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Lower Cusack was first (partially) in use for 1994's Leinster football final.

Lower cusack first in use for AISF '94 is my memory

The grass banks and the old dressing rooms in Birr . . . until the former were covered in concrete steps and the latter were demolished.

Three Lowrys.

Three Connors brothers, but not all at the same time. Three Furlongs, but again not at the same time. The Furlongs' service spanned almost 40 years.

Loughgiel played Ballybrown from Limerick in the All-Ireland semi-final. I came on the match programme last week and saw Olcan was listed in the Loughgiel team. It didn't make sense as I knew he was Armoy, so I raised the query here.

They playing a team down in Carey in the AI semi final. I can't even mind who it was. If I mind rightly they only got beat by a point. Ollie Kilkenny? was playing for the other team.

People of Antrim. It recently came to my attention that Olcan McFetridge won an Antrim and Ulster Club SHC with Loughgiel in 1989. How was this possible in he was a Glen Rovers Armoy club man? Was there a bye law at the time to enable this? Just curious.

It was 2010.

Three weeks to go till the big one.

Just trying to think when we last met in the championship, must have been back in 2011 (I think) in Portlaoise. Only Mickey Burke still in the team from that year. I remember his being caught out of position and Offaly getting in for a goal. We won anyway but wasn't a great year for us.

This game used to be big enough to be played in Croker but not these days but hopefully our new found optimism will bring out a crowd at home. We really targeted the league and were by some accounts championship fit since January. How that will stand to us in May I'm not sure as there's a lot of county football been played already and club championship already underway. I'd like to think we'd have enough to win this one but we've been poor the last two years and Offaly do like to scupper our plans from time to time (1997 and 2000 stick in the memory).

We play Roscommon in a challenge game on the 28th before then which might be a good test of where we stand.

Losing the All-Ireland to Klare.

Great teams win two in a row, and Offaly fell short.  Seven Sundays after giving their greatest hurling performance when beating Kilkenny.  Never saw that defeat coming, complacency a major factor - not just within the team but throughout the county as a whole.  Scored 2-8 and hit just 6 wides, can't complain with that, but made heroes out of an opposition with just one forward (and he hurling midfield for much of it).

We will never hear the end of it.  Klare got a quarter-hour on 'The Game' last Monday night. And Éamonn Cregan (who contributed enormously to the 1994 win) never got to properly enjoy coaching an All-Ireland winning team.

Offaly reached both Senior All-Irelands in 1981.  Won the hurling, beating Galway, lost the football to Kerry's 4 in a row team.  Liam Currams played in both, at the time the first man to do so since a Goulding chap from Cork in 1956.

Has there many examples of teams winning an all Ireland football and hurling in the same year? Or even being in both finals, and how longs it been?

That wouldn't have had the marketing potential that this week's exercise has produced.

Aviva not available? Bigger ground more money?

What?  Which end of Bord na Móna OCP is nearest the town? Both are equidistant to the town, if you ask me.  For me, it's the Arden Road End, while the far end is the Park Avenue End.

Birr would have the Town End and (probably) the Roscrea End.

Town End- O'Connor Park

The Camcor - St Brendan's Park

The ten lowest Leinster football final attendances on record:-

1957    30,234
1972    30,074
1965    30,000
1968    30,000
1981    28,398
1953    28,240
1991    28,157
1958    27,689
1961    26,836
1959    24,006

Leinster Football final attendances 1980 to 1990 inclusive

1980    50,276
1981    28,398
1982    32,504
1983    36,921
1984    56,051
1985    33,423
1986    43,765
1987    48,122
1988    42,302
1989    56,839
1990    53,847

Someone mentioned the possibility of the worst Leinster final attendance since the 80s. Were the 80s that low? I think the Dublin-Offaly 83 final was my first Leinster final and I seem to remember it as big crowd, certainly a big atmosphere! I wasn't even a teenager so maybe the mind is playing tricks

No change for Offaly in the meantime.

Offaly -

Have played all Leinster counties.

Have also played all the Munster counties

Connacht - have never played Sligo or Leitrim in championship

Ulster - have yet to play Derry, Fermanagh, Antrim and Armagh

Galway brought in a bye-law around 1966 that there could only be one club per parish.  On the assumption that bye-law is still there, starting a breakaway club is a non runner.

What is most striking about this imo was the threat to start a new club. Athenry is an amalgamation of at least 3 clubs so there is a history of dysfunction and mé féining  in the parish. This mess threatened to reopen the wound.

On the surface it was about parents but it went a lot deeper.
Typical Galway hurling as well I think. Far too much emotion.

And presumably no coincidence that the senior team is poor and there was no club player on the Galway team that won last year's all Ireland.

Go raibh maith agat!

Maol as in bald.