The Club

by Christy O'Connor

  There were 16 people squeezed tightly into the small room: the club executive, trustees, members of the development committee, the minor club executive and some of the best underage coaches in the club. It was a huge plus to see Mike Guilfoyle there, because he has done outstanding work with the underage teams over the last few years.

  This was effectively a pitch, from our sub-committee charged with looking for the coach, to the key figures in the club. We had already drawn up a charter, which was read out and then debated. Some people were hard to convince. One senior club member seemed to think that the root of the club’s ills lay in the senior team. In his opinion, the senior hurling team was the club’s key brand, and it was struggling to capture the imagination of young people in such a competitive market.

  I certainly wasn’t letting him get away with that. I jumped down his throat: ‘That’s a complete joke of an assessment. The senior team is doing really well to be as competitive as it is. Do you realize how hard it is for us to be competitive when we’re a dual club and that we’ve had so little underage hurling success and so few young players come through in the last few years? Some of the senior players are trying to wring every last drop of energy out of themselves to win a senior title because the way we’re going, we’ll be doing well to stay out of intermediate in the next few years when a lot of those players go. We’re bursting ourselves at the moment to try and win a senior title, but we can’t keep going for much longer. That’s why this appointment has to happen. This is for the future.’

  Then I machine-gunned everyone with statistics I had prepared: no minor title since 1990; no U-21 title since 1994; no U-16 title since 1995; no U-14 title since 2001. We were giving walkovers to teams in U-16 hurling, while the underage football operation had turned into a machine. ‘This is a no-brainer,’ I said. ‘This has to happen.’

  Jamesie backed me up. ‘I have been up the north coaching and when I see the standard of Under-10s in Loughgiel Shamrocks and I compare that standard to our Under-10s, it does bother me,’ he said. ‘I think we are a club in crisis and we need to get a handle on it. I’m not blaming anyone because there’s great work being done by the underage coaches. But we just need to do more. There is an appetite to get our act together at underage coaching at county level, and I think there is an appetite to do the same here in the club. But we have to take the bull by the horns and do it ourselves. Because nobody else is going to do it for us.’

  The mood within the room was conservative, but the vibes were still good. Of course there were questions asked. The secretary, Dan O’Connor, mentioned the health and safety regulations about hurling in the schools which would have to be explored before we set about appointing a coach. Somebody else mentioned that a coach could only do so much to prevent the huge fall-off rate after U-16 because of the lure of rugby, soccer and other activities. Then the discussion broadened into a debate as to why the U-16 hurling team gave a walkover the previous week. What could a hurling coach do to guard against that happening?

  ‘Look, we could be here for the next hour talking about the difficulties we have,’ said Jamesie. ‘We’re always going to have the problems of urbanization and losing players to other sports – that’s just a fact of life. We can make all the excuses we want, but we simply don’t have a choice here. The fall-off rate of hurlers is just too great in this club, especially between 16 and 21. I was talking to Colm O’Rourke [former Meath footballer] recently, and he told me that Simonstown Gaels introduced six 19-year-olds on to their championship team this year.’ Then he looked over at me. ‘Do we even have six 19-year-olds playing hurling in this club?’

  I did a quick tally. ‘I don’t think so. There definitely aren’t six 19-year-olds who take hurling very seriously, anyway.’ Spotting an opening, I unleashed another torrent of statistics that I’d prepared in drawing up the charter for the proposed new appointment. Ranging from Clare development squads at U-15, U-16, U-17, to the Clare minor, U-21 and senior panels, the club had only three representatives on those six squads this season. Even more of a concern was that only one of those three players saw any real competitive action.

  If you were to trawl through most of the big clubs in Munster now – Toomevara, Mount Sion, Ballygunner, Newtownshandrum, Sarsfields (Cork), Adare, Thurles Sarsfields – the average number of representatives those clubs supplied to county panels ranging from U-15 to senior would conservatively be estimated at around 14. When you compare our representative statistics to that average, it’s obvious that the reality now is that we’re a big club only in name.

