having played very much football.  He jokes that the Greaves family could have fielded a team – he had four brothers and four sisters – if he had enlisted his mother and father, but his first real interest in the local game emerged when he joined the staff of the Impartial Reporter in the early seventies. There he found a strong Enniskillen Rangers contingent – including Denzil McDaniel, Dinky McFarland and Raymond Sanderson – so it was perhaps inevitable that he followed the team, and he soon got a job as linesman every Saturday.  He even took the Referees’ Examination, and passed with a score of 92%.

He joined the Rangers Committee, and found himself doing all those thankless jobs necessary for running a club – lining the pitch, selling tickets and washing jerseys - and he was trainer and kitman when Rangers reached the Irish Junior Cup Final in 1975.

He became vice-chairman of the club, and then represented Rangers on the Fermanagh and Western FA Management Committee. He became Disciplinary Secretary for the Fermanagh and Western at a time when regulations were rather less proscribed and straightforward than nowadays, and often required a creative approach, and his experience with the Fermanagh and Western took him further afield when he was appointed IFA Junior Committee representative.  He also served on the IFA Council, alongside Enda Love, Willie McElroy and Brendan Keogh, travelling regularly with them to Council Meetings and Home Internationals.  This was something of a golden era for the IFA, with qualification for the 1982 and 1986 World Cup Finals, and while Colin was unable to travel to Spain and Mexico, he did make it to Hampden Park and Wembley Stadium with the official IFA party.

Colin remembers very fondly the camaraderie of those days – he had many a late night with his fellow committee men in the Celtic Hotel or Willie McElroy’s pub in Augher after the long journey back from Belfast.

In recent years, Colin’s sporting interests may have moved on from football to golf, but occasions such as tonight’s gathering are a great indication of how much he put into his football commitments in the old days.  Colin is a very worthy person to be added to the Roll of Honour in the Hall of Fame where his name will keep good company with his former colleagues, Enda, Brendan, Robin and Willie, and of course Derek who joins him tonight.