Keith Duggancharts the long, hard road back to a first provincial final since 1982 as Malachy O'Rourke's team bid to capture an historic first Ulster title.

1982. Oh they have done the penance since but that means nothing. All of Ulster will be keeping fingers crossed for the Fermanagh boys in Clones tomorrow and if Armagh had to lose a provincial decider to any Ulster side, they would probably lose to the Lakeland County.

But that matters little either. Half the country fell in love with Fermanagh football back in 2004, when they played chicken with Armagh in the great theatre of Croke Park and won an unforgettable quarter-final. It was one of the biggest upsets in championship history and Fermanagh made it happen with daring.

But that is old news now too.

For Fermanagh, all that counts is they are back to the place where they were before. 1982. A chance. A day in their lives.

In the vernacular of Gaelic games, the old tourism slogan of Hidden Fermanagh carries a sharp edge. Hidden: you could say that. In 1982, the GAA summer was slow-burning but the county team caused something of a sensation by beating two heavyweights on the bounce, Derry and Tyrone, and making it to the Ulster final. It was a black time, with the North racked by the Troubles and the South playing out its GUBU year.

The Fermanagh team slightly stunned themselves that summer. They met Armagh in Clones and lost a match they could have won by three points, and the world continued to spin on its axis.

Flash forward 26 years. Has it really been that long? Fermanagh football men shake their heads.

"Twenty-six years. That is a serious wait," admits former coach Dom Corrigan. "It was imperative for this team to reach an Ulster final. Because it was coming to the stage when they were taking big scalps every year but had no end product out of it. Those wins were important in creating a feel-good factor. But appearing in an Ulster final is obvious progress."

But Fermanagh's story since 1982 is easily explained away. It probably boils down to population. They are a tiny county trying to prosper in a championship that always had one juggernaut team or more. In 1983 they beat Down, the league champions, in the first round of the championship but were knocked out a couple of weeks later and did not win another championship match until 1991.

They kept pulling Armagh out of the hat and Armagh kept beating them, sometimes by plenty, sometimes by the kick of the ball. The stats hardly mattered. In the 1990s, they won two championship matches: they beat Antrim in 1991 and 1992. That sounds bleak as well but when it comes to Fermanagh football, the old saying about lies, damn lies and statistics applies.

The cold list of unimpressive results tells only half the story. Things were stirring behind the scenes of those brief, one-Sunday-per-summer appearances. Men were taking control, grappling with sporting history and their role in it. Paul Brewster made his debut in 1991.

He walked off the field with a 100 per cent record. Veteran men like Ciarán Campbell must have shook their heads at the lad's youthful serendipity. Like Van the Man sang, "Wouldn't it be great if it could be like this all the time?"

But it couldn't.

"We beat Antrim both years and then Donegal came along, a team in their prime, about to win the All-Ireland, and they gave us a whipping. But at least that showed us where the game was at, the level we had to reach."

And they tried. They pushed. In 1993, they drew with Armagh in Enniskillen and really had them on the ropes in the Athletic Grounds. Brewster recalls the scoreboard: they were nine points up with five minutes left and Armagh had 14 men.

Denis Hollywood, his friend and team-mate from Queen's University, came on from the bench with seven minutes left. Denis hit 2-1 before anybody knew what was happening, and deep in injury-time centre back John Grimley arrived in the Fermanagh square to deliver the coup de grace for the Orchard County. Three goals and Fermanagh were out on a scoreline of 1-16 to 4-8.

"It took us a couple of years to recover from that."

In 1995, they lost by 1-11 to 1-15 to a Tyrone team that went to the All-Ireland final. Brewster tore ligaments that day. "Never forget it. Sitting in a car park afterwards trying to get a lift to the hospital."

In 1997, they drew with a young Cavan team managed by Martin McHugh and narrowly lost the replay. They could and arguably should, have beaten them but did not and, almost inevitably, Cavan swept the province like a gorse fire, winning their first Ulster championship since 1969.

Fermanagh, though, under the ambitious stewardship of Pat King, made a run in the newly devised All-Ireland B championship, beating Longford in the final.

"It started with Pat King," reckons Dom Corrigan. "This was a manager that came in and decided to put down a marker that Fermanagh weren't prepared to come second anymore. And luckily enough, a talented group of young players started to come through who believed in winning games."

It took time. Pat King bowed out, and since then Fermanagh have made a series of shrewd and slightly left-field series of managerial appointments: John Maughan. Dom Corrigan. Charlie Mulgrew. These men left an imprint. During the strange and wonderful few weeks in 2004 when Fermanagh utterly upended the old order, Paul Brewster was often asked about how Fermanagh had come from nowhere. The 'Brew' had finished playing the previous summer and he grew tired of the idea of Fermanagh as some kind of Wonderland outfit.