  ‘The night before we won our first Under-21 title in 1993, Tony Kelly said that we were going to play a huge part in the future success of Clare hurling,’ I said. ‘And we did. Our players were nearly the backbone of Clare teams for the next ten years. And it really bothers me now when I see all these Clare hurling teams and there’s nobody from Doora-Barefield on them.’

  There’s no question that the face of Clare hurling has changed. On the Clare U-21 hurling team which won the Munster U-21 title for the first time only three weeks ago, five are from Clonlara, who won the county senior title for the first time in 89 years last October. Three of the back seven are from Crusheen, defeated county finalists two years ago, who have never won a senior title. On the training panel of 36, there are just four players from the big four clubs (Sixmilebridge, Wolfe Tones, Clarecastle and ourselves) which won six successive Munster club titles in the last decade. We’re the only ones who don’t have a single representative on the squad.

  ‘Being out on the field in Dungarvan [after the Munster U-21 final success against Waterford] was a special feeling,’ said Jamesie. ‘But there was a slight tinge of regret there too that we didn’t have anybody on the panel. I remember going to watch [Ciaran] O’Neill and Ger Hoey playing for Clare underage teams when I was younger and there was always a great sense of pride to having your own club-mates play for Clare. Christy, Phelim [Collins], Donal [Cahill], Seánie – I remember going to watch them play for Clare and we always had big underage performers for the county. And now we have nobody. That can’t continue. We can’t allow it to continue.’

  I honestly don’t think there was ever going to be any disagreement about what we were trying to achieve through appointing an underage coach. The meeting was never really about trying to justify the appointment; it was merely about confirming its necessity. But if there was going to be a hard sell, some of us weren’t leaving the room until the deal was sealed.

  At the end of the meeting, Michéal McMahon proposed that we accept the move in principle and it was seconded by Bernie Hallinan, the minor club secretary. Then the senior secretary, Dan O’Connor, just nodded over to me in acknowledgement of what needed to happen next. It was now up to our small sub-committee to go and get our coach.

  When we played Ogonnelloe in the championship last week, Patsy delivered one of his most impressive pre-game talks of the season. Before we began our warm-up, he gathered us all in a huddle and then walked us to different parts of the field as he forensically outlined the game plan and explained what was expected of us in those areas. It was cool-headed, calculated, informed and intelligent management.

  Less than an hour later, he was involved in a minor brawl and found himself at the bottom of a ruck in the middle of the field.

  Just before the interval, the Ogonnelloe goalkeeper and a couple of their defenders were annoyed with a challenge made by Seánie and a melee broke out. Patsy decided to make his way in from the line and get involved, and whether someone clipped him, or he slipped, he was soon picking himself up from the deck. And then, as we were making our way in at half-time, Patsy and John Carmody became embroiled in a slagging match with the referee, which certainly didn’t help our cause after the break.

  With ten minutes remaining, we were level against a side expected to be relegated. They were only ever going to stick with us if we handed them frees and the referee doled them out like confetti. We definitely got on the wrong side o
f the ref, but the fact that they got eight of their ten scores from placed balls was a real sign of a lack of sharpness and discipline on our part. Although we won by 0-18 to 0-10, it was the most unimpressive performance we’d produced in years.

  Patsy’s on edge lately. He’s not happy with how the team is performing, and getting relegated in the league has been a major blow to his confidence. He clearly feels under pressure now, a strain that can be alleviated only by winning a county title. And that’s not going to happen unless we can find some major form from somewhere.

  He flew into a rage when we played Wolfe Tones, Shannon, in a challenge game five days before the Ogonnelloe game. The game was fixed for Shannon to help us acclimatize to the pitch before the weekend, and everyone was told to be there at 6.55 p.m. and togged off and on the field by 7.05 p.m. for a 7.30 start. Some of us were late – myself included – and were still togging off at 7.10 p.m. when Patsy arrived in and lambasted us. He was fully justified.

