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BURNING DESIRE

Gruelling run through the Sahara just part of former Killie midfielder Reilly’s mission to raise funds to tackle cruel illness that afflicts daughter Dionne

By Hugh MacDonald

FOR the love of Dionne. It is impossible to answer the question of why he ran more than 156 miles in temperatures of up to 130F through the Sahara Desert.

I’m not proud to say... but I did have that element of selfishness

Mark Reilly gives a reply a go. It is what he does when faced with most things. But the talk of no limits, testing himself, trying to raise money for charity are all not fully persuasive.

There is something else that explains it all but it cannot be articulated.

Dionne Reilly suffers from Rett Syndrome, an incurable and cruel illness that has confined her to a wheelchair and robbed her of anything approaching a normal life.

Her father — dubbed Mavis in homage to a character in Coronation Street past — has charged at the illness, raising tens of thousands through a variety of Iron Man contests, 100-mile runs and, most spectacularly, the Marathon des Sables in 2021.

‘I was lying there in a tent combating demons in my head,’ he says of one particularly stressful day in the desert. ‘Next to me was lying a guy I shared a tent with. “Tough day?”, I asked. He replied: “My heart packed in today, a full-blown cardiac arrest”. He was waiting to be evacuated. He was a super-fit guy, a real competitor, but the race was over for him.’

Life, of course, had almost been over for him. Reilly, in contrast, rested briefly, stood up, stepped back into the cauldron and went on to finish the race. He was one of 672 super-fit athletes who started, He was one of only 354 who finished six days later.

‘There is a balance... and sometimes I go beyond it. It can be dangerous,’ he admits.

‘To do some of these ultra races, there has to be an element of selfishness there. It is not something I am proud to say. But I did have that element of selfishness in the Sahara. I focused on what I had to do. Everything else goes out the window. That positive mindset and determination is always there.

‘My biggest strength is my determination to succeed but it can also be my downfall.’

Both helped in a career that encompassed Motherwell, Kilmarnock, Reading, St Johnstone and St Mirren. They helped carry him to a Scottish Cup winner’s medal in 1997. But they encompass the darkness as well as the light. His first reaction on winning the Scottish Cup at Ibrox, beating Falkirk 1-0? ‘When the whistle went, it was relief not joy,’ says Reilly (below in his Killie days). ‘I reflected on my performance, that it was not good enough. I beat myself up. It lasted for about ten minutes and then I was caught up in all the joy. ‘I suppose I then thought that it didn’t really matter how I played. It was not as if the cup final would have an asterisk saying I was poor. But it didn’t stop that initial self-critical reaction. I have always been like that.’ The Sahara, the cup triumph, the pain and the glory, are all revealed in The Lives of Reilly, his autobiography. It is the most extraordinary memoir. There are the tales of Ally McCoist, Tommy Burns, Paul Gascoigne and others. There is even the recollection of a beer with Robert Duvall and a chat with Tiger Woods.

But Dionne, 14, sits at the centre of it all. She is the key to what makes ‘Mavis’ run. She teaches other lessons, too.

‘I am a flatliner,’ says Reilly of his emotional norm. ‘You could put me in a hot-air balloon with a rattlesnake and I would be quite calm. I am easy going. But when I train... every day was a World Cup final day for me in football. I had a drive with football. It was so much of my identity.

‘When I retired, the ultra events replaced football in terms of adrenaline rush.’

It has also given him a purpose. He runs to support Reverse Rett, a charity that seeks a cure for the illness.

‘I suppose it is personal,’ he says. ‘The first few days after we were given the diagnosis for Dionne I was knocked sideways, but then I realised that life had to go on and we had to do the best we could.’

Dionne offered many lessons. Her father took her to the carnival seven years ago: ‘I decided to take her on a carousel. The joy, the exhilaration on her face. It was a turning point. I knew then she had to live life to the fullest.’

He adds: ‘We get caught up in things... mortgages, job worries, other anxieties. Look at Dionne. She doesn’t gossip, she doesn’t judge people, she doesn’t care about cars, possessions... no ego. I see her in her wheelchair down the park, watching people, enjoying the fresh air in her face. It makes me consider my priorities, it makes me aware of how fortunate I am.’

FOOTBALL and its players gave other lessons. ‘Resilience, that’s the biggest one,’ says Reilly. ‘It can be a tough world but you toughen up by coming through it.’

Now a police officer, he expresses surprise at a comment by the senior officer who interviewed him, adding: ‘He said footballers rarely had a wide life experience. I felt that was a strange thing to say.’

He then expands by briefly summarising a life: a Bellshill boyhood, a knack for keepy-uppy that saw him display his boyhood talents at a cup final at Hampden, a senior football career that lasted two decades and carries the glint of that cup final medal and the grit of life lessons learned.

‘Tam Burns changed it all for me,’ he says of his manager at Kilmarnock. ‘He said to me one day: “Do you really want to be a footballer?”

‘I was surprised. Of course I did. But he repeated it. He told me to go away and sleep on it. He was changing me from a left-back into my preferred position of midfield. He knew I would need every bit of focus and dedication for that. I cleared my mind that night and gave it over to full self-belief. It was the first big sign of the benefits a positive mindset can bring.’

There are tales of fun and games with Burns, a notorious mischief maker, and with McCoist, a team-mate at Kilmarnock and a solid friend. There is one anecdote of McCoist encouraging a naive team-mate to drive his newly-bought convertible straight on to the training pitch.

But other incidents were more educational. ‘I love studying people,’ he says. ‘I was once on a night out with Ally. We had a couple of pints and I asked him if he was never sad, did the smiles hide bad moments? He gave me the answer and he allowed me to put it in the book.

‘He told me about when his son was sick in hospital and being all laughs and jokes in front of him. When the curtain was pulled around the bed, Ally broke down in tears. He then gathered himself and prepared to face the world again with a smile.

‘There is a steeliness in Ally. But

I decided to take her on a carousel. I knew then she had to live life to the fullest

he is also the most positive guy you could meet. I remember he collapsed when chasing the ball at Rugby Park. No one else around him and he was carried off.

‘We were in the dressing room after the match and he barges in on crutches, saying: “Good news, boys. It’s only a broken leg. I thought I was just getting past it and slowing down”.’

McCoist introduced ‘Mavis’ to another surreal moment in a life that bulges with them. ‘Aye, he took me to Rogano’s one night to meet a pal of his. It was Robert Duvall,’ says Reilly.

McCoist, of course, had met the actor during the making of A Shot at Glory. Reilly adds: ‘Robert told me to call him Bobby and I told him to call me Mavis. Later in the night there is Robert Duvall at the bar and shouting over: “Mavis, is it a pint of lager for you?”.’

A superstar was also encountered in Florida. ‘I was over there on holiday and went to a gym because I was preparing for a marathon,’ adds Reilly. ‘I was doing stretches when a guy walked over with a cap pulled down over his face. We just chatted away about nothing.

‘I knew his face but it was only when he walked away that I realised it was Tiger Woods. I could have pursued him for a picture but I left him alone. I thought I should just let him have a normal moment.’

Normality is a matter of personal experience. Reilly came back from the Sahara with physical wounds, particularly blisters, that needed time to heal.

But he had found something, saying: ‘In my darkest moment, I felt desolate. I emptied my mind. I remember a writer saying: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. All of a sudden I was peaceful.’

He was somewhere in the Sahara. He was alone. But he was surely not so far from Dionne as that moment on a carousel at a Glasgow carnival.

● The Lives of Reilly (Nameless Town, £10) is available now. All proceeds go to Reverse Rett. Find out more at www.reverserett.org.uk

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2023-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

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