It was too wild to go out for a jog Tuesday night, so we stayed in, firing questions at each other from a new GAA quiz book – Sam, Liam, Strikes and Schemozzles* – sent to me by the authors Ciaran Loughran and JP Corkery. Nancy was on a run of 94 right answers on the trot – good scoring in any man’s language – when there came a beep on my phone.

"Talk Noel?" read the text. It was John Costello, the Dublin secretary.

I rang him back straightaway. "Well, John," I opened, "I see you shaved off the tash without seeking a two-thirds majority at convention, an awful man. Tell me, have Vincent’s picked the Dublin manager yet?"

He laughed. Nervously, of course. He doesn’t always know when I’m hopping a ball.

We go back a long way. Starting out, he wrote to me for some tips on GAA administration, and even came down to a station Mass in the house in 1968. The three of us spent the night poring over An Treoir Oifigiuil like a pair of kids.

He was an under-10 at the time, and already talking about a heave in his own club. I spotted great potential in him. Nancy said she never saw a young city fellow with a better grasp of the parish rule.

He still turns to me at time of crisis.

It was me who blocked an attempt by St Vincent’s in the mid 1990s to have their entire club executive installed as the Dublin team management. Vincent’s know the cut of my hatchet. We regularly played them in challenge games, when you’d have to be in the whole of your health. Luckily, I was, of course.

Mullins, Heffernan, Billings, Whelan, Hanahoe, Lar, Humphries – all great players, but they knew where I drew the line.

They were always wary of me. Wariness finally gave way to respect after the infamous Battle of Broken Back. At a time when your blood had to run blue and white to join Vincent’s, they offered to relax their no-culchie rule to get me on board.

Heffernan came down to Ballybore for a weekend and when he saw the esteem in which I was held, he knew they had no chance of luring me away.

"Noel’s not for turning, full stop – and I don’t mean by a jinking full-forward like yourself, Kevin," were Nancy’s very words that Sunday evening in Ita & Brigitta’s Eating House. Heffernan was disconsolate, and quiet as a lamb as we dropped him back to the station.

Anyway, John wanted to get my views on Pat Gilroy as manager. "If the cap fits," I replied, "and I won’t say another word."

I continued: "What about Mullins? You’ll have to doff the cap there as usual, I suppose?"

John said nothing, but I can read the intonations of his breath. I lowered my voice and Nancy turned down Daithi O Se.

I told him if were to take great care in how he offered a role to Mullins, dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’, leaving absolutely nothing to chance, it was my strong view that Mullins would definitely turn it down.

And with that, he was gone. Busy man, John Costello. I heard no more until I read Jim Sullivan on about the appointment in the Cork Examiner.

"A close one, Noel," said Nancy, before asking if I could name the two Mayo men who played midfield for Louth in the second-half of the ’57 final.

"Dan O’Neill and Seamie O’Donnell," I replied immediately, "sure Danno was onto me lately to launch a book he’s bringing out. Now, ask me a hard one."

* Collins Press, who have me haunted to write my own book, will give away three copies of Sam, Liam, Strikes and Schemozzles.. Email me the name of the two Dublin midfielders who started the ‘95 final, when Gilroy was left in the subs. The post takes an age around here so no point writing to me.

Noel never crosses his own goal, unless he has to. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; visit www.knowledgeablenoel.com; Skype (knowledgeable.noel); and Facebook (Knowledgeable Noel.)

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