History is rarely perfectly symmetrical but every now and again, we get reminders that things can fall into place in unexpected ways.
From an Irish sporting perspective, who would have predicted that Cavan and Tipperary would join Dublin and Mayo in becoming provincial senior football champions in 2020?
Even the most optimistic soothsayer would probably have stopped short of tipping both counties to achieve successes in Ulster and Munster respectively in the very same year.
Yet fate dealt its hand in memorable fashion and the same sides that reached the 1920 semi-finals (Tipp's 1920 Munster championship and eventual All-Ireland culmination actually took place two years later in 1922) were back at the same stage 100 years on, coincidentally in a year when the format returned to straight knockout due to impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tipperary’s long-awaited Munster SFC title also meant that their footballers could take part in a poignant Croke Park tribute after their semi-final loss to Mayo.
Tipperary players and management commemorate the Bloody Sunday centenary as captain Conor Sweeney lays a wreath at Croke Park after full-time #RTEGAA pic.twitter.com/83AzNL5fgP
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) December 6, 2020
Current captain and number 14 Conor Sweeney, who had played such a pivotal role in helping them past the hurdle of Limerick at the start of this year’s journey, laid a wreath to commemorate the 14 victims who died during the challenge match that took place at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday 1920 – a number which included then Tipp captain Michael Hogan – to mark the centenary year.
But what of 1921 in sport as we approach the start of 2021?
Just like in 1920, daily life on the island was impacted by the ongoing War of Independence, with the first six months of 1921 the most violent period.
While the Leinster football championship would be completed within the calendar year, with Dublin crowned as 1921 champions on 18 September, both Ulster and Connacht would not complete the latter stages of their provincial competitions until 1923 when Mayo and Monaghan would come out on top respectively.
Munster, however, did not stage fixtures at all in either football or hurling during 1921 due to the violence which was particularly acute in a province which had seen Martial Law imposed over it in totality by January of that year.
Thus, Munster’s hurling final did not take place until May 1922 – with the additional absence of semi-finals and earlier rounds - when Limerick would hammer Cork, on route to becoming official national champions for 1921 two years later in a March 1923 decider.
In contrast, the Leinster SHC went ahead throughout 1921 with Dublin beating Kilkenny in a decider at Croke Park on 11 September.
Michael Collins was in attendance and threw in the sliotar to get that Leinster final under way, having already been photographed greeting members of both teams ahead of the game.
To give that moment its place on the timeline of historical events, 30 days later he would arrive in London as part of the Irish delegation that would begin treaty negotiations.
Outside of the GAA, 1921 was a touchstone year for Irish soccer with the founding of the Football Association of Ireland in September of that year following a split from the Northern-dominated Irish Football Association.
The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was a dispute over the staging of an IFA Cup fixture between Shelbourne and Glenavon which was supposed to be replayed in Dublin after the original drawn game took place in Belfast.
But the replay was instead fixed for Belfast. Shelbourne ultimately forfeited the game, paving the way for a parting of ways.
That year would see both the League of Ireland and FAI Cup come into being.
The cup competition itself would not start until the following January with Shamrock Rovers, Bohemians, Shelbourne and Athlone Town the surviving League of Ireland clubs from that debut tournament.
But the 1921-22 League of Ireland season, which was a Dublin-only competition that season and was played out in the last quarter of 1921, saw St James Gate edge out Bohs by two points, completing a treble of league, cup and Leinster Senior Cup glory.
Elsewhere, 1921 would see Burnley win the old English First Division for the first time, finishing five points clear of Manchester City, while Bolton, Liverpool, Newcastle and Tottenham formed the remainder of that year's top six.
It would be Spurs however who would claim the 1921 FA Cup by beating Wolves 1-0 at Stamford Bridge that April, their second triumph in the competition coming 20 years after their first.
Meanwhile, up in Scotland, it was Rangers' year as they retained the league title, finishing 10 points clear of Celtic.
Celtic could at least take satisfaction in the fact that Parkhead hosted the Scottish Cup final where their Glasgow rivals fell to a 1-0 loss to Patrick Thistle.
Both finals, north and south of Hadrian’s Wall, were played amid the backdrop of miners’ strikes.
On the continent, Nuremburg and Pro Vercelli would become German and Italian national champions respectively in a format not reflective of modern-day Bundesliga or Serie A.
In rugby, the old Five Nations had resumed the previous year after a hiatus caused by World War 1 and Ireland had finished bottom of the standings with four defeats from four.
Things only improved slightly from an Irish perspective in the 1921 tournament with a narrow 9-8 victory over Scotland the one positive.
However, the team still finished bottom, with England going to achieve the grand slam at the other end.
It was also an important year when it came to the development of women’s sport. While France’s Suzanne Lenglen remained a star on the tennis circuit, by winning both Wimbledon and the French Singles - the latter of which wasn’t considered a grand slam event at the time – March of that year saw the first Women’s Olympiad take place in Monaco in the wake of an International OIympic Committee decision not to include certain women’s track and field events at the 1924 Games.
With France, the UK, Italy, Norway and Switzerland sending a host of athletes to the principality, the Olympiad was considered a success and repeated again for the following three years in the same country.
Women’s athletics events would subsequently be included in the 1928 Summer Games for the first time.
Closer to home, horse racing would see Bornehore win the Irish Grand National, while Ballyheron would claim the Derby Stakes.
Meanwhile, the stakes were high in boxing on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean as Jack Dempsey, who was of Irish descent, would defend his world heavyweight title against Frenchman Georges Carpentier in New Jersey that July in what would go down as the sport’s first ever million-dollar gate.
Demspey would come out on top in the fourth round in front of more than 90,000 spectators.
The full return of spectators will hopefully be a facet of life in 2021. But should symmetry of the centenary kind return to the All-Ireland Football final for 2021, then it will be Dublin and Mayo battling it out in a decider again.
