They look like Adidas Mondials but they were black Adipures. I still have them, not for the memories but just to have along with other boots I would have worn.

The Dublin team we beat that day, with Ciarán Kilkenny, Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion, John Small, and others, could unquestionably be deemed the best minor team Dublin ever produced.

To think we beat them is a memory to cherish. I’ve been asked a lot about the goal and whether I knew how good the strike was when I put my foot to the ball but it just happened so quickly. You look back and it is a pretty good strike but it’s not something I thought about then, before or after.

Adidas would have always been the Gaelic football boot for me and for soccer it would have been Adidas or Nike sometimes. My brother Jack and myself would have almost always been Adidas and our younger brother Conal would go for Nike Vapours.

I only recently bought a pair of 2010 Adidas online. I wore them in my second year minor and loved them so I wanted a fresh pair. The ones I got were never sold. Some guys obviously buy them in bulk back when and mean to make a nice profit by selling them later on. They are a lot more expensive now than they were 10 years ago, that’s all I can say.

The youngest fella is the same size as me and Jack is a bit bigger so only one fella is robbing my boots at the minute. I think our dad (former Tipperary senior hurling centre-back John) wore Adidas too back in the day but there wasn’t much choice back then. It comes down to how they look and comfort for me.

Playing soccer, fellas would take a lot more interest in what they’re wearing and how they look. When I was on the soccer scholarship in the States, Nike was the popular brand and it was very difficult to find Adidas. We were also sponsored by Nike so I would have wore them for those three years. I think it’s become a bit more of a fashion in Gaelic football these last few years. It’s a soccer trait to have loads of pairs of boots at home although it’s coming more and more into the GAA.

Superstition is a big thing too. One good game and you wouldn’t take them off. Whatever you think is going to help you perform the best, you do. When we won the minor that year, I wore the same boots from the first game in Munster to the All-Ireland final and again the second year until we lost. If I played particularly bad, the boots would get the blame and they wouldn’t be taken out again for a while. It probably doesn’t make too much sense but that’s the way it is for me.

- In conversation with John Fogarty