Twenty years ago today, Ireland suffered one of its greatest sporting injustices as The Sunday Game theme was replaced.
It appeared to be the last of Last as the German composer saw his jaunty jingle replaced by a more bombastic offering that screamed 'Celtic Tiger'.
What followed were petitions, claims of death threats and, after a few years of stubborn resistance, a climbdown by RTÉ with Jägerlatein - James Last's famous tune - filling homes across the country once again.
Timing is everything and the decision for change in 2004 - when Pat Spillane also made his debut as a presenter - coincided with the rise of Web 2.0, a shift in the internet’s output to more participatory content.
So while the first years of the net were spent watching the 3D animation of 'Dancing Baby', what followed was the facilitation of interaction and feedback, which would eventually give birth to social media.
This social web saw the new theme music discussed on forums (remember those?) and a petition ‘to bring back The Sunday Game theme tune’ garnered thousands of virtual signatures.
Reading back on the online discussion at the time, there was a resounding thumbs up for The Sunday Game’s new graphics, as they tried to modernise their product, but a resounding ‘no’ to the musical switch.
One can only imagine the reaction had Twitter/X been in existence 20 years ago.
Glen Killane, then RTÉ head of sport, revealed that it wasn't all jovial watercooler chat.
"The outcry was quite extraordinary," he told an RTÉ documentary to mark 40 years of the show back in 2019.
"I think I had death threats, I had all sorts of people writing to me for months and months on end to say 'Why the hell are you doing this?’
"I’m 100% happy to say now I got that completely wrong."
When Michael Lyster was coming out to bat against it, you knew you were in trouble.
"People just demanded that it be brought back again, and rightly so," the former host told the Late Late Show some years ago, before explaining how he'd been doing a charity gig down the country not too long before that and was introduced to the Match of the Day music by mistake.
Keith Duggan of the Irish Times was another who firmly bemoaned its absence.
"Three minutes of that tune at full volume and any team, even one composed of kids from the iPod generation, will head out through the dressing room door feeling like gods."
RTÉ heard the feedback and took it on board but the climbdown was a slow burner. Very slow, actually.
After a bit of tweaking over the next few seasons, in May 2008 RTÉ bowed to the pressure and reinstated the theme music - after a touch up from music composer John Walsh.
Paul Byrnes, then editor of the show, said: "Over the last few seasons we've been inundated with requests from the public to bring it back and this year, the 30th year of The Sunday Game, seemed to be the appropriate time to do it."
So 20 years on, and with The Sunday Game still on the charge, its famous theme music continues to fill the homes of GAA fans across Ireland and the rest of the world.
You know how it goes...
The Saturday Game returns this weekend, with highlights and analysis of the day's GAA action on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 9.30pm.
Watch the Leinster Football Championship final, Dublin v Louth, and the Ulster Football Championship final, Armagh v Donegal, on Sunday from 1.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
