In the build up to the 1994 World Cup it was the sorry lot of this fresh-faced and eager beaver, marooned at the bottom of the Sports Department pecking order, to come up with story after story chronicling what soon became known as The Great Ticket Hunt. Tickets, or the lack of them, were perceived as great copy and the public appetite for tales about them was regarded as insatiable. These were the salad days for those FAI officials whose job it was to frustrate the Great Ticket Hunters and head them off at the pass at every possible opportunity.
And so it came to pass on a sticky Friday afternoon at the end of May that one of those same FAI mandarins deigned to have a telephone conversation detailing his role in the same Great Ticket Hunt. This was a man at the top of his pile and he wasn't afraid to let everyone know it. He began talking in hushed tones about this parallel universe where tickets were traded between countries in clandestine operations with an air of secrecy which makes the naming of Clare hurling teams look like an object lesson in transparency and openness.
But somewhere along the line a question about the iniquities of the ticketing system and the problems it created for those supporters who found themselves on the outside looking in raised a few heckles. "Let me tell you one thing young fella," he whispered menacingly down the line. After a few seconds of awkward silence, clearly introduced for maximum effect, he resumed his low-pitched growl. "Just remember one thing. Tickets, young fella, is power. Tickets is power." With that he was gone but his words echo down through the years.
The Great Ticket Hunt has become the sporting phenomenon of this decade and its influence is felt in every sport which purports to have anything approaching mass appeal. If your sport is not now all-ticket in some shape or form then you are nowhere. The requirement that particular events should be ticket only may have started off as a safety issue but it has cleverly and sneakily become part of our rich sporting tapestry.
It has also created its own language and its own sub-culture. Forget about your high-tech personality profiles, the best way to learn all you need to know about someone is to watch how they behave and what part they have to play in the Great Ticket Hunt.
First of all there are those irritatingly chilled out people who seem to have attained some sort of Zen-like calm about the entire escapade. They make no imploring phone calls to school-friends they haven't seen in 20 years. They don't enter into hopelessly unrealistic deals or make wild promises they have no chance of keeping. They never become snivelling, desperate, chain-smoking wrecks as match day comes ever closer. "Sure a ticket will turn up from somewhere," they opine with a knowing smile. And it invariably does when a friend of a friend with some hurling connection in Limerick phones on Sunday morning and they weasel their way into a seat between Bertie Ahern and Mary McAleese in the middle of the Hogan Stand.
Then at the opposite end of the spectrum there are the Horders. They spend the weeks before a big, all-ticket occasion operating on the margins of society and have endless surreptitious mobile phone conversations. "It's a disgrace that the game has been taken away from a Gael like me," they bleat. "What about all those National League games I went to? Do they not count for anything?" But they've been down the track so many times before and they know all the tricks. For 11 1/2 months of the year they criticise and snipe at the secretary of their local club, but for two glorious weeks that put-upon official is a god.
The Horder sends him food hampers stuffed with fine wine, truffles and expensive pate, takes his children on holiday to Disneyworld and bombards his wife with perfumes and designer clothes. "I'm not expecting any special treatment," whines the Horder, "but sure will you see what you can do for me anyway." By Saturday night he has gathered together 13 terrace tickets and two lower deck Cusack tickets which he manages to swap for a seat beside Joe McDonagh with its own cushion and footstool. "This ticket thing is ruining the game," he moans as he sinks back into chair, sips from his champagne glass and pulls on a cigar.
For the past month Armagh has been the global centre of the Great Ticket Hunt. Ever since the demolition of Down in the Ulster Final set up last Sunday's All-Ireland semi-final with Meath, men and women with haunted looks had been walking the streets offering to sell their children into a life of slavery in exchange for a ticket or two. Dressing-rooms that are usually the preserve of the few loyal servants who keep the show on the road through the depths of winter were thronged with die-hards each expressing more love and loyalty for the club than the last. On Saturday mornings throughout August there were three coaches for every member of the under-10 camogie squad and when the girls got back inside they sat down to a five course banquet instead of the usual Coke and crisps. Gear that usually rots in the bottom of kit bags has been lovingly laundered and dried in fragrant summer meadows.
The whole experience does strange things to otherwise sane and rational people. So when the longed for call finally arrived on Saturday evening we bolted our dinner and climbed into the car to drive to Castleblaney. There was a pub there and sitting in that pub was a white envelope with our name on it and a ticket inside. There was never any doubt about it. We had to have it.
The journey south took us through Armagh's GAA heartland. After 17 years out of the GAA big time there was this tremendous sense of nervous anticipation. Even by Ulster's manic standards, Armagh is a fanatical GAA hotbed and the aching for success was never more tangible than last weekend.
When we got into that Castleblaney bar last Saturday night, the envelope was sitting there, pristine white, underneath the optics. We tried to be blase about it all, not wanting to give ourselves away. But while the drinks were being ordered we craned our necks to see the precious ticket and afforded it all the respect it deserved. Sweet moments.
Throughout the length and breadth of the county the same ritual was being observed by 35,000 other Armagh men, women and children. The Great Ticket Hunt has become as much a part of the communal GAA experience as eating sandwiches out of the boot of a car and buying over-priced programmes. By five o'clock on Sunday afternoon it was all over for another year. And despite the crushing disappointment of a dismal second-half showing and the five mile tail-backs on the road home, it was worth it. It was worth it.
