The Late Noel O'Doherty.

LATE NOEL O DOHERTY.

West Waterford Athletic Club extends sincere sympathy to the family and friends of Noel O’Doherty 1 St Garvan’s Terrace, Dungarvan who passed to his eternal reward on Christmas Eve just short of his 70th birthday. Noel will be greatly missed by his wife and family and indeed by us all at West Waterford Athletic Club as for many years he was our time keeper at all of our club events, a task he took great pride in doing.

Starting out in the days of the ordinary stop watch, when we moved into the new technologies of timing clocks and digital hand timing Noel was quick to grasp this new technology and not alone that but he was our hands on clock mechanic also as with all new technology things regularly went wrong with these new fandangle’s and at times when the manufacturers were baffled as to how the problem could be solved, we had Noel. He was always on hand and able to overcome any technical hitch that may occur from time to time. To say he was a genius with mending things would be an understatement as he never failed to come up with the solution. He would bring it away to the sanctuary of his work shop and it would be returned some days later fixed.

A great favourite of Noel’s was his annual trip to the Dublin city marathon each October a weekend he looked forward to every year, he was present just 2 months ago when one of the largest crowds ever from the club participated and Noel was there when the first and last crossed the line with his words of encouragement, His help was sought not alone by his local West Waterford club but he was part and parcel of the great Ballycotton 10 each year where his finish line expertise was sought by the race organisers ,there was none as cool calm and collected when thing went wrong at a finish line than Noel he always had things under control.

He was also a great servant to the Dungarvan cycling club and was a time keeper in that sport also when some of us didn’t  even know what a stop watch looked like. I could go on and on about Noel contribution to our club and many other organisations of which he was involved but that’s for others to tell their story. May you rest in peace Noel and thanks for all you did for us at West Waterford Athletic Club .