My Greatest Game: Former Armagh captain Jimmy Smyth relives 1977 Ulster Final

Jimmy Smyth chuckles at the memory of three-in-a-row seeking Derry's ultimately fatal combination of penny pinching and hubris heading into the 1977 Ulster Football Final.

"Brendan Kelly and Mickey Moran, two of their star forwards, were in America that summer but the Derry county board said they would bring them home only once so I think it was the players themselves, that plumped for the All-Ireland semi-final against Roscommon for which manager Frankie Kearney had made massive preparations."

Armed with clipboards, the Derry management had headed west to watch the Connacht decider and by insider accounts, came back convinced they had the ammunition to beat Roscommon.

But there was to be no All-Ireland semi-final against Dermot Earley and company for Derry as an Armagh side blown away by the Oak Leafers in the two previous Ulster Championships prevailed in Clones on an emphatic 3-10 to 1-5 scoreline.

Jimmy Smyth confesses that the 1977 provincial decider wasn't probably his greatest game in the Orange jersey even though he did his bit by delivering the pinpoint pass for Larry Kearns' second-half goal and also notching a couple of points.

But in terms of importance, this was the sweetest occasion of Jimmy's inter-county career with the Orchard men clinching a first provincial title in 24 years as he wore the captain's armband.

Despite the absence of Kelly and Moran, Derry went into the game as big favourites, battle hardened in an Ulster context, as they could call on a host of talented performers including Anthony McGurk, Gabriel Bradley, Tom McGuinness , Mickey Lynch and Gerry McElhinney, who went on to win international football caps for Northern Ireland.

"Seamus Lagan was down to start at full-forward but didn't play thankfully," recalls Jimmy, whose Gaelic Games profile was extended after his playing career when he worked for more than 20 years as BBC Northern Ireland's main television GAA commentator.

"Armagh were 16-1 for the Ulster Championship before it started so that told you where we were rated in the overall scheme of things. Armagh hadn't won an Ulster since 1953. The last time we even got to an Ulster Final was 1961."

But after a scratchy enough opening win over Cavan, a couple of Eamonn O'Neill goals helped the Orchard men overcome Monaghan at O'Neill Park, Dungannon in the provincial semi-final and Smyth says the Orchard County team went into the decider convinced they were going to dethrone Derry.

"The Sunday before the final, Tony McGee had myself and Anthony McGurk come up to the BBC in Belfast to give our thoughts on how the game would go.

"I came out with all the pious platitudes about Derry having to be massive favourites but I remember when Anthony had to go for a comfort break, Tony asking me with the mic turned off what I really thought was going to happen and I told him we would win it."

It was an astonishing turnaround from the Ulster quarter-final some 13 months earlier when Sean Daly had been Armagh's only scorer in a 1-19 to 2-1 humiliation by the Oak Leafers, which followed a 2-15 to 1-7 romp for Derry in the 1975 provincial championship.

Indeed, it appeared there was a lot of scar tissue on the Armagh team from maulings by Derry with one local publication describing the Oak Leafers' 3-12 to 1-10 provincial semi-final win at Casement Park in 1971 as "as meeting between thoroughbreds and donkeys".

"That was good for your confidence," laughs Jimmy.

It got even worse two years later when Armagh needed to draft in three spectators to field a team in a game against Leitrim.

"After that the county board resigned en masse bar the chairman Tommy Lynch.

"Tommy called a meeting of all the clubs and said that they had a choice to make, they could let the team and the county disappear into oblivion or they could do something about it.

"Then Peter Makem appeared on the scene. Makem toured the county and spoke to every player. He laid his cards on the table and said what he was prepared to do and if we were prepared to back him.

"He was a clever man. He spoke to the wives and girlfriends of the players and then invited us along - partners as well - to McAvincheys in Armagh for a soiree for want of a better word. The deal with Makem was that he would pay for the meal and Tommy Lynch would pay for the band.

