“The only thing we’re remembered for was the recommendation to split Dublin into two,” he recalls.

There were strong debates in that committee and a number of us didn’t agree with that and said Dublin should be split in four.

“There are four county councils there now and everyone of them would have populations of 250,000 to a third of a million.

“After Cork, they would still be the biggest ‘counties’ in Ireland.

We would look at the numbers and all things aren’t equal in life but if they were to look at Monaghan and how they have produced a once in a generation footballer in Conor McManus out of 65,000 people.

“If all things were in equal, there are 20 Conor McManuses in Dublin and you might two of them on your team but where do the other 18 go? The big numbers get you one good team but it also means there are a lot of fellas and girls who won’t get the chance to play at county level.”

Sixteen years after the SRC published its report, how Dublin has ballooned into what Conway terms “an empire” of Gaelic football has only convinced him the GAA should have taken action for the capital’s benefit as much as anybody else’s.

He wonders about how much their identity has been lost in the swell of people to the capital.

“(Blogger) An Spailpín Fánach writes some wonderful stuff and there was a time when somebody on The Sunday Game said Leitrim shouldn’t be in this competition (the All-Ireland senior football championship) at all. An Spailpín would say they don’t understand because the Championship isn’t just a sporting competition but a cultural event and it’s about making a statement of who you are and where you’re from.

“It’s easy for me to say from 100 miles away but if you live in a place where there are 1.5 million people I don’t think you can get that sense of who you are and where you’re from.”

Conway stresses he doesn’t exhibit envy towards Dublin — Tyrone players don’t want for much because of the fundraising drives headed up by a host of volunteers in Club Tyrone. Nor does he fear them.

“We are, there’s no doubt about that, and this is not just tongue in cheek but big parts of Ireland have a fair track record coming up against empires. This might sound patronising but if we were all to take the attitude that the empires always win then your Leitrims and Fermanaghs would have folded the tent long ago. We would describe ourselves as Taliban GAA here and the whole Taliban GAA idea is about who you are and where you’re from.

This summer, a highlight other than the Tyrone campaign and the hurling for me was when Leitrim went to play New York in New York.

“There was anything up to 5,000 Leitrim people who travelled to the game — that’s one-sixth of the county when they’re at home. If one-sixth of Dublin went to a league game that would be 250,000 people.

This wasn’t Leitrim going down the road to Hyde Park or Pearse Stadium but 3,500 miles away. It was unbelievable. They went knowing it was unlikely if they won that they would win the next day but if that wouldn’t lift anybody… those people aren’t afraid of empires.”

Earlier this summer, Meath club Ashbourne-Donaghmore arranged a bus for members to watch Dublin’s Leinster quarter-final against Laois in Portlaoise on the same weekend Meath, led by the club’s Bryan Menton, were facing Longford.

Conway has his own story on how the Dublin brand has spread beyond the county’s borders.

“Last month, we played Roscommon in Croke Park, Dublin were playing there that day too (v Donegal).

We were going back through Ballybough there was a number of coaches. I’m only going by the names of the coaches but you had one there from Ashbourne and others from Kildare and they were full of Dublin supporters and full of children wearing the jerseys. I’m assuming they’re coming from outside the county.

“Their mammies and daddies are obviously from Dublin but have moved out to the huge commuter belt because of the huge price of houses in Dublin. If those children are looking to Dublin as their Manchester United or Manchester City, that’s a big, big problem that we have.”

But it not all doom and gloom, though. There was another moment this summer that gladdened Conway’s heart. “The invasion of the pitch by children of all ages when we went to play Carlow (was wonderful to see). They were several hundred of them on the pitch and it was so heartwarming. Carlow are having a great time at the moment and going to places they have never been before. The empire is only up the road from them and a lot of logic would say ‘sure why doesn’t Carlow fold the tent and give up’ and we won’t be folding it either.

“People look at Tyrone and think Tyrone is a big county. Tyrone is a big county in terms of geography but Gaelic Tyrone is number 19 of the 32 counties in Ireland. We have about 110,000 people.

Club Tyrone is very successful, there’s no doubt about it, and we would say with classic Tyrone arrogance that’s because we’re a staunch county. We have a lot of people here who don’t just talk about this thing but believe in it so much that they will dig deep into their pockets to make it happen. If we didn’t have 50 strong GAA clubs in the county we would absolutely nothing.”

In 2008, Tyrone were told they couldn’t arrest Kerry’s three-in-a-row march. Stopping Dublin’s sprint to a four-in-a-row should be a bigger ask but Conway isn’t trembling with fear.

“Ten years ago, Kerry had these two monsters in the full-forward line who were uncontrollable and we know what happened. We know how Goliath ended up and it wasn’t an atom bomb that took him down but a well-placed slingshot.

That’s the beauty of sport. Last year, we went to Croke Park and we had a notion we would take Dublin. The game was over after five minutes — we got whacked. That’s life too.

“In the early days when we went to Croke Park, that was always the story. This is history but my first Championship match watching Tyrone in Croke Park was 1973. We went down to play Cork and what was a good team but we felt it was a better team. We had won Ulster for the first time since the 1950s and Frank McGuigan was captain. Not that we would have long memories but we lost that game 5-10 to 2-4. That was the team of Declan Barron, Ray Cummins, Jimmy Barry-Murphy. They were a wonderful team who should have done more. It might have taken 45 years but we go to Portlaoise this year and we beat them by 16 points.

“Nothing is impossible but sometimes it takes time to do it. You’ve got to go with the attitude that you can do it but you need the breaks too. This sounds like whingeing but we felt in the three or four All-Ireland semi-finals previous to Monaghan we didn’t get the breaks but if they were going we seemed to get them against Monaghan.”

Conway can’t say the rest of the country is behind Tyrone but hopes opinions are changing. He knows many outside the county can’t understand why the stand-off with RTÉ remains. At a board meeting two years ago, the issue was raised only for a county delegate to bring it to a swift conclusion by asking what would have happened had the same radio skit been made about the father of Cork girl Karen Buckley, who was murdered in Glasgow, as it was of Mickey Harte having just lost his daughter Michaela to a terrible death.

“I know other people see Tyrone as ‘that shower who won’t talk to Raidió Teilefís Éireann’ and the puke football thing still sticks and when things come along we’re seen as anti — we were against the opening of Croke Park and the GPA — and that sticks. But if you believe in something you have to stand with it.

“It’s like that old Millwall thing — ‘nobody likes us and we don’t care’. I think people are getting a bit bored (of Dublin winning).

When somebody is ruling the roost totally, people get bored with it. Even their own people.

“At the same time, I was always reared on the old Ulster GAA way and we’re as clannish as be damned and long may that continue.

“I don’t care which team came out of Ulster, once they came out I was behind them. There’s legacy and history there but maybe that is fading a bit. We can’t understand why there’s that anti-Tyrone feeling out there.

“You never see the badness in your own but the TG4 programme on our 1997/’98 minors may have caused a wee bit of a change in how we’re viewed. You would hope but we’ll continue doing what we believe in.”