"Maybe the first match wasn't the best but whatever criticism I took, I didn't give it any time. It was Meath and Dublin so the attitude at that time was you only get the one chance and you're gone. So after that first game they got used to each other and settled down. After that you knew their attitude. But it was give and take. They knew what to expect off one another and they were never going to lie down. That would give one the feeling of superiority."

Howard has refereed every major final except a minor, yet today, those four Sundays are the highlight of his career. As the games passed, the gatherings on his lawn became greater. Cameras. Journalists.

A general interest that gripped the country gripped Howard as well. "It never got any better for me even though I got a few phone calls but I was never the one to put down a phone. Anyone that would ring me, I'd talk to them. Just supporters. You get the usual but once you say, 'Let's talk about it, what's your crib?' and ask can you help someone or explain why I made a certain decision or why I didn't, well then nine times out of 10 they'd say, 'Fair play, you're willing to talk about it, ' which I was.

"And sure, I'd never look back at mistakes and the lads I had, the umpires and linesmen, they were the same. We tried to learn from mistakes alright but we'd never say we'll make up for that. The players got so used to me though that we became friends and they'd say, 'Tommy you were a bit hard on me last week, try and go a bit easier this time'. Banter. But there were a few hard men there too.

Without putting their names on paper a certain centreback for Meath wasn't easy and there was a certain fullback too. Those men were hard men."

But for Howard, he had to be hard as well. Whatever about the mental aspect, the physical side took its toll. He was there for all the occasions but it was the third game that he will be most remembered for. "The biggest incident was when I got the cramp. We were just saying among ourselves [with his umpires and linesmen], everyone seemed to be going down with cramp on that afternoon and I thought, 'Jaysus, thank God I'm holding up well'. I was stopping for guys that weren't so lucky and I made a run down and Christ, next thing the back of my thigh seized up and down I had to go. I blew the whistle and stopped the match and the Meath physio, God bless her, thankfully, she got me going.

"But that was no surprise.

Everything just kept going.

Looking back, those games looked to be over a couple of times. I'd say, 'At least this is the end of it today, ' and then back come the others yet again. You'd be letting a little bit of injury time run on because at that time you didn't put up any clock, it was up to me and the linesmen. We'd sort of make it up ourselves.

You think, 'this is it', and someone would turn around and slap over another point and you'd let it run for another 20 seconds and eventually you'd just have to blow it. Then back again. Hard going. Tough going.

"But it was worth it because it was a special sort of thing. At that time we all went back in and had a bite to eat after each game. We were all together after every match in the Aras for a few drinks, the bar was there. And we all got together and we were all talking and there was no one doing their own thing and rushing off. It was a whole gang together. It changed the GAA, you know."

By the time he blew his whistle one last time on 6 July, we all knew it had.

"It was fairly tough, " says Bernard Flynn. "It was very niggly a lot of the times during those matches. Keith Barr for example would have been very aggressive. There would have been a lot of kicking and tripping and pushing. And then there were the verbals. Things said were anything but nice, like some of the stuff I said to Keith."

It was only last Saturday when Flynn was sitting in the clubhouse in the Heritage Golf Club in Laois. Chatting to Barney Rock, the two glared at Ireland and Australia on the screen. The others in the room stared too. Suddenly the doors swung open like in a saloon.

Barr didn't have the boots or spurs or holster or Stetson, but he marched towards the Meath man regardless of attire. The room looked on in anticipation. Flynn glanced quickly, before revisiting for a second look as Barr approached. Suddenly he spoke. "How's everything going with you Bernard? All set for the golf?" And so they continued ahead of that afternoon's pro-am. Work, wives, children and chores. Fifteen years had passed. That was irrelevant. Time can't wash away certain moments.

"There was a lot of that sort of dirty stuff that went on, " continues Flynn. "But at the time you would have expected that. A lot of the time when you were making your run at angles to get into different channels, unlike now when you are not inhibited, you would have been tripped up, physically held, body-checked very badly off the ball. Make no bones about it, our defenders were no different. If anything, they would have been worse. But look, that's looking at the negatives.

"The other side was that it was like living in a little dream for four or five weeks. It took on a whole new law unto itself.

If you look at the overall football those games offered, the scores, the tackling, the hitting, the honesty, the package overall was great. And there was never any moaning. Even when Dublin finally lost, they just took it on the chin. They were gracious."

Keith Barr is still gracious today. Close friends with Flynn ever since the series, it was he of all people who could have put a different slant on an epic.

By the time Flynn hobbled off in the fourth game with Meath trailing by five points, Barr emerged from a haze of excitement and out of defence for a penalty. With Mick Lyons running alongside, he struck it low and hard, dragging it just wide of the left upright. "If I can remember, we could have been four or five up at halftime and then I got the penalty, " Barr says.

"Everyone knows what happened. Mick Lyons was to my left and I never noticed him, that's the honest truth of it. If I'd got that penalty, that could have been the nail in the coffin.

