Keith Duggan/Sideline Cut: I can't remember which particular jungle it was that they found the poor Japanese soldier who believed he was still at combat in a world war that had passed many years before.

Nor does it really matter; it's just that in the months before GAA Congress, you get the impression that at the heart of darkness of the association creep similarly deluded men of action, blindly unaware of the passing of time, fighting phantom enemies in wars that are no longer relevant. And Congress is their time to come charging from the vines and thickets. Congress gives voice to the rebel yell.

I had forgotten all about Jack Boothman until he stirred the old brigade with his passionate missive earlier this week. True, he was appointed GAA president as recently as 1994 but that feels longer than 10 years ago. We have lived a decade of Louis Walsh, a decade of being told we never had it so good, a decade of tribunals, and of trying to figure exactly who or what was Gavin Lambe-Murphy (until that farming show I assumed people were referring to some class of diet or a roundabout) and a decade of Bertie. Hardly a distinguished decade in our history but 10 years that have been hard on the soul.

In short, when the other Big Jack ruled the GAA from 1994 to 1997, there were few mobile phones in Ireland and that seems like an awful long time ago. A blissful time, perhaps, but a distant time nonetheless. Yes, we are all getting older and the best we could do at short notice was summon a grainy and vaguely Hitchcockian memory of the leader of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael. He had a stately air about him but in a very general way; if his image appeared in the picture round of a pub quiz, you would always have a guy on the team insisting it was Winston Churchill.

And although Jack, a veterinarian from "Big House" stock, looked quite conservative, he had a tendency to shoot from the hip, frequently careering from the borders of his own scripts into the wilder pastures of spontaneous opinion.

It was Jack, in the wake of the demise of the Irish Press, who lashed out at English newspapers for cynically posturing as genuine Irish papers and implored his members to shun the imported rags that were tainting our news stands.

It was Jack who vowed the native games would only ever be televised by the national broadcaster and that the association would never sell its soul. Mind you, it was the same Jack who assured Marian Finucane that the association would do a deal with Sky if it saw fit and that it was their business and their business alone. He was an amicable figure and sometimes a bit contrary for the fun of it.

The big noise during Jack's presidency was the removal of Rule 21, and at a ceremony in Clones - not a place where a man tests the mood of public opinion unless he has a getaway car close by and revving - Jack suggested the time was ripe for change.

"Should there be an appropriate response to this initiative and should there be an accepted settlement in which the national and cultural traditions of the people of Ireland are equally recognised and respected, the concept of an exclusion rule will have no relevance to us," he argued.

He did not manage to erase Rule 21 during his tenure, something that disappointed him, but he pushed the debate on and it became apparent its days were finite.

On the opening of Croke Park to foreign games, however, Boothman maintained an absolute, reactionary stance. It has probably been largely forgotten that as far back as 1996, the Government flashed a £20 million gift towards the GAA on the promise that foreign games might get an odd run in Croke Park. Big Jack doused those flames, vowing never to put profit before policy.

Opening the stadium is the first big legislative test of Seán Kelly's presidency and it will probably be the issue that defines his tenure. Chances are the booming sound of Boothman's bible-bashing travelled all the way to the desert in Arizona, where the current president and the GAA All Stars are touring right now. He needs big Jack stirring things like he needs a hole in the head.

Boothman knows full well that the opening of Croke Park is still a divisive issue. Old history still burns hot in the hearts of many members. There are Ulster branches in particular for whom the notion of Croke Park opening its doors is reduced to the single ineluctable symbol of the Union Jack fluttering high above the red-bricked terraces of north-inner-city Dublin. Jack's words will inflame those opinions just as they will raise hairs on the necks of those still smarting after Bloody Sunday.

There is nothing wrong with commemorating that day. But the era of the crowd cowering under a torrent of atrocities directed at the stands from the middle of Croke Park belong in the past - unless the GAA books the Irish Tenors for the half-time entertainment next September.

Boothman's own argument against the opening of Croke Park is based on fiscal and practical grounds. Soccer and rugby, he fears, will erode the century of work by committed GAA men in no time at all.

But at the very time Irish rugby is enjoying a sustained run of success, the IRFU is considering relinquishing its interests in an entire province. And although the FAI will almost certainly make radical improvements over the coming five years, Ireland playing in the World Cup or European Championship will never again have the same emotional or imaginative impact that it did in 1988, 1990 and 1994. As a nation, we just aren't as wide-eyed any more.

Yes, sooner of later, the Government and the soccer and rugby crowd will decide on some sort of stadium, so the financial opportunities are finite.

It all comes down to confidence, Jack. It all comes down to whether you want to try to shield the eyes of all the young buachaillí and cailíní from the wicked world beyond, to try to pretend it doesn't exist.

That is the old way, Jack, and it worked for many good decades. Except the kids are smart and not afraid to question now and will wonder what the GAA has to fear from soccer or rugby. They won't be long coming to the conclusion the GAA fears its games just aren't attractive enough.

Seán Kelly doesn't share those fears. Opening Croke Park is a statement of pride as much as it is a matter of money.

The thing is, if the motion is tabled and defeated then it may just be locked in the closet and forgotten about as the twisted Irish solution to an Irish problem that will gradually become the amusement of the wider sporting world.

And for some reason you can just sense the old guard massing for one last charge, one last shrill yell against the outside. It might well be enough to keep the doors bolted.

But what's the point?

All those wars are over, Jack. Go home to your family. Let the future take its course. Like you once said, the concept of an exclusion rule has no relevance to us.