Sports book/The Dublin-Kerry rivalry in the 1970s: In this extract from Dublin v Kerry - the forthcoming book by Tom Humphries - the jagged, romantic, thrilling and unconventional story of the 1977 All-Ireland football semi-final is recalled by the players from both counties

Twenty-nine minutes still remaining in this game. Hallelujah!

Micheál O'Hehir, commentating on 1977 All-Ireland semi-final.

It was the crescendo. For two years Kerry and Dublin had floated around each other, picking their punches and sticking gloved fists into the soft underbellies where each hid their flaws. Now they roared and rumbled.

It was the hallelujah game. This time they got it right.

First, Dublin had overtrained and overbelieved. Cocky heads and tired legs undid them.

A year later, Kerry came back to town, feeling young and golden. They went home with their ears boxed.

Third time round there was no impertinence, no foolishness, no concealment, no hubris. They jumped the ropes and touched gloves, carrying exactly the right amount of respect for each other.

They left everything on Croke Park's green plot that day. When it ended with a theatrical wave of a referee's arms, there was a second of silence as lungs filled and brains computed. And on the grass, breathless men shook hands and gripped hard and looked each other in the eye, and between them they knew who had won and who had lost the big one.

By 1977 their rivalry had enough context and backstory to make it epic. They were personalities and they were young gods. They fitted neatly into the parts the storyline demanded. From the cool disdain their managers kept for each other to the differences in style and personality which distinguished the teams. It was the day of thunder that the decade yearned for. The game was a semi-final, but it stepped outside the confines of the championship and became an event in itself, crackling with static electricity.

Picture a perfect summer. A government fell and, despite that or because of it, there was light in the air as if a war had ended. The country was full of blue skies and buzzing people. For once the living was easy.

"One long gorgeous summer," says Pat O'Neill. "Training seemed easy and pleasurable. The city had this atmosphere that I don't remember before. Dublin was humming. There seemed to be money around as well. Plenty of money for all the activities. It started turning a bit. It just evolved so slowly and happily."

Robbie Kelleher got married eight days before the semi-final, and for the three weeks before that he was in California, training on his own in Golden Gate Park, a world away from the shed and the evening dash for the Mariettas and milk.

He flew back at the start of All-Ireland semi-final week. Robbie and Florence were in JFK when news went around that Elvis was dead. That was Tuesday. On Wednesday he was in Parnell Park having a private training session, with Lorcan Redmond acting as drill sergeant.

"It was a different sort of summer. We all seemed relaxed and happy. I don't know how I got three weeks in Califomia, but I don't think it would have happened if Kevin had been in charge."

Kerry and Dublin dutifully tip their hats to their other rivals of that era, and in paying their respects mention that there were no laggards, just eager rivals who snapped at their heels, great teams who were unlucky to get jammed in the doorway.

Yes, but . . . Kerry and Dublin hopped and skipped through their provincial campaigns that summer. Ger O'Keeffe was captain of Kerry and on the day of the Munster final in Killarney, when Kerry had beaten Cork by fifteen points, Ger went up to accept the trophy, but already Kerry had come to see Munster finals as meaningless.

"I remember there was just one player with me on the podium. Paudie Mahoney. We were in college together, we were in boarding school together, and we worked together as county engineers, and Paudie was that type of guy. That was how the Munster final was seen."

The day was August 21st, 1977. For once two teams came into the game relaxed and happy. Looking back, Robbie Kelleher thinks that what they all remember of the game is what they saw on television later. "It was too quick to take anything in."

They have scraps of recollection, though.

The beginning. A dry day and a louring sky. Ger O'Keeffe had won the toss. Kerry were defending the Canal goal. Jack O'Shea stooped for a loose ball. David Hickey materialised and, in one of those moments which set the tone for a team, stole it and passed it. Bobby Doyle with a sweet foot pass put his friend Jimmy Keaveney clean through. John O'Keeffe was some distance away, caught flat-footed for once.

"I had all the time in the world," Keaveney says. "Deenihan was coming in from the side, but I looked up and I could see Paudie Mahoney and I just decided to put it a little away from him and I stubbed it wide of the post. I couldn't believe it. You didn't get away from Johnno much in those games."

Keaveney lay on the ground and wondered if another chance that good would come. Paudie O'Mahoney fetched the ball for the first kick-out of the day.

Before the game, Paudie O'Mahoney was anxious. He was an anxious kind of player, sensitive, a worrier and inclined to take things to heart. He could see a flaw in the team Mick 0'Dwyer had put together. He went to O'Dwyer with a complaint.

