As the patrons filed through the narrow, noisy turnstiles of the Hogan Stand for the last time on Sunday, it was hard not to feel a touch of affection for the wind-shot and mostly filthy old wreck.

Visually, it was an exercise in unremitting austerity, all concrete and grey steel and hard angles. There are few places more ghostly than empty football stadiums anyway and to walk through a silent Hogan stand on a midweek winter's day must have made for a lonely, even disquieting experience.

There was so much wrong with that big, functional chunk of ugliness, so many reasons why it should be torn apart. On big-time championship Sundays, to venture towards the catering arena was to embark on an (overpriced) journey of singular dissatisfaction.

Viewed from the corridors, the bright, chequer-floored canteen area was a welcome sight for its homeliness alone, in the way that distant house lights are gladdening for pedestrians on country roads. Up close, however, it was a nightmare of spilled tea, harassed fathers, hungry kids and sandwich crusts. The Hogan Stand toilets were, curiously, a compressed version of the same, except that at half-time, the facilities were entered and exited with an urgency which the quaintly narrow doorways never allowed for.

No childhood visit to the Hogan stand toilet facilities was complete without the frightening meeting with the cheerful, broad-armed GAA man in short sleeves of indeterminate origin who, oblivious to your presence, would bulldoze you against the wall in his haste, mouthing hearty apologies to those on similar eye level to his own. There you lay, crushed against a grimy wall, wondering if you'd ever see home again.

Outside, punters would converge upon the catering stalls, bidding for chocolate bars and Cokes with the sort of manic urgency generally reserved for the Tokyo stock exchange. Similar sums of money often changed hands too.

No, it was never a place that bothered itself with striving for perfection, the Hogan stand, and there were rumours that consumer comfort was officially barred from the ground.

But for all that, the place held a peculiar charm. For a start, it had a childishly labyrinthine quality about it, all staircases and levels and shadowy corners which gave the impression of a richer history than it actually had; the stand was built relatively recently, in 1959, for a grand cost of £250,000 and a seating capacity of 16,000.

On All-Ireland days, the long corridors and stairwells were alive with colour and noise and bright-eyed punters, beered up and jumpy with anticipation.

And the first time you climbed up the steps on to the threshold of the section to take your seat, the view of the field was unforgettable, pristine and technicolour green, a vivid expanse of grass bordered by the crowds.

The front of the upper section was the most pleasing to the eye. From there, you could peer over the railing at the heads below and watch the coming and goings in the Ard Comhairle.

The Hogan stand had an intimacy that will be foreign to the brand new structure that will take its place. How many wonderful camera shots are there (although GAA crowds are not, as a rule, photographic enthusiasts) of All-Ireland captains raising the silver, caught in profile from the lower tier of the Hogan stand or from behind as they turned to thrust the cup towards the web of steel girders overhead?

That stretching, slanting roof was similar to those seen in old footage of the English soccer grounds and on great days, it played tricks with the roar of the crowd as the parade started up on All-Ireland final day or as the anthem ended.

Even the seats, wooden and time-scarred, reminded you that this place was yours for just an hour; that folk perhaps long dead had once sat where you did now and shared those same emotions.

When president Dr JJ Stuart declared it open in June of 1959, the Hogan stand was a proud new symbol of the GAA's enlightenment, testimony to the organisation's burgeoning role in national culture. It was modern and marvellous.

For the past few years, however, those gazing across at it from the stunning new Cusack stand could but have seen the old stand as a dank and crumbling reflection of where they sat, a throwback to times of suits and peaked hats.

And from afar, it was that. But it was and will remain a source of great stories. Many thousands must still be warmed by past August and September Sundays in the stand. And how many touched home through the great radio commentaries that floated across the world from the bright green boxes in the midst of the upper tier?

It will all be dust and rubble shortly and, in truth, not before time. It was a cold old ruin, the Hogan stand. But was it not also a place that made dreams?