I don't think a point would have been any good at that stage, but if I'd got that goal we would have been eight up. It would have been the biggest lead any team had in the four matches and I don't think they would have come back from it.

But because I missed it, it was really game on at that point. I didn't feel guilty missing it though. I realised it was a very important miss and I do believe to this day that if we scored we would have gone on to win it.

"But look, we lost. Now you can see how football has evolved from that. Now you look at it, the whole country shared in the enthusiasm of it and the intrigue of it. The interesting thing about it was it was the first championship match on a Saturday, the exclusion zone around the penalty area came from it. It has all these incidentals. I think a referee wasn't allowed referee replays after that. All these small little incidentals that are in the game today basically stemmed from those matches.

"And leaving Meath's victory aside, what we have today is friendship. We get older, we finish with football. But even in those times we had a very healthy respect for one another. Don't get me wrong, we'd still go through one another for a shortcut. But the two teams were littered with very fine footballers and with that comes that respect. If the opportunity arose we'd go for one another but out of that comes more respect. And now look. Martin O'Connell is a gentlemen among many. Mick Lyons, Padraic Lyons, Liam Harnan, all great guys. We socialise together and their wives and families are as nice people as you could meet.

Same with Sean Boylan, a walking gentleman."

There were still winners and losers though. For Flynn, his abiding memory is of the Mansion House when it had all finished. The relief had been like winning an All Ireland, but what struck him was Dublin. Even hours after the game had finished, he still believes those opposition players he caught a glimpse of were in genuine shock.

We'll finish with Mick Lyons because somehow it just seems appropriate. Perhaps the legend that ice hockey scouts in search of an enforcer were there to watch him has no truth or maybe it was just that he can't skate. Either way, so many things did finish with Mick. Be it through a high-catch or a fist to the ball first. And what was that Tommy Howard said about a certain Meath full-back?

Was there much stuff going on off the ball, Mick?

Even verbal stuff?

"I never did much talking.

You do what you had to do and that was it. There was the odd thing, but nothing much, I can never remember anything bad ever said to me anyway."

There was probably a reason for that?

"Well, I was renowned as a tough player I guess, but I think the media had me built up more than I was. I never said anything about whether I was or I wasn't. I let people make up their own mind."

Yet for all the reputation that went with him, there he was, playing football for that goal. Two minutes are left on the clock when he picks up the ball. It works its way down through a wave of hands and there's Kevin Foley. "We never left it that late before so maybe I did think we were gone. But then again, I thought that side was very lucky. I thought that side could have been gone six years earlier. In '85 Laois gave us an awful beatin' in Tullamore. But Sean [Boylan] had a fantastic way. If Sean was a horse trainer he'd be a top horse trainer and that's not taking away from his ability in training people. He knows exactly when you've had enough and he knows when you've not had enough. That's invaluable."

Boylan sensed it a full nine days before that final Saturday encounter. The players were told to have their passports and gear ready the next morning and there were no excuses. Scotland awaited.

"Maybe it was a celebration that we hadn't been beaten.

They were the better team in every match but we went and we drank the place dry for one or two nights anyway. We got out the next morning and trained. We were a very funny bunch of people that way. We were a very loyal and honest bunch of people. We knew what had to be done and what it would take to do it. We knew if we drank hard that night we'd have to pay for it the next day and we did pay for it."

So did Dublin ultimately.

Liam Hayes sends in from 30 yards to PJ Gillic. There's David Beggy in space. . . "But we were on borrowed time at that stage. Too old in '91, " says Lyons.

But at last a winner. And guess what happened the next day out against Wicklow? 1-9 to 0-12. A draw.

GAME ON: THE UNFOLDING OF A GREAT DRAMA

2 JUNE, 1991 DUBLIN 1-12 MEATH 1-12 Dublin, now under former goalkeeper Paddy Cullen, enter as favourites having beaten their great rivals the previous year.

The tag is justified as they take a 1-7 to 1-2 lead into the break, the goal courtesy of Mick Galvin in the fifth minute. Brian Stafford is Meath's sole contributor with the goal via a controversial penalty, conceded by Charlie Redmond.

Meath fight back in the second half and with the scores tied at 110 each with 11 minutes left, the sides traded scores over the closing stages, PJ Gillic eventually ensuring they'd go at it again.