  Then we went out and produced a woeful half of hurling. We were trailing by nine points at the break and Patsy couldn’t contain his anger any longer. ‘I was down in Kilkenny recently watching their hurlers train and I met Joe Hennessy, the former great Kilkenny hurler,’ he said to us, with plumes of smoke billowing from his ears. ‘He asked me where I was from and I said, Doora-Barefield. And he said, “Ah yeah, Doora-Barefield, great club, that was a wonderful team which won that All-Ireland club title. God, ye produced some wonderful players for Clare over the years.”

  ‘I’m hearing this stuff all over the country about what a great club we are. Well, unless we get our fucking act together, we won’t be a great club for much longer because we’ll be wiped off the map. We’ll soon be forgotten about and nobody will be talking about us then.

  ‘I just can’t understand us. We come here tonight, five days before a key championship game, and we aren’t even fucking tuned in. Who are we codding? Ogonnelloe will be fighting for their lives on Sunday to stay out of relegation, and we’re walking around as if we’re in the Queens [nightclub]. You can clearly see who has been training and who hasn’t, and there are too many guys missing training. I have missed one training session this year. John Carmody has missed just one session this year. Vinny Sheedy hasn’t missed a single training session all year. And why the fuck can’t ye give us the commitment that’s needed to win a county title?

  ‘We’ve had nothing but tragedy this year. One tragedy after the next. The club needs a lift. The whole parish needs a lift. And we said that we’d be the ones to give our people a lift. Well, we better start picking it up now or we’re going to let everyone down.’

  His words did shake us from our torpor and we produced an acceptable second-half performance. But Patsy’s words also reminded me of something Davy Hoey said to me a few weeks earlier: that we should be doing it for the right reasons and not making it into a crusade for Ger. And now Fr Mac has been added to that crusade.

  That is something the Tyrone football manager Mickey Harte has spoken about very astutely over the years. Harte has had to deal with two huge tragedies during his years with Tyrone: the deaths of Paul McGirr and Cormac McAnallen. Over the years, Harte has often answered requests to speak to clubs who have suffered a tragedy through the loss of one of their treasured members.

  People deal with tragedy in different ways and there have always been a number of strands to the philosophy Harte preaches: be there for each other and don’t make your sporting lives a crusade to remember the dead; if you really wish to hold those you have lost in high regard, think of what good you can find in them and bring it into your own life; you never really have to go out and win anything for somebody you really respect – you simply have to do your best.

  To be honest, we have never addressed the loss of Ger Hoey in that manner. We never really sat down as a team and discussed it, when maybe we should have. Ger’s name and presence is constantly in our dressing room and there is enormous emotion in the senior players around his loss. But many of the younger players didn’t know Ger. They didn’t play with him. They can’t relate to him. They can only guess at what he meant to us.

  We probably should have talked about all of this during the year, but it’s very hard to talk about Ger with his brother so involved because we’re all so aware of his unique feelings and emotions. But maybe it wouldn’t do any harm, because Davy seems open to talking about Ger’s loss and dealing with it as a team. In any case, all we can do for now is what Harte suggests: be aware of what Ger brought to life and take inspiration from that.

  On Sunday, 23 August, five days before our last group game against Broadford, the tension between management and the squad got dramatically worse. A challenge game against Ballybrown from Limerick had been arranged for Gurteen that evening, but torrential rain had fallen over the previous 24 hours and our pitch was unplayable. That morning, a group text was sent out to notify everyone that the game had been switched to Ballybrown’s pitch in Clarina, about six miles outside Limerick city.

  As soon as we arrived everyone togged off, but there was no sign of management. They had all travelled together in the one car and nearly everyone was ready to go by the time the car pulled into the car park. As they made their way towards the door, a couple of lads asked for the sliotar bag so they could begin warming up. They were immediately told to go straight back inside and sit down. There was an edge to their tone and something was clearly about to go down. Patsy and John Carmody stood in the middle of the floor.

  ‘Right, lads,’ said Patsy, ‘anyone who was drinking last night, step into the middle of the circle.’