"That was the start of the bond between that team that actually still exists today."

Makem, one of the GAA's true renaissance men who extensive writings include books of his own poetry, later convinced Gerry O'Neill - a brother of famous Northern Ireland football hero Martin O'Neill - to take the managerial reins.

Jimmy Smyth knew all about O'Neill's remarkable motivational capabilities having played on the 1967 St Colman's College Hogan Cup-winning team managed by the Kilrea man.

"Gerry O'Neill was a master of psychology - Martin may have picked up his traits from his brother," says Jimmy.

"He was up to all sorts things. In the Hogan final, he got us to wear white because he had looked at Real Madrid and Leeds.

"It made them stand out number one but also seemed to give an impression of physique.

"He was very good at lifting you up and boosting your confidence.

"He would be very quick to run down the opposition. He mightn't necessarily have believed it.

"It was the same as Bill Shankly telling his Liverpool teams the opposition were absolute rubbish when they might have been playing the best team in the world."

The manager also wasn't averse to using a little divine intervention and Father Malachy Coyle was regularly drafted into the Armagh dressing-room to offer a few well-chosen words at half-time although he wasn't required on Ulster Final day in 1977 with the Orchard men totally in control at 2-5 to 0-3 up.

Jimmy must have been taking in the huge crowd at St Tiernach's Park that day during the pre-match toss because he headed back to his team-mates not quite sure which way his side would be playing.

"I remember (our goalkeeper) Brian McAlinden asking me what way we were playing. I said to him: 'You see (Derry keeper) John Somers. Whatever goal he goes to, you go to the other one'. Mr Cool couldn't remember."

But there were nothing listless about Armagh's first-half display as they recovered from trailing 0-3 to 0-1 to take control of the game with two goals in as many minutes just before the break.

"Derry actually started very strongly and they led about 0-3 to 0-1 but missed quite a few other chances.

"But we scored two goals in two minutes coming up to half-time.

"A long ball came in and Paddy Mo (Moriarty) got a hand to it and flicked it past Somers into the net.

"A couple of minutes later, Noel Marley, who had a very good game that day, got a pass from Peter Trainor and hand passed it over Somers' head and into the net. That was the time you could have played basketball.

"We just played really well that day. Colm McKinstry probably outshone Joe Kernan in midfield but the best demonstration of the performance was that all six forwards got on the scoresheet."

When Jimmy's pass set up Larry Kearns' goal after the break, Armagh were a whopping 3-7 to 0-3 to the good and there was going to be no road back for the Oak Leafers as the ectatic Orchard County folk had plenty of time to soak up a first provincial title since 1953.

"There was a shot on the screen of Larry Kearns and Tom McCreesh being carried off and I think I appeared somewhere in the shot," says Jimmy of post-match scenes that he didn't see until being given a DVD of the game by TG4 comparatively recently after taking part in a Laochra Gael programme on team-mate Joe Kernan.

"I remember (Ulster GAA President) Con Short handing me the cup but boys lifted me up on their shoulders and I went one way and the cup went the other. We did manage to get together again a little while later."

The delirium continued as the players tried to board the team bus some 90 minutes later.

"The bus was waiting for us on the top of the hill near the old changing rooms.

"There were supporters looking for jerseys, shorts, socks and everything they could get off us.

"We made our back I think to the White Horse Hotel in Cootehill where we came up to before the game in the morning and by the evening, because I was captain, I got taking the cup back to the Clans (Clan na Gael club in Lurgan).

"Carrying the Anglo Celt in there and I remember years later finding it somewhat ironic.

"After that Leitrim carry on, we had had a decent run in the National League the following and I remember coming down to the Clans one night and some fellow asking me: 'Well how did the circus do today?' That's what we were described as.

"I said: 'We won' and we were all pleased with ourselves and the reply I got was: 'That must have been some crowd you were playing'.

"So that's where we had come from."