That summer O'Dwyer was starting two midfielders he'd sprung from the blue. Páidí Ó Sé and Jacko. This was their first time in Croke Park as a tandem. Nothing seemed really settled. After two games Paudie didn't know what altitude the pair liked to operate at. They didn't know what distances they could expect him to kick. He was worried - but then Paudie was always worried. O'Dwyer told him to just cheer up.

"Christ, Anton O'Toole won several of our kick-outs that day," Paudie recalls. "Mullins, too. I said to Dwyer at one stage I feel like going home, this is a joke. You have a player there on the sideline and he's the best catcher in Kerry, put Pat McCarthy on. Give it five minutes, he said. We were destroyed in midfield. We did very well to survive. I kept calling the sideline through the second half, 'Can I talk to Dwyer?' He used to send a selector around. The next thing, Dublin got two goals in the next five minutes. Dwyer brought Pat in when the goals were gone in. Nothing against Jacko, it was just that he wasn't Jacko yet."

It was Jacko's first senior championship and, although he knew the fibre of the Dublin midfield from his home debut for Kerry in that year's league, he knew too that the difference in intensity would be immense. Here he was, in Croke Park, stepping into a grown-up's rivalry, and expected to influence it. He was 18 and a half years old.

He had a game plan, though. To be competing against Mullins wasn't realistic. He'd let Páidí Ó Sé handle that battle and he'd stay running. He'd let Bernard Brogan do the same. They'd mark each other for kick-outs and then set off again.

So, early on, Jacko is getting the tempo into his legs. Paudie O'Mahoney, still fretting, places the ball for a kick-out. Jacko watches him. Paudie makes his slightly stooped run and floats it. It's hanging up there like a silver moon. Jacko is maybe 55 yards out. He has a line on the ball and a conviction that, once he gets there, it will be his.

Dead cert for a circus catch that would set the Hogan Stand crowd into a growl of that basso hollering. G'wan ya boy, make a name for yourself.

He goes for it, pace quickening like a lion closing on prey, swoosh he's gone, off into the air with his splayed hands above his curly head ready for their appointment with the ball. Perfect.

And bang! A body strikes him from behind, hits him fairly, but squarely and traumatically. Suddenly Jacko is grasping for nothing. His feet cycling the air. He flies four or five yards and hits the turf. Brian Mullins leaps over him, going forward with the ball.

"You have to get bigger," Jacko says to himself before he gets up. "You have to get bigger."

Kerry toughed out the first half. In extremis strange things happen. Few teams could handle Bobby Doyle ("I loved to see a corner back coming with a fat arse and big thighs!"), but Kerry could.

(Dessie Brennan of Laois once contained Doyle by twisting a wodge of Doyle's shirt around his fist and holding him in place for an entire half. When the second half started, Brennan went to grab the same swath of cloth. Doyle demurred and asked of Dessie if they mightn't actually play football in the second half. "I'll be done with ya in just over half an hour," said Dessie, "and sure you can do what you like then".)

Ger O'Keeffe, who once placed behind John Treacy in a cross-country race, had been a prominent schoolboy athlete. He seemed made for the job of tailing Doyle around the plains of Croke Park. He tracked Doyle everywhere that day. Bobby Doyle ended up with a point in his credit ledger. Ger O'Keeffe ended up with one, too.

"You start looking at the bench when the corner back has scored the same as you have," says Doyle.

"My point! It straggled over or, as I like to say, just missed the top corner of the net," says O'Keeffe.

So Doyle was neutralised. So too was David Hickey. Mick O'Dwyer still hadn't figured out that Ogie Moran was a lucky charm when playing at centre forward, so Ogie began the day marking Hickey and performed superbly. It was that sort of game, swirling and unpredictable.

Seanie Walsh got an old-style full forward's goal, catching a 50, swivelling and scoring. The score sealed the quality of Kerry's first-half performance. By the time they could smell the half-time tea brewing, Kerry were five clear. Dublin pickpocketed a couple of points before half-time but the current of the game was with Kerry.

Hanahoe did the talking in the Dublin dressing room. Nobody sat down; the energy coursing through the room was too great. When Hanahoe stopped for a pause they began roaring at each other and then bang, they were through the door.

Kerry were in a more difficult position. They had been the better team in the first half. They had never been led. O'Dwyer asked for the same again. They looked at their manager, the man who had made them. He needed this one as badly as they did.

Sometimes you don't get what you need. From the throw-in for the second half Kevin Moran reproduced his favourite parlour trick. He burst through the Kerry defence, he had the goal at his mercy, but he shot weakly at Paudie O'Mahoney.

