There was a photo circulating on social media this week of the celebrations in the Glencarn Hotel the last time Monaghan secured their place in the All-Ireland semi-final.
The Anglo-Celt Cup was there, of course. Back then, an Ulster team needed to present one at the gate if they wanted to gain admission to the Croke Park dressing rooms ahead of a last-four encounter.
Standing there beside the shimmering Cup were none other than the two amigos: Jack O'Shea and... George Best?
The Ulster champions' triumphant homecoming night doubled as a showcase for Declan Loughman's sports shop in Castleblayney.
Loughman, a member of the Monaghan team, told the BBC that his father, a music promoter, had organised for Bestie and Jacko to appear, though the presumption was that the former wouldn't show up.
Does Nudie Hughes remember hanging out with the fifth Beatle and the Anglo Celt that night?
"I remember that night! Georgie was one of the greats. It would have been nice had we the Sam Maguire brought down when he was there.
"I met him in an awards night the previous year in the Conrad Hotel in Belfast. He was actually well up on Gaelic football and who the top stars were. He knew his sport."
30 years from George Best & Jack O’Shea attend’s Loughman Sports launch in the Glencarn Hotel that coincides with Monaghan’s Home coming after there Ulster championship win ‘88 🏆⚪️🔵
— Anthony Loughman (@AJLoughman) August 6, 2018
Click the link to see more ⤵️https://t.co/dadRZWqdnj pic.twitter.com/t7MMVy0d3j
Hughes, whose first name is Eugene ("only three people call me that"), played for Monaghan from the late 70s until the early 90s - basically the same span of time that Charlie Haughey was leader of Fianna Fáil - winning three Ulster titles.
The roll of honour in Ulster football is not what a modern follower might assume it was. For one thing, Cavan are way out in front, and will likely remain so for another half century at least, even if they win nothing in the meantime. This is entirely a legacy of that period from the First World War until the mid-1950s, when they won approximately three out of every four Ulster championships played.
Monaghan won the majority of the rest and still sit second, albeit only a nose ahead of the modern era’s most consistent achievers: Tyrone.
Sunday will be Monaghan’s 16th appearance in an All-Ireland semi-final. They have reached only one final, which ended in a 3-11 to 0-02 humbling at the hands of a Kerry team on their way to four in row.
When Nudie and co made the breakthrough in 1979, they were bridging a gap that stretched back 41 years.
"Four decades of frustration and disappointment wiped out in this magnificent hour," cried commentator Mick Dunne at the final whistle after they’d beaten Donegal by seven points.
Sadly for Nudie’s era of Monaghan players, they had an unfortunate habit of only winning Ulster when they were lined up to meet the Munster champions in the semi-final.
That meant Kerry, usually. And in 1979, that meant meeting a Kerry team close to the peak of their footballing powers. Their narrowest margin of victory that year was ten points against Cork in the Munster final.
Manager Sean McCague, future President of the GAA, told the Irish Times 13 years ago that he sought the advice of Cork goalkeeper Billy Morgan on how best to approach playing Kerry. He was essentially told to go home because "it was pointless".
The result was a massacre. Kerry scored five goals and could have had about five more. Re-watching the footage now, it’s clear that the era of ‘Gaelic basketball’ was reaching its zenith. Kerry buzzed up the pitch like the LA Lakers on a swift counter, tossing the ball swiftly over the heads of flailing Monaghan defenders and into the path of attackers galloping through. Mikey Sheehy snaffled a second half hat-trick, all of them handpassed to the net.
It was a rather different story when the same teams met in the All-Ireland final of 1985. Kerry were in the twilight of the golden era, though teams were evidently still spooked by the aura. Tyrone, for instance, led by seven points in the second half of the 1986 All-Ireland final only to succumb to a late rampage and lose by eight.
What’s slightly less well known is that Monaghan built up an eight-point lead against Kerry in the previous year’s semi-final.
But for a bizarre Kerry goal on the brink of half-time, they would have been in an even stronger position coming down the final stretch.
"We knew Kerry were going to come back," says Hughes. "Some players were waiting for the onslaught. Other players were saying 'bring it on'.
"We led by eight points coming up to half-time and John Kennedy took a shot for a point from about 30 yards out underneath the Cusack Stand.
"The ball hit the black bit on top of the post and landed on Ger Power’s knee and he put it in the net. They scored 1-02 in four minutes and we went in only two points ahead.
"We responded well to that but still, players didn't believe we were good enough. That's the unfortunate thing when you come from a county that's not used to winning titles consistently. They lack that belief. And when you're trying to win an All-Ireland or an Ulster title you have to believe it as a unit.
"Not everyone believed we were good enough to hold out against Kerry. In the present day, they have psychologists that might steel you against that."
In the end, they needed a monstrous free from Eamonn McEneaney to squeeze a draw out of it. The traditionalists can sing the rest of the song as Kerry won the replay by five points.
The All-Ireland semi-final display wasn’t a bolt from the blue. Monaghan had won the 1984-85 National League final, beating Armagh in a mucky Croke Park in front of 15,000 people. The previous year, they reached the final of the one-off Centenary Cup (the motivation behind the tournament is self-explanatory) losing to Meath in the decider.
Even in 1985-86, they reached another league final, losing by a point to Laois. The Monaghan team of the ‘80s were not unlike the current crop. They had that air of dogged consistency about them and a trajectory of steady, incremental improvement.
The same group of players added another Ulster title in 1988 – what transpired to be their last for a quarter of a century – by beating Tyrone by two points in Clones. As Nudie recalls, they scored 1-10 that day, 1-10 of which was from play.
That year’s semi-final, however, is not one which features in too many Monaghan nostalgia reels. The scoreline wasn’t quite as grizzly looking as nine years earlier but the drab 11-point loss to Billy Morgan’s Cork was sobering enough.
Hughes, however, pinpoints one incident in the second half which killed his side’s momentum that day.
"Cork had an extremely strong team. They had Niall Cahalane, Conor Counihan, Larry Tompkins. An exceptional team. I remember that day, there was a colossal gale force wind blowing down towards Hill 16. We were trailing 0-08 to 0-01 at half-time having been playing against that breeze.
"We got the first two points of the second half and there was a sense we had the momentum. But six minutes into the second half, there was a clash in midfield and Brendan Murray broke his cheekbone, and from the same move, Dave Barry lashed home a brilliant goal.
"It could have been declared a free out. Monaghan lost their way after that."
The 70s and 80s were not boom times for Ulster football in the All-Ireland series. Two-thirds of the time, they served as cannon fodder for whoever progressed through Munster and Leinster.
Only when an Ulster champion met a Connacht champion in the semi-final did an All-Ireland final appearance seem realistic, and even then, the northerners' strike rate was less than 50%.
It wasn't until three years after Nudie and co's last Ulster title that a mystifyingly unafraid Down team came along and altered the entire province's mindset in the blink of an eye.
Had the 1985 team come eight years later, would they have had the cheekiness and the confidence to scale the summit?
Certainly, Hughes is confident that the current Monaghan team have no such inferiority complex.
"You look at this Monaghan team, led by Conor McManus, with the Wylie brothers in defence, Vinny Corey and young Conor McCarthy, who hasn't lit it up yet but is very capable of it, there's no question there's exceptional talent there.
"They might not be the most spectacular to watch but you know when they go out on the field, you're going to every ounce out of them.
"That's the difference between them and many other teams.
"We don't like it being highlighted that we've a small county. It's not how the big the dog is, it's the fight within the dog. That's the way I look at it."
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