It has been the year of the velvet revolution. Galway football, easy-going and pretty to the point that we generally mistrust it, has insistently asserted the worth of its own traditional values. From Corofin's spiritually nourishing coup in March, to Galway's lovely uprising yesterday, the weedy certainties of modern football have been uprooted and discarded.

After 32 years and a series of defeats which might have broken lesser spirits, Galway are back in the big house, playing the sort of ball which first gave the county its air of romance.

That it was a Mayo man, John O'Mahony, who led Galway back into the garden of plenty merely underlines the adventurous spirit within the county.

The famine has been long and hard. When Galway won the last of their three-in-a-row titles back in 1966 they expected they'd be winning through every few years or so. All this time later and they have made a breakthrough in hurling, man has been to the moon, war in the north has come and gone. It was time, it was truly time.

Yesterday's was a wonderful All-Ireland football final, the tonic the game needed. A sprightly game full of intriguing sub-plots and dazzling cameos. Kildare came to Croke Park, backed by enough big money to make their odds prohibitive and their minds flabby. They were inflated by enough hype to have the details of next week's fun already entered into most lilywhite diaries. Galway just made a bonfire of their vanities.

The game sprung to life like a merry reel, feet moving and dancing everywhere. For the first 15 minutes the pace was relentless and the flow of it so intoxicating that we had to check several times to see if the referee had turned up at all.

By then the day was already filled with stories. Ronan Quinn, pronounced hale and hearty by the Kildare PR machine during the week, was in the repair shop. Glen Ryan was so heavily strapped that people were placing bets on whether he would finish the pre-match parade. Whispers had it that Brian Lacey had tweaked a hamstring.

We watched them limp around the field behind the band, saw Ray Silke of Galway find a familiar face in the Hogan Stand and, cool as a breeze, deliver a big thumbs-up. Revolution in the air, you could sense it.

They gave us 70 minutes of topsy-turvy football, the last 35 minutes thrilling to watch even as the outcome grew more and more inescapable. As it turned out Galway's passionate input to a wonderful game was of no greater value than the cool tactical contribution of their manager, John O'Mahony. It falls to few to outsmart Mick O'Dwyer in a football game, but yesterday O'Mahony played all his cards perfectly.

O'Dwyer gambled big. In the absence of Ronan Quinn, the venerable Sos Dowling was mysteriously detailed to mark Galway's most energetic player, Michael Donnellan. Meanwhile Kildare's stickiest defender, Brian Lacey, had adhered himself to Galway's slowest forward Niall Finnegan. Had adhered and was finding himself in difficulty.

Worse. On a day when Kildare needed a couple of match-winning performances from their front lines in order to raise themselves above their traditional quota of 12 or 13 points, they were forced to withdraw both their corner forwards before the end.

Kildare coped adequately with the frisky exuberance of Galway's start. They were three points down before they had their laces tied up, but a point from Eddie McCormack and a goal from Dermot Earley not only gave them the lead but suggested an ominous creakiness in the Galway defence.

O'Mahony had laid his plans well, however. There was a 17-minute spell in the first half when Galway failed to score and their forwards permitted Kildare to waspishly swarm all over them any time they had possession. O'Mahony chewed his nails and kept faith in his own philosophy. Galway took the last score of the first half and the first five scores of the second half as O'Mahony played his hole cards with a flourish.

For O'Mahony, yesterday's achievement was the culmination of years of longing and plotting. He was a solid footballer for Mayo in times when it was neither popular or profitable to be such. In 1989, he brought his native county to Croke Park for an All-Ireland final with Cork which most observers felt that Mayo carelessly left behind them. By 1994, he had moved on and he achieved a breakthrough with Leitrim, winning the Connacht title with the least populous county in the country.

Yesterday, after just 13 months in charge in Galway, he arrived at the mountain top. As usual he was reluctant to describe the view or the hooks and grapples by which the ascent was achieved.

"What it means to me personally?" he said, squirming at the question. "Well, I find it hard to do that, to talk about that. There is a personal story behind everyone, I suppose. Apart from everyone in the back room, my own loyal friends, my family, the people who know me, well that's all something for another day.

"I'm not trying to be cliched. I know I'm getting a reputation for this now, but my personal feelings are for another day."

We'll never know what he felt when Galway had their sticky patches during the game. Before half-time, for instance, they found themselves getting caught in possession frequently and weren't letting the ball into the forwards as promptly as O'Mahony would have liked. He paced the sideline furiously and the players recalled afterwards that he was unusually excited at half-time.

Yet, once O'Mahony got his team sitting in front of him again he turned their heads back to the old game plan. Fundamental principles needed restating just one more time. The last long and serious talk which O'Mahony had with his players was on Wednesday of last week. He realised that less and less seeps into a players brain as the big day approaches. At half-time yesterday he had them calm and engaged for the first time in a while. He tripped all the right switches again.

He has achieved what few people thought possible. He has given a western team that transfusion of self-belief necessary to make the breakthrough. Recent football history is littered with attractive Connacht teams who crossed the Shannon and left their football behind them. Typically, he declines the credit for opening up this seam of confidence.

"I felt that Galway's culture, well a good part of it, is a positive culture, a self-belief culture. I tried to tap into that as best I could. Just before half-time they weren't playing well, but they had the confidence to come out and play (in the second half) like they did. That confidence that is in there, it's something that's just in them."

And an hour after the final whistle he moves at last towards the dressing-room door. All the fun and the garlands lie ahead, but for John O'Mahony, if not for Galway, the fascination was in the journey not the triumphant arrival.