RIP Danny Kelly, founding father of Football365 and bloody good bloke

“I LOVE FOOTBALL STAN, I LOVE IT.”

That’s the wonderful Danny Kelly quote – swiftly followed by “SO UNPROFESSIONAL” at almost the same volume – that’s being widely quoted as the devastating news of his death emerged.

He bloody did love football, but particularly and obsessively Spurs, and music, and publishing, and Guinness, and having a massive laugh that boomed across the Football365 office back in the early days of the internet boom when we were promised that within five heady years we would be naked publishing by the pool.

We never did naked publish by the pool but Kelly was the creative mind behind a publishing concept (not really a website in those early dial-up days) which could be boiled down to ‘we bloody love football but also, isn’t it absolutely sodding ridiculous?’

The offices were in one of those massive London terraces near Baker Street that are far deeper than they are wide, and Danny lived upstairs in a flat with so many records you always half-feared they would come through the ceiling.

Sometimes he came down to the office and you might tempt him into hours-long stories from his NME days, like a substitute teacher being lured into talking about their favourite subject.

Sometimes he stayed in his flat and you could be summoned there for an uproarious chat to the soundtrack of jazz. Or summoned to the Worcester Arms, which was Danny’s third home and the muse for many of his grand ideas.

Football365 was swiftly followed by Music365, Win365 and about 17 other iterations, including Gardening365 and Future365, the highlight of which was a rune-based football prediction from Russell Grant that was delivered in a tiny room with egg boxes sellotaped to the wall.

This was the media in the late 90s. There may have been drugs involved.

I always suspected that Danny started Football365 – along with various executives that history will forget – because he wanted to surround himself with cool people who liked football too. And not-cool people who could come up with 10 footballers who sounded like fish.

I quickly became the first person in the office every day because this was the time when you got Danny to yourself; you were a captivated one-person audience to one of the great raconteurs. If you made him laugh – and what a laugh it was – you were high for days.

“I’m going to change your life,” is what he said when he offered me the Deputy Editor job ahead of several (much older) men. It sounds David Walliams creepy when written down, but Danny was the least threatening man in the media in the 90s. He was entertainer first and a friend second. Probably a boss third.

You did change my life, Danny. Others will write about your talkSPORT years. Enjoy that clip, if you will…

…but my memories are of a wonderful, brilliant, creative man who hated being called ‘larger than life’ (“you’re just saying I’m fat”) so we will settle on ‘one of the really bloody good guys’.

I LOVE DANNY, I LOVE HIM.

RIP fella.