Dublin-Kerry was always the Golden ticket when I was growing up. My father would go out looking dapper in his slacks, sports jacket, shirt and tie and Chelsea boots.
The coming home was a different story, with the tie in his pocket, the jacket tied round his tiny waist, and a torn navy and sky-blue paper hat on the side of his head, and the ends of a Kerry one shaped into an origami-like rude figure (the da always had a creative side).
And that magic has not subsided.
In 2009 when Dublin met Kerry in the quarter final the result caused then manager Pat 'Pillar' Gilroy to liken the team to “startled earwigs”, such was their annihilation.
The glory days felt like a dim and distant memory. But two short years later in 2011 when the Dubs won our first Sam since 1995, it was by one point against Kerry. And it was all the sweeter for that.
In 2013 the greatest game of football I have ever seen was played. The Dubs won that day, just. And all of the fans, from both counties, basked in the August sun with hearts filled having watched such glory. The Dubs would go on to win the final against Mayo, in a crunching match that saw at least three players hobble off with concussion, and the crowd feeling like they had symptoms.
Last Sunday I was in the Canal end. With a sellout semi-final, all seats are a good seat in Croker and while missing the craic on the Hill, in that baking heat it was definitely the choice for the wise. But that was where the good feeling ended.
The travesty of poor decision making was evident in the ground but it always takes watching the match again to really know what happened. Indeed, on playback all the Dubs’ fears were confirmed. Losing to a better team is part of the pain and the ecstasy for every county. The decisions were incomprehensible.
A penalty that should not have been a penalty. A Kerry goal that came from a square ball. And a clear Dublin goal that was disallowed.
These standards would be inconceivable in Corrigan Park in a friendly, in the lashing rain, in the middle of winter and with two fellas pulled out of cars to do umpire. In Croke Park in a championship semi-final, they beggar belief.
Ladies Football has had goal line technology for over ten years. But apparently the lads in the white jackets don’t see any use for that kind of technology.
An infuriated Ciaran Whelan pointed out that in the modern game players occupy the goal square to distract goalkeepers. He could not understand why this Kerry tactic was not called out the goal disallowed.
And so Dublin supporters filed out of Croke Park, after a pretty dismal season which ended with a spectacular championship performance, feeling sore, Though not as sore as the players who sacrifice immeasurably for this amateur sport.
Meanwhile Kerry march on with only Mayo to stop them in their quest. May the Gods of fair play look down on them all in the final and maybe, like Hawkeye, the Umpires could go to Specsavers.
