championship match. He prophesied that the Galway hurling team would be forever like Moses on the borders of the promised land; almost there, but never arriving.

My father and I left the island on a Friday, cycled to Birr on Saturday and spent the night there. The match was one of the hardest and best that I have ever seen; it was also the most heart-breaking. At one stage Galway led by seven points, but Kilkenny crept back and Jim Langton equalised. Then Galway gave away a free and Langton hit the winning point.

In those years the roads were always full of groups of men cycling to and from matches on a Sunday and it was in one of these groups, somewhere between Portumna and Loughrea as night fellcould only score three points and were beaten by 13.

And as we cycled back to Galway, with backsides scalded by wet saddles, we talked about the curse and vowed . . . never again.

And again in Birr, the following year, we again went down by a point to Kilkenny, who then went on to beat Cork by a point in the final. I watched that match from Hill 16, holding my brother on my shoulders for the whole of the second half when the swaying crowds frightened him. It was a whale of a second half too and the winning point was struck from in front of us. The scene can be re-run at will, as indeed can a hundred others, as Terry Leahy got one chance and