A memory from our beloved past when Gaelic football was so much better than it is now.
This strong contender for the worst provincial championship ever does not spring from a Leinster championship in which Dublin demolish everyone. Nor does it come in a shape of dour and violent Ulster championship.
No, instead it comes from the charmingly ramshackle days of the Connacht championship. From the mid 60s to the mid 90s, it was often correctly remarked that Connacht football was in the doldrums.
Between Galway's completion of the three-in-a-row in 1966 and the same county's victory in 1998, Sam Maguire did not trouble the province with his presence.
In the 70s and 80s at least, Connacht teams did on occasion reach the September showdown, albeit usually in years when they met the Ulster champions in the semis.
Galway reached deciders in 1971, 73, 74 and 83, Roscommon got there in 1980, while Mayo made their first appearance in a final in 38 years in 1989. (Incidentally, 1973 was the only year in which a Connacht team beat non-Ulster opposition in the championship, with Galway's victory over reigning champions Offaly. It would be the last such win until Mayo's win over Kerry in 1996.)
But Ulster's stunning renaissance in the early 1990s left their fellow underdogs in the West standing. Connacht football plumbed the depths in the early 90s. And the nadir was reached in 1993 when a badly out-of-sorts Mayo team couldn't but win the provincial title, pipping the Rossies in Hyde Park.
Leitrim shocked Galway in Tuam in the first round (probably the best game) before their psychological frailty cost them against a hardly world-beating Roscommon side. Sligo made heavy weather of beating London and were then soundly beaten by Mayo.
The final itself was won on a truly pathetic scoreline of 1-5 to 0-7.
Roscommon led 0-7 to 0-3 at one stage but Mayo went on a scoring blitz in the final quarter, running up 1-2 to steal victory from under the noses of the home side.7
Their reward was a clash with Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final. The game drifted away from Mayo in the closing stages. They lost 5-15 to 0-10.
The memory of it was enough to convince one Mayo supporter to ring into Sunday Sport before the Galway-Mayo Connacht final of 1995 and announce that he hoped his team would lose because he couldn't stomach the inevitable hammering from the Ulster opposition the following month.
Mayo did lose that day but little did they know that Connacht's dark days were about to come to end. The dawn was just about to break out West.