"If you paid attention to Ulster colleges football, you could see it. Dom Corrigan and Peter McGinnity had been putting out teams in St Michael's (Enniskillen) that were the pick of the McRory Cup. In 2000, if you were asked to name the best 10 college players in Ulster, you had Cormac McAnallen, God rest him, Seán Cavanagh, Ronan Clarke. But you have about five Fermanagh lads too - Marty McGrath, Barry Owens, James Sherry, CiaráGallagher and Ryan Keenan all came through about then."

From 1999 to 2002, St Michael's played in all four McRory Cup finals and won three. Ten of the team that will start for the county tomorrow were involved in those sides and another 10 are on the squad.

Several went on to win Sigerson Cup medals and they became used to lining out with and against the elite players in Ulster. They weren't going to be cowed once they put on a Fermanagh jersey. They weren't going to replicate the history of disappointment and underachievement.

"Why should they?" reasons Brewster. "Quite rightly. You can do nothing about yesterday. This is a focused bunch of players. And they are talented."

The past few weeks have seen plenty of nostalgic returns to the shining chance of 1982. In the small Gaelic football towns of south Fermanagh, this Ulster final is an occasion. The bunting is out, the team song - Fantastic Fermanagh - has been broadcast on every local radio show 100 times a day.

For Fermanagh people, being there has to be celebrated. But for the team, it is a different matter. As Marty McGrath wryly observed during the week, 1982 didn't make much of an impression on him, "because I was only a few months old when that final was on."

That has been the attitude. If Fermanagh surprised the outside world in beating league champions Derry this summer, they were not surprised themselves. They had shown form and graft throughout the league and they worked hard for this.

"The critical factor in comparing 1982 to 2008 is this: 1982 was the first meaningful victory we had in the best part of 20 years," says Dom Corrigan.

"So we were in no man's land, propelled onto this Ulster final stage and none of us really knew what to do. Looking back, we probably did not cope. But this team have had major victories going back to 2002. They have experience from those games. We were lost. We went in on a wing and a prayer. This team will not be lost. These boys have been around. We led going into the last 10 minutes in 1982.

"The unfortunate thing is if we could have won that match, I am convinced we would have four or five Ulster championships now. Because winning that would have bred success. The base of players in Fermanagh is small but the one good thing about that is that nobody ever slips through the net. Everyone gets a fair crack at it - I think Malachy looked at 60 players at the start of the year.

"I suppose in the bigger counties, there are lads who just never get an opportunity. And the other thing that small pool creates is a tight togetherness. Fermanagh make up for lack of numbers with spirit, this willingness to go at it."

Fermanagh have shown that in abundance over the last five years. This is a team, remember, that came within a hair's breadth of making it to an All-Ireland final.

It was felt that perhaps their best puff had been spent under the stunning spell they enjoyed under Charlie Mulgrew but now Malachy O'Rourke has come in to put his own twist to a team that keeps on running and keeps on defying its traditional place as a small county. O'Rourke, too, was a traveller through Ulster's rich football educational system.

He studied with Armagh's manager Peter McDonnell in St Mary's, where he won a Sigerson Cup medal under Jim McKeever. He showed his coaching flair at the Loup in Derry, at Errigal Ciarán and Cavan Gaels. He dispensed advice and picked up tips. He learned as he went.

He toiled with Paul Brewster back in the days of tough times and nearly stories of Fermanagh football, and so far this year he has not put a foot wrong.

Has there been a more vital managerial intervention this year than O'Rourke's decision to throw Barry Owens, the All Star full back, into full forward with the match in the melting pot against Derry? Sure, he couldn't have banked on the goal. But he was willing to try it. He was willing to see. When Corrigan started teaching in St Michael's, O'Rourke was sitting his A levels. Now, the men both teach in Enniskillen and talk regularly.

"Malachy is very shrewd. He knows the game and he is very passionate. Malachy would be one of those people who if he isn't learning something new every day, well it is a bad day. That is how it strikes me. And he is very receptive to new ideas. If he can get Fermanagh across the line in Clones, he has hero status for the rest of his life."

If that happens, there will be nothing soft or accidental about it. Armagh will not be ambushed. Nor will they be complacent. It is simply not in their nature. If Fermanagh are to win, it will be because they have the audacity to take their unique and fearless running game against Armagh.

Clones is to be savoured tomorrow. The Fermanagh crowd will arrive from towns like Lisnaskea and Belleek and Derrylin, home of Seán Quinn, the richest man in Ireland. You can be sure the entrepreneur will be on tenterhooks just like every other person in the county.

Twenty-six years is a long time but it has taken that long to build up the resources and the mental strength just for the honour of walking behind the brass band with the Anglo Celt polished and on show in the stands.

Paul Brewster would give anything to be out there. But then, so would several generations of Fermanagh footballers.

"We know we are facing the best Ulster team of the last 10 years," he says. "But when are we going to get another chance?"