Let us suppose, then. A mellow afternoon light and Thurles, high home of country sport, echoing with the foreign sound of city revelry. The old town, drenched, in Dublinese. Alive, Alive-Oh. At the stadium, the football rivalry of the ages, the GAA's own Ali-Frazier saga, in its last seconds. Dublin has it, with a lead that is irredeemable and on the blue terrace, the clamouring Hill for one day, they are delirious. Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ scrutinises the on-field devastation from the sideline with a face polished by Atlantic elements.

He is unmistakable, of course, with the greying military haircut, the chinos, the yellow shirt of the Bainisteoir. And that stance of his, the uncompromising stance of a hard man's hard man. But his is the face of an open book and he cannot disguise the hurt.

"A game between Dublin and Kerry," he told former Irish Times Gaelic games correspondent Paddy Downey back in 1985, "represents the conflict between town and country, it gives a keener edge to normal sporting rivalry. Dublin has a lot of glamour and a big loyal following but I must say we get more satisfaction from beating them than any other team."

As a player, ╙ SΘ invested his very soul in winning and categorising him was easy. He was the loose cannon on a Kerry team full of aristocrats, the raw jester who confirmed urban perceptions of what the country was about. Tales of ╙ SΘ's dressing-room furies are legendary. They say that one time, before leading the team out to Croke Park, he hopped the ball so hard off the ground that it made smithereens of an overhead light.

"He was like a caged lion," reminisced Mick O'Dwyer, "shouting and running up the walls and jumping - he'd hit the ceiling. He'd be on one side of the room and the quieter lads would be at the other. But what a motivator and what a player."

Recently, Jack O'Shea, talking to Denis Walsh of the Sunday Times, painted an affectionately comic portrait of the ritual his old team-mate followed to ease his nerves.

"He threw his bag into the same corner of the dressing-room where he sat, stripped off and put on his runners. Sometimes he'd think to put on a pair of shorts, other times he'd be buck naked, running around the dressing-room. Then he'd let this roar out of him, like a massive release. We'd be looking at each other, thinking to ourselves 'he's finally gone crazy'."

Humorous though the wild-man accounts are, they don't at all tally with the ╙ SΘ of today, the cautious, intense man prowling the line in Thurles, a hand shading his eyes, the distress palpable. Since ╙ SΘ finally realised his slow-burning ambition of leading the Kingdom, categorising him has been more difficult. As a player, Pβid∅ was a cult hero, an irrepressible bundle of energy who wore his heart on his sleeve. Now his place in the pantheon of Kerry football lore is harder to identify. His ascent has been scarring.

"I don't know why but there have been some knives out for Pβid∅ all along," says Sean Counihan of Killarney, a former selector with ╙ SΘ.

"And what has to be recognised, irrespective of what happens in Thurles, is that Pβid∅ has done exceptionally well with comparatively limited resources. People seem to think there is an endless supply of great players in Kerry. Pβid∅ won an All-Ireland in 1997 and then more or less rebuilt the team to come back and win it again last year."

Counihan left the camp post-1998 and a letter he wrote in The Kerryman was construed as a criticism of ╙ SΘ's sideline policy. Counihan says now his comments were not aimed at the manager but rather the peripheral figures that exerted an influence on match-days.

"I never had a problem with Pβid∅. He has taken all this criticism about selections, say the Maurice (Fitzgerald) situation last year. It seems to be forgotten that there are three selectors there as well. And Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ would sit in a room until seven in the morning with you and let you argue your case. And if you are man enough to vote against him in a show of hands, it won't be held against you.

"You know, when Kerry won last year, I was on stage for what was probably the biggest welcome a Kerry team ever got in Killarney. And it would have been easy for Pβid∅ to put his ass to me that evening, to ignore me. But he was straight over and the first thing he said was 'are we having a pint?' He'd be big like that."

The longer you listen to people speak about Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ, the more contradictions emerge. The Ventry man has masks. The garrulous dressing-room rituals hid a player with deep anxieties about his own on-field mortality.