  The senior footballers had played their last group game yesterday, but with a senior championship match on in five days’ time the hurling management had already issued a strict no-drinking order to prevent any dual players from going out last night. A group text sent yesterday at 11.55 a.m. finished with the line: ‘No alcohol for anyone over the next six days, serious competition for places so tomorrow is a chance for everyone.’

  Patsy knew that ban had been breached. He took a spin into town at 10.30 p.m. and browsed through Mossy’s pub. Some guys knew they had been spotted.

  So, Cathal O’Sullivan, Ivor Whyte, Gary Hassett and Brian Collins stepped into the circle. Ivor is a brother of one of the selectors, Steve Whyte, while Gary Hassett and Brian Collins are two peripheral players on the panel but two very honest and good young lads. Most of the ire from management focused on Cathal O’Sullivan. He wasn’t long back from six weeks travelling in South-east Asia, but he’d been our captain last year and was one of our most experienced players.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Cathal, what were ye at?’ Patsy asked him.

  ‘It was only three drinks after the game,’ Cathal responded. ‘That was all we had.’

  ‘I don’t care, ye were told no drink,’ snapped Patsy. ‘There’s been too much fucking around going on here and this is just a symptom of the disease that’s creeping into the panel. It’s only going to take a few guys to bring the whole thing down.’

  Then Carmody stepped in. ‘Lads, ye were told no drink. Cathal, is it because you were sulking after you didn’t start the last day? You were captain of this team last year and we expect more from you. There’s a saying that winners do what losers don’t, and what ye did last night was the stuff of losers. Do any of ye really believe that we’re going to win the senior championship? Because what ye did last night says to me that ye don’t. This club is messing around now for eight years without a senior championship and will ye just get yere act together and get it right. Colm Mullen is off the panel for Friday night and Kevin Dilleen is close to being off the panel because he hasn’t been training with us. Certain guys just need to get their act together and we all need to start pulling in the one direction from now on. Because if we don’t, we’re fucked.’

  Carmody then asked the four lads if they were going to apologize to the group. They all did.

  It was Jamesie’s first match back since he made
a brief reappearance against Portumna in a challenge game in 2006, and I was walking out beside him as we made our way on to the pitch for our warm-up.

  ‘Welcome back again,’ I said to him. ‘A bit different from the old days.’

  He just looked at me and raised his eyes to heaven.

  As we gathered at the top corner of the field to go through our stretching routine, Damien Kennedy tried to dilute any negativity that was still floating in the air. ‘What happened, happened; but it’s done and dusted now. The lads have apologized, so let’s just move on. No more about it.’

  We were well in control during the first half and I had a good chat with Terrence ‘Spider’ Kenny, the former Limerick hurler who was doing umpire.

  ‘How are ye going?’ he asked me.

  ‘Not great, to be honest,’ I replied. ‘We’re finding it very hard at the moment to combine football and hurling. We were playing football championship yesterday and you can clearly see out there that guys are tired. And we’ve a big championship match on Friday night.’

  Then he told me a story about the year Ballybrown won the Munster club hurling title in 1989. They were also involved in an intermediate football semi-final that season and they hit the crossbar with a late shot that would have given them victory against Newcastlewest. ‘If that goal had gone in, there’s no way we would have won the Munster club title,’ he told me. ‘It would have taken too much out of us. You just can’t do hurling and football together. It’s impossible.’

  We created about five clear-cut goalscoring chances in that first half, but we failed to take any of them. Then they hit a purple patch just before the break, which left us ahead by just three points at half-time, despite having played with a very stiff breeze. In the team huddle at the break, Ken Kennedy addressed our lack of composure in front of goal and our lack of a killer instinct. ‘If we’re only up by three points at half-time on Friday night, we’re going to be in serious trouble because Broadford will smell blood and they’ll go for us. The game has to be put away from them by that stage so they don’t get any belief that they can beat us. So when ye get the chances, just score them. Especially goal chances.’