Four decades after the event, Aidan Richardson remains the only man to have captained Sligo in an All-Ireland minor football final. Here, he tells Hogan Stand that its a distinction he wouldnt mind sharing. A question for GAA afficionados: when did Sligo last contest an All-Ireland football final? Give up? The answer is 1968, the All-Ireland minor final against Cork which they lost on a scoreline of 3-5 to 1-10. It was only Sligo's second ever appearance in an All-Ireland football final - they captured the junior equivalent in 1935 - so, unsurprisingly, it's still talked about down Yeats country way as one that got away. Aidan Richardson was Sligo captain that historic day in September of '68 and, despite the end result, he has fond memories of the whole occasion. "It was a tremendous honour to captain the team that day against Cork. After all, it was the first time that a team from Sligo had reached that far at either minor, U21 or senior level," he enthuses. What about the game itself? Did the scoreboard accurately reflect the game's pattern of play at the final whistle? "In the first forty minutes, certainly the first half, we performed extremely poorly. We were absolutely terrible," the affable Richardson, who now resides in Manchester, recalls. "Looking back now we were probably stage struck for that period, but once we settled down - I know it took a long time! - we gave a good account of ourselves. We were nine or ten points down ten minutes into the second half but battled back to within a point. Unfortunately the whistle went too soon for us, but if we had played as well as we did in the last twenty minutes for all that game then we possibly could have won. But, in gaelic football you have to play for the whole hour . . . we didn't in that game." Aidan cites the first round victory over perennial rivals Mayo as the defining moment in the Yeats County's odyssey to the showpiece of the GAA calendar in Croke Park. "Mayo were Sligo's bogey team in Connacht, they used to beat us on a regular basis. Invariably we might have had success against another counties but rarely against Mayo so to beat them in the first round that year at Countess Markievicz was a major triumph for us. As, of course, was the Connacht final win against Galway and the All-Ireland semi' against Armagh." The Sligo minor trainer of '68, Colm Mullarkey, recently described Aidan as "a fine footballer, a big, tall, strong midfielder". He continued: "In all my years involved with minor football, he was as good a midfielder as I have ever seen". The Yeats County senior selectors of the time obviously shared Colm's opinion as a fortnight after the All-Ireland decider Aidan was promoted to play in a senior challenge against Leitrim. "It was a big step up, playing alongside the likes of Barnes Murphy and Mickey Kerins. They were absolutely brilliant footballers," he remarks. Aidan also points out that there were a number of pretty useful players on the minor XV as well. "There was brilliant players, fellas like John Brennan at full back, Jim Kilgallon, Des and Peadar Kerins, Gerry Hegarty, Robert Lipsett and Hughie Quinn to name just a few. All those guys went on to achieve bigger and better things with Sligo." On the club front, a number of county minor championship souvenirs and a senior league medal were garnered with the local club, Tourlestrane. Brothers Pat, Tommy and Oliver were also regulars in the Tourlestrane colours. Work commitments brought Aidan's burgeoning gaelic football career to a premature end in the early seventies. He was a frequent visitor to England during that decade before permanently settling down in Manchester in '79. Tweet

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