John, there are thousands here at your funeral and the whole nation is watching.
We all thought football and the passing of a footballer would never have such an impact in your country.
But we were wrong.
And you told us so...
Times are a changing in your beloved game and there's a fresh wind blowing in a way we would never have believed.
But you told us so...
We would never have thought that a million would play the beautiful game in a country that jilted you.
But we were wrong and you told us so...
We all thought that your country, the one that shunned you as a wog and a sheila, would never embrace your faith.
But we were wrong again. And you told us so...
You told us it should be called football and so it shall be.
You told us so...
You told us to look north and interact with our neighbours in Asia. And we are doing it.
Because you told us so...
So what happens now my friend, my soul mate?
You told us all this and it all came true.
But what do we do now?
How do we do what still has to be done without you?
You told us to believe and to have faith and we do.
But, please John, this is not easy for us.
We believe and we do have faith.
But its hard if you're not here to guide us.
It's hard if you're not here to lend us your sharp sense of truth, and fair play.
It's hard, John, if we can no longer sample your sense of vision and exquisite eye for the big picture.
Your gift to us in the football brotherhood was a candle of hope, perpetually burning and keeping us warm.
But now the candle has gone out and we shiver, we are cold and we are lost.
We stumble about in the dark, lonely, bumping into walls of hopelessness and despair, not knowing how to pick up the fight you began.
A fight whose legacy compels us to battle on and try to win it, but do so without our chieftain, our brother, our friend.
You told us that you want your legacy to be 'I told you so'.
Much of what you told us so has already been realised and, in all probability, the rest of what you told us will prove to be true also.
But what you didn't tell us was that you would be leaving us so soon, leaving us naked and unprepared, shocked and paralysed, hopelessly lost, poking around in the dark for your sense of direction.
But, John, we will pick up the fight, we will pull together and we will win this thing.
We will emerge strengthened by your legacies, empowered by your memories, our heads raised, smiling in the face of the blowing winds of hostility and resistance.
We will emerge out of the darkness and the cold and laugh and dance, in celebration of your life, with the strength you have given us, and the belief you have installed in us.
John, you have been larger than life, so who then is this impostor called death with his designs on taking you away?
He will be defied, he will be defeated, he will run off, scurrying into the night and regret he had ever tried.
For he had dared to take on our friend, Johnny Warren...