A game of two halves. A rivetting first half followed by a dirge of a second half.
Dr. Crokes were bad in the second half, Slaughtneil were truly awful.
The 2013 football is about as good as it gets. St. Vincentâsâ two All-Irelands in 2008 and 2014 were each thoroughly enjoyable in their own way.
My first St. Patrickâs Day at Croke Park was the 1986 double bill of Burren v Castleisland Desmonds followed by Bufferâs Alley v Kilruane MacDonaghs.
Of course the likes of @peddlerscross wouldnt remember or care but back in my day St Patrickâs Day was Railway Cup
Final across both codes, time moves on thatâs gone and so are the club finals, to think there would be 60k at Crokes and Wallys today is just parody stuff.
2013 football was epicâŚ
I do think 2012 was iconic in its own way. The way Cross came back, wave after wave was truly special. Under no circumstances were they going to be beaten.
Slaughtneil completely collapsed in 2017 after the sending off. Gooch being in possession at the final whistle was an extraordinary moment. Being able to bring subs like Tony Brosnan, Micheal Burns and Jordi Kiely on made all the difference in an epic low scoring dogfight.
Thereâd have been a massive crowd at Glen Maghera v Kilmacud today. At least double what showed up in January.
In the 1990s up to about 2000 the attendances at club finals seemed to be going up year on year. It never really pushed on after that because I donât think the GAA were arsed marketing it as a proper event.
Although I believe 2004 may have been a bumper attendance but I was out of the country for that one so I donât know for sure.
I suppose with Paddyâs Day a lot depends on the weather. The old saying about March is that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Where I was today was a dreadful day weatherwise, Iâm not sure what it was like in Dublin. The club finals was one of those events that could attract a good âwalk upâ crowd from Dublin based people but a lot would depend on the weather. With the GAA abolishing cash payment and the move to January, the days of the walk up crowd are gone.
I think there was 50 or 60k there in 2004.
The top tiers were all open.
Only die hards like myself go nowâŚ
Too many people prefer watching some tinpot Munster League or OâByrne Cup action now.
Or worse still will stay at home watching a soccer match on TV.
Ford Escort Super Sunday has its charms on a January Sunday afternoon.
Iâve only attended five exceedingly attractive club final double headers.
1986, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2008.
2001 might have been the best double header in terms of excitement. That was on an Easter Monday because of the Foot and Mouth disease.
Shit
The
Pot
In 1998 Offaly and Galway both won both the club and inter-county senior All-Irelands.
I wonder is that the only time that has happened.
John Small didnât play at all iirc. Strange enough for a lad whoâd have been pushing 20 and was in the Dublin set-up 2 years later.
David Brady and Kevin Cassidy on the one panel would be lovely.
I knew he only came on but thought he was on a lot longer than 10 minutes.
It was the Under 21 All Ireland win in 2014 that propelled him and Fenton into Jim Gavinâs plans for 2015.
Thanks to the split season national hunt racing Is now the national sport of Ireland.
Well done to mark landers for calling out the gaa on who exactly is promoting the game of hurling.
Is there two Mark Landers?
Is there a nuance here, in that Birr and Corofin won those Club All Finals as part of the 1997 season?
The concept of a âseasonâ I think is a modern one. It didnât really exist back then as the time window for competitions stretched all over the place. A thing that is peculiar to the GAA is that competitions donât start with a bang, like the first day of the Premier League or the NFL in America or the AFL in Australia. In GAA, competitions traditionally limp apologetically into action and slowly crank up. Theyâre like people who silently slip in the door. The competition is on, lads, but donât tell anybody weâre here, itâll dawn on people.
I think I remember one GAA writer (it was Donal Keenan in The Title) lamenting how âyou wouldnât know the GAA season was about to startâ and that âthe GAA should be doing more to promote the start of the seasonâ but he was talking about the resumption of the National Leagues at the start of February 1997, the same leagues which had started the previous October, two weeks after the All-Ireland final replay. So surely October was the start of the inter-county âseasonâ back then. But the previous club season ran on until March.
I would have always had the winners on St. Patrickâs Day as the All-Ireland club champions of that year, so for me Birr and Corofin were the 1998 champions, at the end of what you could loosely term the 1997-98 provincial and All-Ireland club championships.
The NFL do it differently, so the Kansas City Chiefs are apparently the 2022 âworld championsâ despite winning this title in February 2023, while the PDC World Darts Championship frequently only has one game played in the title year. For me, if you win a title in a calendar year, thatâs year youâre champion of. The Kansas City Chiefs, 2023 champions, not 2022.
Inter County Minor and Under 20 games being played over the next few nights is absolutely mental stuff but this is what the zealots have inflicted on us cc @ChairmanDan @BruidheanChaorthainn
Tipp minors playing Clare in Shannon with not even a stand. 
How long before these once noble competitions are run off in a 2 day blitz on an Astro Turf in UL?
