No One Shouted Stop. Until Sunday.

Now that it’s happened, how to capture it?

That was the challenge laid down to the Western People in the hours between full-time and print deadline last Monday evening. 

We had 13 trial runs since 1989 but if a picture paints a thousand words, was there anything at all that could be written about one momentous Sunday afternoon in July that the dozens of photographs could not encapsulate? It’s hard to know.

My great friend and colleague David Farrell will have to forgive me for pointing out that I wasn’t two months born when he photographed his first Mayo match in Croke Park for the Western People. It was a league semi-final win against Down in April 1978. For context, Mayo’s last All-Ireland victory was more recent then than Mayo’s All-Ireland defeats to Meath and Kerry in 1996 and ’97 are today. Little did David know he’d be waiting 48 years until last Sunday to finally snap this week’s front page image, the one he, the Western People and a county had longed for the most.

Those close to me, particularly those who I have worked alongside covering all matters Mayo GAA for over 25 years, will testify about my long held belief that the county’s search for a first All-Ireland SFC title since 1951 was always most likely to end when we least expected it. And by God, of all the fourteen finals Mayo have appeared in since then, were we ever less fancied than last Sunday to reacquaint ourselves with Sam Maguire?

Hammered at home by Roscommon and staring down the barrel of an even heavier home hammering by Meath, the transformation in appearance of Mayo these past few months would humble the best plastic surgeon. Their season-saving recovery against the Royals had also come on the back of a defeat away to Tyrone so in victory over Kerry at Croke Park, Mayo will go down in history as the first team to lose two championship games and still win the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.

They did so not at the expense of a nobody but at the expense of the defending champions, a county that has worn the crown 39 times. Our struggle to win a fourth is the culmination of an unfathomable losing streak that rivalled anything in world sport but which because of its momentous ending also makes for one of the greatest sports stories of all time.

However many of the 75 years you have existed on this planet, perhaps every minute of waiting and yearning feels as though it was now time well spent; that to know what it was like to be without will make us appreciate to the last drop Tommy Conroy’s crowning point in the dying seconds, the sound of the hooter and just how significant the moment when Jack Coyne walked up the steps of the Hogan Stand to receive the most treasured prize of all.

If the newsreader on RTÉ Radio 1 last Sunday morning had her way though, Jack would have been climbing the Reek instead, as she had informed us on the 9 o’clock news that the day’s upcoming All-Ireland SFC between Mayo and Kerry was to take place in Croagh Patrick. Ours was a different sort of pilgrimage altogether.

“For years people have spoke about history, past experiences, pressures and everything that comes with wearing this jersey. For this group it was about something much deeper; it was about representing this county and today we did it with pride,” the Mayo captain told his spellbound Croke Park audience. Rarely, if ever, has the stadium remained so close to capacity for the presentation and speech after an All-Ireland final. No one, not even the vast, vast majority of Kerry supporters, wanted to leave before witnessing something not seen since 1951.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge the huge respect shown by the Kerry supporters there waiting back after the game, and to acknowledge what a moment that was for the GAA, for football fans from Mayo in particular, and across the country. I think it was a huge moment and I really appreciate that,” said Aidan O’Shea from outside the Mayo dressing-room an hour or so later.

No player has played more games for Mayo. No player has experienced more All-Ireland heartache. No player has had imposed upon them so much of the responsibility. No player deserved his moment more. It’s just ironic that it came at the expense of his parents’ home county.

“My dad doesn’t get emotional too often. There’s only twice in his life he’s ever got emotional in front of me, [first] when Seamie won an under-21 All-Ireland. I said I’d love to make him emotional some day and I’m delighted. It took me 18 years to do it but to see my family’s reaction, that’s magic, just magic,” beamed Aidan.

Eleven consecutive times since 1989 Mayo players had been the ones sat or stood in despair on the Croke Park pitch looking up into the Hogan Stand while the opposition captain made his victory speech and the Sam Maguire Cup was passed around. But not this time.

“To every young boy and girl across Mayo and our diaspora across the world, never stop dreaming, stick your chests out and be proud to be from Mayo,” bellowed Jack Coyne. “The wait is over, Sam is home. Maigh Eo abú.” The roar sent even the Richter scale scribbling ferociously.

I had arrived to Croke Park early on Sunday, so early in fact that legendary Kerry footballer and pundit Pat Spillane was hosting a corporate group of lucky ticket winners in the press box before the rest of the media arrived. Interestingly, particularly in light of the events that followed, Spillane told the group that he could see big similarities between this year’s Mayo team and the breakthrough Kerry side with whom he had won the first of his eight All-Ireland titles in 1975, noting that Andy Moran was imposing the same positivity and belief upon his players as had Spillane’s old mentor Mick O’Dwyer. High praise indeed.

That said, it’s doubtful Spillane or anyone from Kerry really believed they’d be denied in their attempt to win consecutive All-Irelands for the first time in two decades by a Mayo team that had been beaten in Tralee by sixteen points when the sides met in the National Football League last March.

“You’ve two choices, you either try to close the gap or you give up on it,” said Andy Moran from outside the Mayo dressing-room after that thumping at Austin Stack Park.

“We’ll be looking at the players’ character and demeanour over the next couple of weeks and if they’re willing to go and chase it, we’ll go and chase it with the boys who are willing to chase it.” And by God, did they chase it.

Not only did the Mayo defence concede nine points fewer than Donegal had in last year’s final defeat to Kerry, but the 1-20 that Mayo posted on Sunday is the biggest score Kerry has ever conceded in an All-Ireland SFC Final. Yes, there are new rules and a new scoring system, but even converting Mayo’s four two-pointers into old money, 1-16 would still amount to the joint highest concession by Kerry in an All-Ireland final, with only Tyrone having struck that in 2005. And you also had to go as far back as Tyrone in 2008 for a Kerry defeat to any team other than Dublin in the final.

‘Does anyone here think we’re going to win?’ Andy Moran now famously challenged the national media post Mayo’s semi-final defeat of Louth. A deathly silence hung over the room before one brave soul admitted ‘No’.

And but for a bounce here or there, the doubters could have been proven right once again last Sunday. Indeed at the 64 minute mark my trembling hand wrote in big bold letters in my notepad ‘Please don’t let this become the story’, as Jordan Flynn’s flick towards goal somehow crashed back into play off the crossbar. A possible eight points lead instead became two points – and that was before the mercurial David Clifford and Sean O’Shea each had kicks for equalisers in the closing minutes.

Maybe it was those Mayo fans who occupied two thirds of Hill 16 who had helped blow those Kerry shots off course. Or some divine intervention perhaps?

“I won’t lie to ye lads,” began Andy Moran afterwards. “69 minutes, I look up to the sky, tactics, geniuses, all that sort of stuff. Two people, John O’Mahony and Aidan Drake, a cousin of Jenny’s (Andy’s wife). I said, ‘Lads, if you’re going to do it for us, now is the time.’ They answered our prayers and away we went.” 

A county finally shouted stop.

See next Tuesday's Western People for a souvenir supplement of Mayo's All-Ireland SFC homecoming celebrations.