Jeff Stelling and Chris Kamara were among the privileged 82,300 at Croke Park on Sunday, the All-Ireland final a fitting crescendo to Jeff and Kammy's Road To Croker - a documentary series produced by AIB. The pair had travelled across Ireland learning about Gaelic football ahead of their final challenge to commentate on the final from the Croke Park press box.
Stelling sat down with Balls in the aftermath to recount his experience, and we quickly learn that it almost went awry. Twenty minutes before throw-in, Stelling was sitting by an empty seat.
"Panic", Stelling says when asked how the day began. "Panic, because Kammy wasn't there. I knew he was in London doing Goals on Sunday, and I knew that he had promised he'd be there, and I'm thinking, 'You bastard, where are you!?".
Kamara did eventually show, whisked from the airport on a motorbike, and made it to the gantry ten minutes before throw in.
So while his colleague cut it tight, Stelling ambled into Croke Park in time to catch the final Act of the David Clifford Show, having sampled the atmosphere around Jones' Road. Absorbing the unique atmosphere of All-Ireland final day, Stelling was struck by the biggest difference between football (soccer) and Gaelic football.
It's not necessarily a criticism of football, but the integration of fans. They are sitting alongside each other, and there's not a whiff of trouble. Even when a team is beaten in those circumstances. That was eye-opening, and quite uplifting.
To think that at Premier League grounds you'll often have fans - through buying tickets online or through touts or whatever - finding themselves in the wrong section of the ground, and home fans will say, 'Get them out' even through they had done nothing wrong.
That exact point came up recently, as Arsenal fans had Koln fans ejected from the home support sections at the Emirates during last Thursday's Europa League tie. When asked if the segregation of fans at soccer matches would ever end, Stelling is unsure.
It's a different world, a different game. People are brought up in this country to embrace Gaelic football and it's not quite like that in Engand. I'm not sure the fact that its's professional or not has anything to do with it.
Look, the behaviour in English football grounds is hugely, hugely better than it used to be, there's no question about that. 95% of games today, there's no trouble, but compare that to 100% of games over here, where there is never any trouble.
Ahead of the All-Ireland final, Pat Gilroy told the Sunday Business Post that the GAA will have to reckon with their sports going global over the next hundred years, and Stelling is sure that football has the potential to do so.
You're in a special stadium, so you're expecting a special occasion, and it was. It was just gripping sport.
You see 82,000 there yesterday and you ask yourself, why doesn't it take off everywhere? It's incredibly fast, it's relatively simple to understand the basics, it's just a gripping game. I don't understand why people in lots of parts of the world just don't get it.
Hopefully Sky's coverage will help. I was watching the highlights on Sky Sports News last night, and that'll help promote it. Whether or not it will take off in England I'm not sure, but it would be their loss.
Maybe you should just keep it for yourselves!
