It’s begun, perhaps earlier this year (although it always seems to start earlier every year). It’s become a ritual in itself, a tradition that surrounds the occasion and gives it an added sense of drama.

Men have offered their very souls for one – some have even offered their wives. You’ll see and hear them in the next few weeks, touring the country in search of the Holy Grail.

A ticket. THE ticket. No matter how big they build Croke Park there will always be the mad scramble for the piece of paper (or whatever it’s made from these days) that gains entry to the theatre where all the drama of the first Sunday in September (shouldn’t that phrase be trademarked?) takes place.

In a few weeks time two cities will clash on what is the biggest day in Irish sport (given that hurling is the national game, this thesis surely rings true). When the shadows begin to lengthen and the temperature starts to drop, you can feel it.

It’s time. All the training, the hard slogs in the middle of winter when no beast, not even a mad cow, would brave the elements – the pouring rain, biting wind, the never-ending laps. The league matches played in muck that gobbled up the sliothar and bogged down the players.

The phoney war that was the early round of the championship, a merry go round of matches that threw some teams off only to collect them again later on.

The quarter and semi-finals when at last the fresh air of pure knockout was reached, when every ball counted and the backdoor was firmly shut.

It all comes to this. No bigger day will a hurler experience, no greater prize is on offer. And everyone wants to be there.

But of course that won’t happen. 82,500 tickets will not sate the appetite for Limerick v Kilkenny. The fun begins. How do you operate a system that is fair to all? The cry of “Shure wasn’t I at every feckin’ match this year, bloody Walshe Cup to All-Ireland semi-final?!” will be uttered from the lips of men who swear they are the most deserving of cases.

They will cry foul when they see the sunshine fan receive the golden prize of entry to this, the biggest day in our sporting calendar. They will wonder aloud how some ‘oul bollix, who works in de bank and really only follows rugby, could get a prime seat for this most auspicious of sporting occasions.

Yet how do you solve this annual conundrum? How do you decide who gets one and who must make do with a seat in front of the ‘Tele?

In soccer they have the voucher system whereby fans are rewarded for going to matches. The more you go to the higher up the ladder for big match tickets you will climb.

But would such a mechanism work here? A system of tokens in match programmes that proves your attendance is wide open to exploitation. What’s to stop Johnny from buying a heap of programmes for the family at every league match he goes to, then claiming his tickets for the big day in September?

As has been discussed on many forums in the past few years, every sport has its sunshine fans – and it needs them. If we are honest, the GAA is no different than any other sport in this respect. Look at the attendance at league matches in the month of February – you won’t see many grounds packed to capacity. Yet, when it comes to the latter stages of the championship, the sunshine boys have hoped on. And why not?

Are we all not entitled to pick and choose what we can go to? There is no law that says thou must attend every single league match (when half the time the teams aren’t even trying), underage match, and if possible the star corner forward’s wedding in order to entitle you to a ticket for the big day.

As a sporting nation we are able to tune ourselves in to different disciplines according to the time of year. In February, March and April it’s rugby as the Six Nations and Heineken Cup come to life. From May to September it’s GAA as the championship gathers pace. August sees the awakening of the interest in soccer as the Premier League comes to life. In even numbered years soccer challenges GAA for the hearts and minds of the sporting public as World Cups or European Championships take place. This September and October rugby will be the talk of the town as the World Cup comes to France.

Any person who gets their hand on a ticket for the final in a few weeks time deserves it (unless they paid a tout of course, those most hideous and pernicious of Homo sapiens).

If we were to ban any ‘fair weather’ supporter from Croker in September, then surely, by definition, only a few thousand people would be allowed in. Kilkenny played a Leinster Final in front of less than 40,000 people – the place was literally half empty. Should that be used as a stick with which to beat any person from Kilkenny who has the gumption to look for entry to the biggest day of the year?

You know you’ve done it, missed the odd match because it was ‘only the league’ or ‘shure we’re going to lose anyway’. Maybe the weather was shite or there was a better match on the box.

The truth is that there will always be an unorthodox way in which tickets are allocated for the All-Ireland Final. Somebody in Fermanagh may have won it in a club draw and will gladly be attending his first hurling match, while hundreds of miles down the road in Limerick a hurling die-hard will be missing out on his first match in years.

There will be those guests in the corporate boxes who will be losing their hurling virginity – but did those boxes not pay disproportionately for the magnificent stadium in which the said match will be housed?

It takes all sorts of means and ways to get all sorts into Croke Park for THE day. There will never be a system that totally satisfies everyone.

It’s a jungle out there in the hunt for the ticket – get your khakis on…