No Ulster final experience is complete without its own idiosyncratic little moment. Small landmarks that chart a journey and trace a path through half a lifetime of watching, enjoying and talking about Gaelic football. At the time they can appear slight or even inconsequential, but five and 10 years later they stand crystallized in the memory as triggers of fond, shared experiences.
Like the baking hot day we were ferried to Clones in palatial comfort courtesy of the three-piece suite that had been secreted in the back of Brenda Starrs' van. Or the tired and emotional evening we spent in Packie's bar as customers served themselves and left the money on the side while the sunburnt and shirtless owner slept through it all with his head resting precariously on the counter. Special times.
Last Sunday's appropriately off-the-wall episode duly arrived at the dog end of a rollercoaster day. The Tyrone victory celebrations had snaked their way back to Omagh and we spent the later part of the night in a disco complaining like men and women twice our age about how loud the music was and wondering why nobody writes proper tunes any more.
Some time near the end a crowd gathered on the stairs and necks were craned to get a glimpse of the man now known rather bizarrely as Tyrone Tom. Tom McDermot, for that is he, attained minor fame last summer as one of the participants on the voyeur's dream television series, Big Brother. Chief among his selling points in our part of the world was his fondness for GAA shirts and shorts and a hinted-at background in lower league football. The local boy in the big picture.
In the months since he has been surfing this wave of mini-celebrity for all it was worth and he was an obvious choice for guest of honour at Tyrone's big party night. When we had been going in earlier there he was standing at the door, resplendent in a red and white county shirt, and meeting and greeting for all he was worth like an over-conscientious host.
In truth, he looked bemused by the entire situation and even a little bored. We were equally unsure about what to do other than stare in a real-life repeat of the vacant way we had consumed his television appearances. Surreal doesn't even come close. Then his big moment arrived. The only problem was that despite all the DJ's over-excited hyping of the great man's presence among us mere mortals, he was now nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was somewhere down there, far below, but the combination of dry ice and the thronging crowd made an audience impossible. Bit by bit people began to lose interest and drifted back to their tables or the bar.
As the dust settled on Tyrone's first provincial title for five years the general consensus was that the afternoon's football had been a welcome wake-up call for a team exhibiting signs that it was starting to believe some of its own hype having disposed of last year's Ulster and National League champions in successive rounds.
The first 10 minutes of the contest had gone some way to further perpetuating the myth of the yawning gap in class that was supposed to exist between Tyrone and Cavan. But after that as Cavan got first a foothold and then a firm grip on proceedings, reality began to bite. For all Tyrone's creativity and inventiveness there was a palpable sense that had the first half gone on for another 10 minutes Cavan might well have been out of sight.
As it was, the authoritative and impressive summer of management that Art McRory and Eugene McKenna have put in continued with some tactical tinkering at the start of the second half. Holes were plugged in what had begun to look like a perilously porous defence and Cavan failed to score from play for the rest of the contest.
"The most pleasing thing for the two men at the top was the methodical and single-minded way their young charges set about winning both the game and the Ulster title. In previous rounds against Armagh and Derry victory came in a much more straightforward way as Tyrone won both matches from the front and going away. Last Sunday they proved that they can also dig in, roll up their sleeves and chase a game from behind.
That may prove to be an important addition to their armoury for the tasks ahead.
Cavan lost no dignity in defeat and while they continue to be dogged by chronic wastefulness their excitable forward line could cause problems for a flat-footed and unprepared defence in the qualifiers. For now, though, they will plough a different furrow while Tyrone move forward to a do-or-die All-Ireland quarter-final.
The muted reaction to what was a surprisingly competitive Ulster final will not worry them unduly. With all three provincial titles - minor, under-21 and senior - now safely pocketed the obvious concern was that Tyrone was fast becoming a county bent on running at pace before it had mastered all the rudiments of walking.
The aura of youthful invincibility and unstoppable momentum has been punctured just a little and the collection of young and relatively inexperienced players can get back to the business of learning their trade and steeling themselves for the Meaths and the Kerrys ahead. New windmills to tilt at are never difficult to locate.
But even if the journey ends here, the memories have already been moulded and cast. The fallow years of underachievement and crushing disappointments are sufficiently recent to ensure that an Ulster title is not something to be treated lightly or frivolously. From what appeared to be a relatively low base, this is a Tyrone side that has seen its stock rise quickly and dramatically.
The great imponderable that the thousands of men, women and children took with them as they inched out of the ground last Sunday afternoon and down the Clones hill towards the Creighton Hotel was whether the development curve of their team still has some way to go. Most encouragingly of all, this crop of youth have known only success. They are winners and when the temperature is raised later in the summer that could be priceless.
All that is for another day. For now, Ulster final day 2001 takes its place in the collective memory bank. And as Peter Canavan, Art McRory and Tyrone Tom all melt together into one fuzzy whole, another Ulster GAA year has turned on its axis. To be alive to see it and feel it is truly a wondrous thing.