No score, but Croke Park was ablaze.

"People look back," says Jim Brogan, "and they say the football wasn't that great, but the context and the intensity made it different from any other game. This was two teams at the absolute limit. A history of this extraordinary rivalry came down to that day, and for both teams that was the moment they were at their best. It was the rubber game."

The ending was like a crazy chase scene, played out purely on adrenalin and nerve. Dublin took the lead for the first time as the game went into the final quarter. Kerry flamed back. Dublin levelled. Kerry were to lead three times and get caught each time. Dublin led twice and got caught.

Sean Doherty: The last ten minutes of it. That was exciting. It was batten down the hatches from our end. Everything was rolling somehow. I just remember John Egan scoring a fabulous point to put Kerry two ahead again.

Gay O'Driscoll: The main thing for me against Kerry was that when a Kerry half back looked up I had to be in front of John Egan. When he got the ball, all you could do was foul him.

He was very quiet. I remember that day, it was funny. John was such a great player but he had no intensity. We lined out. He came out and shook hands and just said, 'Big crowd today, Gay.' He won this ball with less than 10 minutes left and I hit him with everything. He just seemed to bounce off the floor, look up and score.

John Egan: It was an instinctive thing. Gayo would always give you a good wallop, in fairness to him. He hit me. I got up. It was rage more than anything. I said, I'll punish him now.

Tommy Drumm: Egan had scored a point. Kerry were rushing out after scoring the point, they had won the game. They believed they had won it. I could see it on their faces. I looked around and we didn't know we were beaten. I couldn't see anything on the faces that said we were beaten, there was just this same look of confidence like Kerry had.

Egan's point had put Kerry two ahead. A glance at the clock showed six minutes remaining.

Brian Mullins hit a lineball to Anton O'Toole, who was playing the game of his life.

Anton O'Toole: I hit what wasn't a great pass. Somebody, John O'Keeffe I think, got a hand to it and it fell to Tony.

David Hickey: Tony just slipped it to me and I couldn't miss. In that moment the goal just seemed so big.

Hickey couldn't miss. He rounded off most evenings in Parnell Park rifling balls at Paddy Cullen from precisely that distance while Cullen scoffed disdainfully at the chance of Hickey ever getting a clear shot from there. It was the goal which Hickey was destined to score. Dublin were one up.

Jim Brogan: Of all the games I can remember that time in the dugout, when David got that goal, Lorcan Redmond was there and I remember lifting him right off the ground. It was Manila, Frazier and Muhammad Ali. They slugged each other. Both teams thought they were going to win right to the end. That's what made it so phenomenal.

John O'Keeffe: I just remember when David Hickey scored we still believed. We went at them again. There was nothing in it and four or five minutes left.

John Egan: They hit us on the break. They got a superb goal. We went on all-out attack. There was indecision over a free. Ogie Moran went over, put it down and went for the score. Ball dropped short. Sean Doherty went up on his own.

Sean Walsh: I was sort of standing in front of Sean Doherty. Ogie's kick came in at speed and I never really got off the ground to challenge Sean for it. I just saw him bursting out with the ball a second later.

Sean Doherty: I caught it and fell over Kevin Moran on the way down. If you look at the film, you can see Mullins there, shouting at me to bring it out. You'd think the way people talk about it that it was the only time in my life I'd ever caught a football!

It was time to drive it home. We had the foot on the back of their neck. Kerry were like that. You took the foot off the back of their neck, and next they would be on their knees and next they'd be looking you in the face and you'd have to start agam.

John Egan: Ger Keeffe went for it. He got hit with a wallop. The ball spilled. O'Hehir could see there was a goal coming. On the commentary you can feel that he has a sense of it.

Pat O'Neill: When I look at it again, Bobby Doyle won a ball at that stage that he had no right to win.

Ger O'Keeffe: Myself and Bobby covered every blade of grass in Croke Park that day. We were contesting a clearance by the Dublin defence at that stage. Bobby was a corner forward and I was supposedly a corner back.

John Egan: They hit us in a wave. Brogan came straight through the middle.

Bernard Brogan: That summer I worked in New Ross for three months or so. They were building an oil rig down there. To finish, we took the rig to France. When it came back it was offshore, so I worked offshore for a period. When I scored the goal O'Hehir said I'd been drilling for oil and now I was drilling for goals. I suppose it was better than saying I was an engineer! The goal was fairly straightforward.

Pat Spillane: It was a cracking goal and credit to the Dubs, but I'd say our defence wouldn't think so. We were torn right down the middle.

