Kilmacud Crokes' story will never be that of the outsider.
But that wasn't always the case. In Peter Sobolewski's excellent book on the history of the club he writes that "its beginnings were modest" as the city stretched out into the suburbs.
It's fair to say that the current Crokes club would be unrecognisable from the Kilmacud GAA club founded at a meeting in St Laurence's Hall in February 1959.
Joined with Clonskeagh club Benburbs in 1972, the club continued to grow and they've now become mammoth in size with their website claiming they have just shy of 5,000 members. Crokes have been the victims of their own success, in one regard, with a superbly run club attracting players from beyond the original parishes of Kilmacud and Mount Merrion, and later Clonskeagh.
You could probably make the argument that splitting the club in two would leave you with two strong senior sides in the area that could go far in the Dublin SFC.
With all that in mind there might not be many neutrals backing them in Croke Park on Sunday as they seek their third AIB All-Ireland club football title.
And while club captain Shane Cunningham acknowledges the size of the club, he doesn't agree that it makes it any less of a community club than Sunday's opponents Watty Graham's Glen, who have around 800 members.
"It does get dismissed as a 'super club' and that undermines some of the hard work that's being done from the coaches, and the volunteers to people right throughout, " Cunningham points out.
"It's more than just a GAA club, there's other clubs within the club that make it a community hub so I don't think people really understand the Crokes community spirit until they're involved in it themselves.
"It is different to your small rural club in that, seeing as there's so many members, you're not going to know everyone but, for example, there's a cycling club there that my dad is involved in along with about 200 others, and they all know each other really, really well.
"There's the cafe on a Friday morning, everyone there knows each other really well. There's a tennis club where everyone knows each other really well, so there's so many clubs in the club, and they'd be best friends.
"That builds that community spirit and feeds into that overall community spirit of the club. So it's different than the rural club, where there's so much family connections - there still is in our club but it's probably a different community spirit."
Apart from a massive pick of players, as a team in a big population centre they can draw in players from more rural areas who come to work in the capital. From Conor Deegan, through Brian Kavanagh and now up to Shane Walsh, Crokes have had their fair share of inter-county stars who have never donned the sky blue jersey.
Asked last year about the southside giants bringing in the Galway sharp-shooter, Dublin midfielder, and Ballymun Kickhams clubman, James McCarthy didn't sound ecstatic at the potential of facing Walsh.
"What's my opinion on it?", McCarthy asked rhetorically.
"I've a strong opinion on it, but you guys [journalists], I'll let you have a guess on that. But it is what it is."
It might stick in the craw for some, but Crokes are hardly the first Dublin club to do it. Think Kieran McGeeney helping Na Fianna to reach the 2000 All-Ireland final, or Paul Durcan travelling back and forth from Qatar to help Ballyboden reach the promised land in 2016, amongst many others.
Indeed Crokes followers might point out that few will be criticising Glen for bringing in Malachy O'Rourke if they land the Andy Merrigan Cup on Sunday afternoon.
The debate around club players and managers is sure to rumble on but, with no rules broken, Sunday is, as far as Cunningham is concerned, all about trying to make up for last year, when Crokes had victory within their grasp.
The Dublin champions led by six points early in the second half against Kilcoo, by two points late on, and then by two points again in extra time. But they couldn't seal the deal as Jerome Johnston's late goal snatched victory for the Down men.
"It didn't come straightaway," Cunningham says of the motivation to try to go one better this season.
"It's not as if we were back for the first league game and rearing to go. It was a case that it took some lads a bit longer to get up to speed again.
"We went away on a team holiday [to Marbella] and after that we drew a line in the sand and it was, 'look, if you're feeling sorry for yourself all well and good, but this isn't the place where you want to be if you're feeling sorry for yourself'.
"There was a couple of months where it was really, really hard training and I think that gave the belief back to lads that we can push on again. The lads really trained hard and with that the results in the league improved and we got ourselves into the summer and we started fine-tuning things again.
"And then we got into the championship and have been on a roll since then."
That defeat to Kilcoo last February was a first loss in the showpiece club football game, after victories over Ulster opposition in 1995 and 2009 in the form of Derry side Bellaghy and Crossmaglen of Armagh.
The nature of the victory over Kerins O'Rahilly's in the semi-final just under two weeks ago suggested that some of the issues with finishing out games are still in the system.
Again Crokes' dominance was telling as they surged seven points clear midway through the second half.
But they would need a late clearance off the line to prevent David Moran scoring the equalising goal with a fisted effort.
"Five or six minutes to go, I think we felt like we had control of the game," Cunningham admits.
"To give them that momentum of scoring three scores in a row, and to get it back to a one-score game, it was something that we weren't happy with and something we discussed afterwards and we were lucky to get out of there.
"There's been games gone by where we've given teams momentum and it's about controlling the game in those scenario.
"Possession is nine tenths of the law in that situation, so getting back to your structure and getting back to what you do well is probably the most important thing at times like that."
Whether the players have taken all the lessons on board will only be known after 5pm on Sunday evening, but there's no doubt Crokes will be happy to spoil the neutral's party at Croke Park.
