BBC presenter Gabby Logan opened up about the realities of grief ahead of fresh heartache following the death of her father, former footballer Terry Yorath
On Wednesday evening, Gabby Logan made a swift exit from Match of the Day midway through the programme, with Mark Chapman stepping in to present the rest of the show. Addressing the sudden switch, he told viewers: “Sadly Gabby has got a family emergency that she’s had to rush off and deal with.
“She’s gone to do that and I’ve come from the radio to finish the show.”
It has now been confirmed that Gabby’s father, Terry Yorath, has died aged 75 after a brief illness.
Terry, known as a Welsh professional footballer and manager, played for numerous clubs, including Leeds United and the Wales national team.
Gabby, 53, has not yet issued a personal statement regarding her father’s death, but a message attributed to Terry’s children reads: “To most he was a revered footballing hero, but to us he was dad; a quiet, kind and gentle man. Our hearts are broken but we take comfort knowing that he will be reunited with our brother, Daniel.”
The mum-of-two has previously opened up about the sudden loss of her younger brother Daniel, and how the tragedy profoundly impacted her family.
Daniel was only 15 when he died in 1992 while playing football with their father.
Reflecting on that heartbreaking time, she said on BBC Wales Live: “He was playing football in the garden with my dad and he fell over.
“My dad thought he just was messing about and went over and rolled him over, and he basically died on the spot – and had no previous indications whatsoever that there were any health problems at all with him.
“It’s like a sledgehammer coming down and sending everybody off in different directions, because it’s such a catastrophic thing to happen, and no warning – and everybody responds differently.”
A post-mortem examination later confirmed that Daniel died from undiagnosed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a congenital heart condition.
Speaking about how the heartbreak affected her dad, Gabby told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs: “My dad was very much a person who felt the glass was half empty already and for him, this was confirmation that life was no good and he kind of pulled himself away from a lot of our family life.”
As the eldest child, aged 19 at the time, Gabby said she “assumed quite a lot of responsibility” following her brother’s death, adding: “I went and picked up his death certificate, for example.”
At the time, she was also studying at university but struggled to cope with the weight of grief.
Speaking on the Performance People podcast, she said: “I was running around running from my grief probably and then by the end of my first year at university, so just around the time of his first anniversary I had some first year exams and it all kind of came crashing down.
“I’d stopped sleeping properly. I felt very wobbly, I just kind of lost my balance and I went to see a doctor and he gave me some sleeping tablets and I thought ‘That’s not what I need’.”
Gabby has since sought therapy to help process her grief and has admitted that it can still “blindside” her all these years later.
Source: Mirror
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