Paudie O'Mahoney: That last one of the goals was deflected. It came off Ger Power's fingers. The press never agreed with me about that. I got bad press over even saying it.

Paidi O'Se: We were just hit with a goal and then another goal, and the game was over. You could hardly write the script for it, it ended so suddenly. I think they put a point on right at the end, and then it was done.

Dublin won by five points.

For two players in particular that second half was an extraordinary climax to epic careers. Tony Hanahoe and Jimmy Keaveney had started off in the Dublin team on the same afternoon in 1964. They had sat along the sidelines of Croke Park together on hundreds of afternoons through their youth. School friends, club mates, Dubs.

The goals that Dublin got that afternoon were a tribute to the maturity of play of Hanahoe and Keaveney. In each instance Tony Hanahoe had possession and did the right thing, the selfless thing, with the ball.

"The '77 victory was the zenith," he says. "I remember it very well. It was the way to win. A bit of aplomb, character and style."

And Keaveney? "My job that day was to take Johnno away from the square. Usually I played off the square a little bit to this side, a little bit to that side, but playing off the square. That day I was asked to take him away."

And in the outer perimeters of the frame for each goal you can see Keaveney executing the plan.

First goal: Tommy Drumm drop-kicks a glorious diagonal pass which leads to John McCarthy's goal. Keaveney is sprinting out towards centre field with John O'Keeffe in tow as the ball flies in.

Second goal: As Hickey shoots to the net, at the end of a move which comes down the right centre of midfield, Keaveney jogs into view from the prairie, way out on the left. He had been pulling John O'Keeffe out to the side when O'Keeffe fatally got a hand to the ball and put it in the path of Tony Hanahoe.

Third: Hanahoe feeds Brogan. Brogan shoots. Jimmy Keaveney comes jogging in from the far right to celebrate. John O'Keeffe is still shadowing him.

There are the dreary sciolists who sit in front of videos to slo-mo through the afternoon, counting the errors and tsk-tsking at every stray pass. They miss the essence of the game. It is not ballet, it is not a thing to be judged on its beauty and contrived aesthetics. 1977 carries the splendour of context, the perfect climax to a sizzling rivalry. It was a passionate helter-skelter game that consumed 70 minutes of an August afternoon but felt no longer than a half-time break. The storyline was jagged but romantic, thrilling and unconventional. It had to end before you knew how it ended.

"When I look at it,' says Gay O'Driscoll, 'I genuinely think it was the greatest game of football ever played. It had everything."

"I notice," says Jack O'Shea, "that a lot of the greatest games of football ever played are ones that Kerry lose!"

"It was exciting, I suppose," says Mick O'Dwyer, "but I think the pro-Dublin media made a lot about it!"

The buzz of summer reached its height that afternoon. Pat O'Neill was working in Dr Steevens' Hospital at the time.

"I went down to Meagher's that evening after the game. Everyone was agog. The people were spilling across the Bridge from Ballybough to Clonliffe Road. Technically, they were all drinking in Meagher's. You could hear the hum as you walked towards the crowd. There was a gang of young doctors from Steevens' who had come to see the game. Friends of Dave Hickey's and of mine. From being a Protestant, genteel establishment it had become a bastion of Gaelic games because of us two gurriers who drank and cavorted their way through Steevens' and all the well-heeled Trinity graduates.

"What struck me was how wound up they all were. Paul Byrne, a vascular surgeon who's now down in Limerick, said to me 'Pat, that was poetry in motion'.

"It struck me for the first time, was it that good?'

At the other end of Clonliffe Road, Robbie Kelleher took his new wife Florence into Tom Kennedy's pub. From the roadway to the bar people stood and applauded them in.

"Luckily Florence was well versed in GAA. My father was there, too. It was a great experience. A perfect day."

Tony Hanahoe, who had fashioned it all, drove to Garristown in north County Dublin, just looking for the solitude in which to consume a long, slow, quiet pint, some tranquillity to help him absorb it all. He sat and thought the day through and finally got into his car and drove back to carnival town.

Weeks later, Dublin beat Armagh to win their third All-Ireland in four years. Afterwards the players repaired as usual to Listowel, there to enjoy the races, the drink and the adulation.

By the end of that summer Kevin Moran was a national celebrity. The previous year he had won an All-Star at centre back after just two games playing in the position. His strength, his mobility and his aggressive game made him a huge part of Heffernan's team. He was young, rode a motorcycle and was close to graduating as an accountant with Ollie Freaney's company. He was different.

His brother Brendan reminds him of a story sometimes. The 1976 All-Ireland final seemed to come around just weeks after Moran made the Dublin team. The family home suddenly fizzed with excitement.

