Different, yet the same

LP HARTLEY’S opening prologue to his most famous novel, The Go-Between, “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” has become a well-worn proverb at this stage, but it never seems more apt in a football context than at this stage of the championship every year.

Kerry and Tyrone, winners for the last seven seasons, have long acknowledged the fact that the championship begins anew on August weekend and all that happens before is merely about getting there. Despite winning their respective provincial championships, nobody knows better than the those squads that the past really is a foreign country and that from here on in we step into a new landscape for which there are no maps.

Kerry and Tyrone have more reasons than most to relish quarter-final stages of the championship. Both sides have, at this stage, provided the GAA public with some of the most memorable moments of the past decade: Remember Owen Mulligan’s slaloming run and goal five years ago? What about Kieran Donaghy’s win and spin moment that finally broke Armagh in ‘06? Who can forget Marc O Sé’s diving block on Tomás Freeman the following year? Or Tyrone’s rhapsody in the rain in ‘08 – the best exhibition of foot-passing I have seen in the new Croke Park? And finally, Gooch’s razing of Hill 16 after 38 seconds last year.