It's already trundled off into the deserted distance, long enough gone that Padraic Kelly can whisper about each and every one of them as legends. He was part of it that day, when Offaly went to Croke Park in 1997 and saw off Meath in a Leinster final, but still looked out from between his goalposts and saw heroes.

He'll never forget a moment of it. Any of it. The look on Tommy Lyons' face when the new manager made his debut in the dressing room and saw the most unfit bunch of footballers outside the junior grades. Kelly will never forget his first words to the lumps of flesh around the room either.

"You train Tuesday and run, you train Friday and run, you train Saturday and run, you train on Sunday and you run."

There was their first win together, a trouncing of Longford in the O'Byrne Cup that left the players pleased but after which their manager told them they were now ready for proper training. The day of the Leinster final when it took them a half an hour to get from Tullamore to Edenderry to pick up Finbar Cullen because of the crowd. And then the game itself. Who in Offaly could forget?

"It was a Saturday evening game because Meath and Kildare beat the shite out of one another three games running, " says Kelly. "My thinking was there was a fair crowd going but the next thing they came from everywhere.

Throngs, and it came home to roost. Tommy told us to give it a lash, if you get a goal chance go for it, if you get a yard ahead of your man, never look back. Never wonder. People always talked about Meath's physicality but I think they never looked at us.

"Without being specific, everyone in the county knew we had lads who could stand up and were hardy whores, who would go through a wall.

The bigger guys were hardy, the small guys were hardier, that was Offaly '97. If you underestimated us, you were in trouble. We spent so much time together that year we pissed blood, sweat and tears together. Had the craic, fallouts, fought hard . . . but it was all towards one cause."

Time to pinch ourselves now and wake up. They've only been back to one Leinster final since and we'll get to the trimming Dublin gave them last year in a bit. In between there's been nothing but trouble. Off the field there was the resignation of Gerry Fahy in 2004, a manager the players adored and who walked out after getting the job for another year by just a single vote. There was the players' strike, brought about by the treatment and facilities on offer to the team.

The appointment of Kevin Kilmurray, one that angered many players.

Then there's been the trauma on the field too. 2000: Leinster semi-final, Kelly came from the goal and saw a free that would have put them through against Kildare drop just short. They lost the replay. 2001: McManus hits the post against Dublin. 2002:

It took an extra-time replay before Kildare got past them.

2003: Kevin Fitzpatrick's throw-ball for an equalising goal, eventually sent home by Laois's Mickey Lawlor. 2004: Westmeath got past them after a wide point from Brian Morley. 2005: Lost out to Laois by just two points.

"Well, hard luck stories don't put medals in arse pockets. They are for the high stools in my mind, they don't matter a shite to me. I'm towards the end of my career and there is no such thing as next year in my mind. Every year that goes along, it is more and more true and I don't know, this could be it for me.

Maybe it's a lack of mental toughness in Offaly, but we won't know until six o clock Sunday if the work we have put in as regards that will make a difference. But away from that things are getting better. Off the field, the strike helped things move along slowly. It was a strike for all the right reasons and people got the wrong end of the stick.

People were looking at us as a bunch of misfits or a bunch of f**king whingers who want to cause trouble.

"But as I said before, if nothing else it allowed guys to say their bit and brought reality to the whole thing about how the best footballers and the best hurlers had to go out and train at nightime under their car lights. These sort of stories have stopped. You mention Kevin in there as well. I guess a lot of people didn't like him but the bottom line is he was the manager. There's no point at the start of the year saying that man is no good for us, we want him out.

If you are not with him get out of town. Just keep your mouth shut because you will always have begrudgers around. In fairness, if certain players had their views, they never came out. The bottom line is we won three games in a row in Croke Park and played in a Leinster final."

He still reckons that Leinster final went wrong the moment Alan McNamee was sent from the pitch. The sides were trading blows at that point, but a man less gave Dublin the space to fully implement their running game. They lost that and a couple of weeks later an Offaly side that looked so threatening were suddenly cowering and were appalling in a qualifier exit to Laois, one that was allegedly preceded by too many late nights.

"I heard after there were guys out acting the bollocks.

Very often if you hear these things close to a match and try to bring it to a head, someone will think you are a troublemaker. I don't know what went on. But if that's the mentality of guys who were so close to a Leinster title, maybe these guys need to be found out. I don't know if there was drinking but Laois was another bad day.

"Things didn't get much better in the league this year and here we were thinking of getting to a final and next thing a few defeats, the point deduction against Longford, something I reckon should have been dealt with off the field, and then Roscommon, when the wheels came off, and we are suddenly in Division Four next year. But we went back to the clubs and things have been going well since. The league result means no qualifiers if we lose to Dublin, but the Tommy Murphy Cup. But in Offaly we never looked at them anyway, we always want to come through the right way and this will be no different.

"So all the pressure is on Dublin and Paddy Power is the man who will dictate where we stand. He seems to know more but, God forbid, if Offaly win, the Heraldwill go into liquidation as they'll have little enough to write bout if Dublin go out. The odds are stacked against us though and they've had a huge confidence boost against Meath and Mark Vaughan is the latest King of the Hill. But really I think we have a good chance, the odds say we don't but really instead of just talking and telling stories, I want to go out and see what we are made of."

He hopes they're made of the same steel as those around him a decade ago.