Jim McKeever

James McKeever (6 December 1930 to 5 April 2023), known as Jim, was a Northern Irish Gaelic footballer from Ballymaguigan on the western shore of Lough Neagh who played for the Derry county team in the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s and played club football for St Trea's Ballymaguigan and Seán O'Leary's Newbridge. Chiefly remembered as a midfielder, he was renowned for his high fielding, which Kerry's Mick O'Connell described as the best he ever played against, and he has often been called one of the greatest midfielders of all time. He captained the Derry side that finished runners-up to Dublin in the 1958 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and was named in the Football Team of the Century of players who never won an All-Ireland. He worked as a lecturer at St Mary's Training College in Belfast until 1992, managed several teams after retiring, and in 2009 was named in the Sunday Tribune's list of the 125 most influential people in GAA history.