A great mystery has developed involving Croke Park, various sports departments and the postal service. The Irish Times' tickets for tomorrow's Leinster football final between Dublin and Kildare arrived yesterday in an envelope, which had apparently been kicked around Dublin's city centre for a couple of days before Gerry Quinlan, from the Department of Finance, kindly picked it up and examined the contents.

Knowing the worth of four prime tickets for the new stand in Croker, the Knocklyon Dubs supporter fought off his natural urge to celebrate and instead sent the soiled batch back to the Sports Department in D'Olier Street.

Croke Park, however, responded to the story by saying that a number of other tickets sent out for exclusive use of the press corps have also gone missing between HQ and their destination. And not all have blown under the honest boot of Gerry Quinlan.

The good news for Quinlan is that, apart from an effort being made to provide tickets for Dublin's next match (how presumptuous), and the presentation of an Irish Times Book Of The Century, an umbrella and polo shirt (sounds like a certain RTE Quiz programme bonanza), a number of burly enforcers will be stalking the area tomorrow for bogus press card carriers. When caught, the culprits will be stripped naked at half-time, beaten with sticks and forced to read every word written about the match on Monday . . . well, okay, just stripped naked.