╙ SΘ's big-game record in Croke Park is phenomenal; in 10 All-Ireland finals, he conceded just one point to his direct marker. Yet, in 1996, he confessed that through all those years, " one thing used go through my mind. Is this going to be the day a fella gets 2-6 off me, takes me on a tour of Croke Park? It helped me keep that extra bit ahead of the posse."

He has a strange relationship with publicity, happily decorating the walls of his pub with shots of himself in pose with a number of incongruous icons - Tom Cruise, Dolly Parton, Charles Haughey - but verging on Garboesque in his everyday dealings with the media. When he was hungry for the Kerry job, he was not afraid to voice his world-view through his Irish Independent column and on local radio. The naked ambition was looked upon with distaste in some quarters of his county. Such vociferousness has long since dried up and now ╙ SΘ is regarded as an arch exponent of saying nothing.

It is no secret that Mick O'Dwyer had an incredible influence on him. When the maestro gently began winding down his career, dropping him before the 1989 Munster final, ╙ SΘ found himself speechless. Literally.

In a recent TG4 documentary, ╙ SΘ admitted that while O'Dwyer's decision was probably right, he was unable to bring himself to speak to him for a year or two.

Those were soul-searching times for ╙ SΘ. In a West Kerry final, he was involved in a very bad clash with Denis Higgins of Listowel after a run for a 50-50 ball. The incident was messy, with both players injured badly. It is thought the incident shook ╙ SΘ philosophically more so than physically, forcing him to come to terms with his waning prowess. The ╙ SΘ of '75 to '85 would have taken the ball with seconds to spare. When he quit the game, it was with typically firm totality.

Now his admiration for O'Dwyer remains as ardent as ever. O'Dwyer presides as the Great Spirit of Kerry football, the father. He is irreplaceable. ╙ SΘ can never be Mick O'Dwyer. In 1998, though, when Kerry met Kildare in the All-Ireland semi-final, he had the opportunity to meet his old teacher as equal.

"That loss affected Pβid∅ deeply," says Sean Counihan. "I mean, it hurt us all because I think we possibly had a better team than them. But for Pβid∅, it was a chance to show the Master how far he had come, how much he had learned."

╙ SΘ continues to learn. He has always been diligent, from his chastening days with UCC to the early, pressure-pot times with Kerry. In a county where even the dog on the street has an opinion to give about football, critical comment seemed inevitable. The deliverance of two All-Irelands has diluted that but an edge remains and it seems that Pβid∅, no matter how he strives, can never command the same sort of general affection as O'Dwyer. But those who know him speak of an exceptional loyalty.

"I got to know him over the years. He is a very forceful personality, forthright and very clear about what he wants and wouldn't settle for less," says Kevin Heffernan.

"I wasn't surprised really to see him going into management because he loved playing the game and everything that went with it, so it was possibly a means of prolonging that." ╙ SΘ intimated as much after the 1997 All-Ireland when, in a rare moment of sentiment, he admitted that "it's better as a player but when you are 44 and two stone overweight and going slow, winning one as a manager isn't bad."

Sean Counihan has heard Pβid∅ tell a story about one night after Dublin lost to Kerry when himself and Pβid∅ Lynch roamed around the capital and ended up in a Chinese.

"They'd had a good drink and as he tells it, the two of them are sitting there and there's a big commotion behind the kitchen. Some of the staff was shouting in Chinese and Pβid∅ Lynch says "what are they saying." And Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ replies, "they're saying there's two of the worst feckin' Kerry footballers of all time. Let's get them out of here quick."

He has won more than he has lost since that hazy night. But let us suppose now that the sun is dipping in Thurles and the Kerry hoards are ashen. The compact, bullet-headed man on the sideline is pacing, as if just about restraining himself from actually running out to join the players. He knows the day is done. In a few minutes, he will graciously compliment Dublin in the soft Ventry brogue. Sometimes, when Pβid∅ is speaking quietly, he seems almost shy. The opposite of the gruff Gaeltacht man, the raving motor-mouth of yesteryear, the hard man who takes no prisoners.

He will leave Thurles and head south and the only thing we will be able to say about Pβid∅ ╙ SΘ with any certainty is this: there will be nobody in Kerry more tortured by the loss.

Nobody.