DUBLIN J O'Leary; M Deegan, C Walsh, M Kennedy; T Carr (0-1), K Barr, E Heery; P Clarke, P Curran (0-2); C Redmond (0-7, 0-3 frees, 0-1 45), J Sheedy (0-1 free), N Guiden; V Murphy (0-1), D Foran, M Galvin (1-0) Subs P Bealin for Foran; P Doherty for Galvin; C Duff for Guiden

MEATH M McQuillan; R O'Malley, M Lyons, T Ferguson; K Foley, L Harnan, M O'Connell; L Hayes, PJ Gillic (0-2); D Beggy, C O'Rourke, S Kelly (0-1); B Stafford (1-4, 1-0 pen, 0-1 free), T Dowd (0-2), B Flynn (0-3) Subs C Coyle for O'Connell Referee Tommy Howard (Kildare) Attendance 51,144

9 JUNE, 1991 DUBLIN 1-11 MEATH 1-11 (After extra-time) Barney Rock returns to the Dublin team amid his election campaign for the Progressive Democrats. And playing into a strong breeze his side only trail by three points at the interval, 06 to 0-3.

And they looked set to do what they should have done the previous Sunday until missing two glorious chances in the dying minutes of normal time when Vinnie Murphy twice failed to convert chances. The sides were inseparable in extra-time with David Beggy and Jack Sheedy getting the goals.

DUBLIN J O'Leary; M Deegan, C Walsh, M Kennedy; T Carr, K Barr, E Heery (0-1); D Foran, P Bealin; B Rock (0-8, all frees), J Sheedy (1-0), D McCarthy; P Curran, V Murphy, C Duff (0-1) Subs P Clarke (0-1) for Curran; G Hargan for Kennedy; Curran for Bealin; R Holland for Barr; P Doherty for Foran

MEATH M McQuillan; R O'Malley, M Lyons, T Ferguson; K Foley, L Harnan, M O'Connell; L Hayes, S Kelly (0-1); D Beggy (1-1), C O'Rourke (0-1), T Dowd; B Stafford (0-5, all frees), PJ Gillic (0-2), B Flynn (0-1) Subs C Coyle for Harnan; J McDermott for Dowd; B Reilly for Kelly; T Connor for Gillic; A Browne for McDermott Referee Tommy Howard (Kildare) Attendance 60,960

23 JUNE, 1991 DUBLIN 1-14 MEATH 2-11 (After extra-time) Dublin dominated like never before with the scoreboard reading 0-10 to 0-5 as the game entered the final stages.

However, even that was a poor reflection of Dublin's supremacy and it turned out not to be enough. A Bernard Flynn goal helped take the game into extratime. Colm Coyle goaled just moments into that opening period but within two minutes Paul Clarke did likewise. It was score for score thereafter with Paul Curran ending proceedings and ensuring the saga continued.

DUBLIN J O'Leary; M Deegan, C Walsh, M Kennedy; T Carr, K Barr, E Heery; D Foran, P Bealin (0-1); P Clarke (1-1), J Sheedy (0-2), N Guiden (0-3); D Sheehan (0-1), V Murphy, B rock (0-3, 0-2 frees) Subs G Hargan for Walsh; J McNally (0-2) for Murphy; P Curran (0-1) for Guiden; R Holland for Kennedy; C Redmond for Foran; Murphy for Redmond; Guiden for Carr; Kennedy for Barr

MEATH M McQuillan; R O'Malley, M Lyons, T Ferguson; K Foley, L Harnan, C Coyle (1-0); L Hayes, M O'Connell; D Beggy, C O'Rourke, PJ Gillic; S Kelly, B Stafford (0-10, 0-7 frees), B Flynn (1-1) Subs T Dowd for Gillic; G McEntee for Kelly; Gillic for Hayes; B Reilly for Foley; S Kelly for Dowd Referee Tommy Howard (Kildare) Attendance 63,730

6 JULY, 1991 MEATH 2-10 DUBLIN 0-15

A Saturday game but the attendance combined with the timing proved the series had captured the imagination. Dublin again were the better and led for long periods. A two-point lead at the break was to be gradually increased and it stood at five when Keith Barr struck a decisive penalty inches wide, although it should have been retaken with Mick Lyons running parallel to the taker. That miss drove Meath on. Brian Stafford brought the margin to three with minutes remaining before Kevin Foley got his famous goal. Even more famous was what followed as David Beggy ended it all. Meath were finally on their way to a Leinster title and an All Ireland final appearance where they would miss out against Down.

MEATH M McQuillan; R O'Malley, M Lyons, P Lyons; K Foley (1-0), L Harnan, M O'Connell; L Hayes, PJ Gillic; D Beggy (0-1), C O'Rourke, T Dowd; C Coyle, B Stafford (1-6, 0-5 frees, 0-1 45) B Flynn (0-2) Subs F Murtagh for P Lyons; G McEntee for Murtagh; M McCabe (0-1) for Flynn

DUBLIN J O'Leary; M Deegan, G Hargan, M Kennedy; T Carr, K Barr, E Heery; J Sheedy, P Bealin; C Redmond (0-5, 0-3 frees), P Curran (0-2), N Guiden (0-4); D Sheehan (0-2, both frees), P Clarke, M Galvin (0-2) Subs R Holland for Carr; J McNally for Clarke; V Murphy for Redmond Referee Tommy Howard (Kildare) Attendance 61,543