On the days of big games, Sean Doherty would call to Moran's house to take him on to Croke Park or wherever the team were meeting. On the day of the All-Ireland final Moran was having lunch while he waited for Doherty. Neighbours and friends came in to watch the new star feeding and to wish him luck. A good friend of Brendan Moran's was in the house, too.

"He often said to Brendan afterwards that he couldn't believe the dinner I had before the game. Doc is picking me up at half one. This is quarter to one. The Ma is coming out with the roasts, the boiled spuds, cabbage, carrots, gravy. He said he'd never seen anything like it. And I just sat there and demolished it and the Ma trying to get extra into me. Everyone's looking and then my ma disappeared out to the kitchen and comes back in with a massive trifle. Because I'm playing in the All-Ireland! So I eat most of that, too. Then the bell rings and it's the Doc and I'm gone. Just carnage left on the table. I didn't know anything better. And me ma would be giving me a little extra because I was playing a game."

In 1977, while the racing was on, himself and Bobby Doyle stayed in nearby Ballybunion.

Doyle and Moran had become good friends. Doyle had noticed early on that, as a result of a fine underage swimming career, Moran had good upper-body strength.

"I had a good sidestep and body swerve, and when Moran came I used to take him aside on the wing and try to get by him. My belly would be in bits. His arms were unbelievable. You'd go one way and try to get back and he'd hit you. He had arms of steel. We'd spend quarter of an hour at this and he wouldn't go back an inch."

In Ballybunion in the early autumn of 1977 the work was done and the days were long and dreamy, the evenings were long and frothy.

One balmy night, both friends had some drink aboard and Doyle looked at Moran and the younger man started to cry.

"1977 was a specially happy year and I was very pally with Kevin. He just started to cry. I said, 'Come on, come outside.' We went out and we were sitting outside on a big kerb. We were well jarred. I said, 'What's wrong, Kev'?

'I'll miss all this.'

'You won't, sure this will go on for a few years yet.'

'No. Manchester United are looking for me.'

'Jaysus, Kev. How much have you had? C'mon. You'll be all right.'

'No. They wanted me to go last year and I wouldn't go.'

Moran and Doyle went walking down on the beach in Ballybunion. Doyle asked his friend, what could he lose? He had the chance of a lifetime. It either worked out or he came home to a long career with the Dubs.

"I remember telling Bobby," says Moran. 'He was supportive and I spoke to a few of the lads and Kevin afterwards and they were the same. I remember thinking it was over, though. I was actually only going over for a trial. There was every chance of them just saying no, but it was a huge emotional wrench for me. I always felt that all I wanted to do in England was play the once. I wanted to know, could I do it. I told myself then, I'd come back.

"When I was asked first of all, Dave Sexton and myself were in a car coming back from a training session. He said, 'I'd like you to sign a two-and-a-half-year contract with Manchester United'. My heart actually fell. The words I said back to him were, 'You're joking me'. I wasn't expecting this."

He took three weeks to think about it. He went from day to day. One day it was yes, the next day it was no. In the end it wasn't money, contracts or football, just the thought that he'd always ask himself, could he have done it.

"The lads I spoke to said none of the team would begrudge it. The news broke on a Friday. We were training. I was going to tell them on the Saturday. I felt desperate. That broke my heart.

"When I went to United I was still living in Parnell Park for a long, long time. Matches were different, but in training if I was after somebody I'd picture a Kerry shirt on his back and I'd run faster. I told meself I was here to play the one game and go back. I didn't look at it as a job or a living. I lived in Parnell Park and beating Kerry was the biggest thing in life."

Life never brought him back for good. A long and epic soccer career followed. Manchester United, Sporting Gijon, Blackburn Rovers and Ireland. He ran forever.

And yet . . .

"The only games I would ever watch at home are the 1976 final and the 1977 semi-final. One or other, regularly. Sometimes I watch the first 20 minutes of the Ireland v. England game at Wembley in 1991. The 25 minutes before Niall Quinn got the goal. It's worth watching just to see it, but apart from that the only thing I would ever take out and sit down and watch would be 1976 and 1977. Sometimes I'd shed a tear. That'll tell you something."

Years later, when he was a star with Manchester United, Kevin Moran would fill out one of those vox pop questionnaires for the young readers of Shoot! magazine. In answer to the question regarding his favourite holiday destination, he baffled many of his audience by answering simply with one word. Ballybunion.

Dublin v Kerry by Tom Humphries, published by Penguin Ireland, will be on sale from next Thursday

(September 14th) priced €22.99.