I was just wrapping up my local radio slot It’s Noel What Knows, You Know on Wednesday evening, when Charlie Nelligan came through on the off-air line.

"Noel, boy" he said, in that soft, winning Kerry chime of his, "I’m probably the only one not plaguing you for tickets. The usual request – your John Hancock on my commemorative All-Ireland loaf wrapper. They go mad for it around here, Noel.

"Drop in when you’re down for the Press Night."

Putting my autograph on the loaf-wrapper was an idea I came up with when he visited me in the fractious aftermath of his sending-off in ’78. I did what I’ve always done: a bit of carrot, and plenty of stick, and he was back to himself in no time.

He was just starting out in business then, and I was glad to give him the break with the autographed loaves.

In fairness, he’s never forgotten me for it, and Christmas wouldn’t be the same around Ballybore without the sight of three postmen carrying the hamper into my front room.

Charlie doesn’t spare it: two dozen loaves, scones, a leg of Ballygarry Hotel lamb, a few bottles of Mi-Wadi to wash down the dinner, the Christmas Kerryman, a jar of Old Spice, the latest edition of Scrabble, a bit of Spotted Dick, Condor Plug for Nancy, and a bottle of Irel coffee.

I never accept any it, of course – there’s no halfway house when it comes to amateurism – but it’s the thought that counts.

And so Friday afternoon, I pulled the Sunny up outside Charlie’s place in Castleisland, and, as the street is good and wide, I left Nancy to park it up. Charlie was out the back, baiting five bakers with cries of "come on, the lot of ye, five loaves at the one time", and he leaping around the bakery catching every last loaf before even one of them hit the ground.

It was quite a spectacle.

"Good man, Charlie, you’re moving well the whole time," said Nancy, warmly "but if it were Paudie Mahony, they wouldn’t even have got their shots off."

Charlie caught his breath and we settled down for a cup of tea in the fist. "Well, Noel," he asked me, a serious look in his eyes, "you’ve seen them all, what do you make of it now?"

He got me on a good day, and I was forced to tell him I was worried for the Kingdom. I let it all out.

How I had been up in Tyrone and, without telling tales out of school, they were the best-prepared group of footballers I’d ever seen, since the fourth year of our nine-in-a-row with the club when we did three months of collective training without once seeing our wives. Fortunately, all of us were bachelors at the time.

I told Charlie everything: the raw meat Mickey Harte has been feeding them at training, the cold showers, the rucksacks filled with stones, the blindfolded shooting practice. Charlie turned white as dough.

"You serious, Noel boy?" he asked.

"He’s never been more serious about anything in his life," replied Nancy, "and that’s fairly serious."

Nelligan came over all quiet. He asked if Nancy and I wouldn’t mind rambling up Bobby’s Poets Inn to allow him gather his thoughts. "I can’t let you out of this town today, Noel boy," he said, "without doing something. Sure if we’re going to lose now, we would have been as well to lose to Cork while we were at it."

And then, hurriedly: "But don’t quote me on that, Noel."

We were halfway through the second bottle of Ginger Ale the councillor kindly stood for us when Charlie arrived. And over the next hour they all filed in, all the greats of Kerry football: Bomber, Ger Lynch in from the island, Maurice Fitz with a For Sale sign under his oxter, Mary Jo Curran, Ogie, Seanie, John O’Keeffe, a studious head on him like a Dragon in the Den, and Pony Moynihan, the chariot tied up outside.

They got down to business quickly. Charlie told them my concerns. Their heads fell like it was September ’82 all over again. It was Mary Jo who rallied the troops:

"Have we any bit of troid in us at all? I’m not feeling the misneach here lads. Every last man of our squad for Sunday is a fear mor, fear laidir, except Darren, in fairness – we have to do whatever it takes to have them ceart," she bellowed.

The words ‘whatever it takes’ hung in the air like a bad smell.

Slowly, all eyes turned to me.

Not for a bad smell, I hasten to add.

Whatever It Takes.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Nancy laid down the 1979 Gaelsport annual she’s re-reading lately, and looked at me too.

"Noel," she said, "I think you know what this means. The doctor said the stress could kill you. He said you aren’t able to take it. The operation was a success but you have to mind yourself."

All heads bowed. Pat Spillane came in the back, talking and roaring, but they told him to shut up. He didn’t.

There was a silence you’d only get if you asked Dwyer if it were more important for a manager to be born lucky than gifted.

Nancy pursed her lips, and lipped her purse, and stared out the window and away into the distance.

"Noel," she continued, deliberately, choosing her words carefully, a dozen necks craned in her direction, "doctors differ, and All-Irelands are lost."

And, then, turning to the assembled gathering, she spat out these historic words with a certainty I hadn’t seen in her since I invited her to be buried with my people: "Have them up the Reeks at half-apast six this evening.

"Usual rules. One bivouac between four. No razors. No Lynx spray. No ear-rings. No tattoos. No women, except for me, of course. No Bebo. No Skype.

"No footballs. No water. No Jaffa cakes. No diving, no girleen’s games at all. No cones, ice-cream or traffic.

"No nothing. And most of all, no chiefs – Noel will take it from here."

The roar almost lifted the roof. Charlie went in behind the counter and fired out toast to one and all. He burnt most of it in the excitement.

I called for a blackboard to draw up some tactics, but none was available, so we stripped Bomber to the waist and used his back.

I told them how it could be done. When I was finished, the Bomber’s back looked for all the world like your man’s in Prison Break. Don McMonagle arrived to take a photo, and said he’d sell it all over Ireland if Kerry won.

Pony told me he could see it right there in front of his eyes, Tyrone spreadeagled and the canister sitting up drinking a bit in the community hall beyond in Lixnaw, and not a stray piece of facial hair floating around in it. "You’re a genius, Noel," he said, "but sure wasn’t it you who made a full-back out of a buachaillin like me."

I left them there, with their dreams and their schemes, and I went back to the B&B to get ready. There could be no time now for softness.

Nancy loaded the two dozen medicine balls into her overnight bag and we set out for Killarney on foot. They mightn’t win Sam, but they won’t forget trying. Gan dabht.

Noel always plays the wings. Have you the legs?. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; visit www.knowledgeablenoel.com; Skype (knowledgeable.noel); and Facebook (Knowledgeable Noel.)

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