Mr Football expects Clare to take fight to Down

“IF it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all,” was the assessment of Clare’s County Board’s liaison officer with the footballers, Tommy Downes, the county’s ‘Mr Football’.

Drawing both of last year’s All-Ireland finalists in their two games is an honour most sides would shudder at but when you’re struggling in Division Four of the league, it’s a sign that the football gods are against you.

However, in Ennis, anything is possible and when Down come to the town tomorrow afternoon, they will meet a considerable challenge.

“We don’t fear Down, we don’t see them as being in the same category as Cork, but they were in an All-Ireland final last year, you have to respect that,” said Tommy.

“We’re at home, in Ennis, the lads will have a right go. We’ll be verydisappointed if they don’t rise to it. The preparation has been very good, we’ve had over 30 players at training, three sessions last week alone.”

Gung-ho he may be, but Tommy is also a realist. He’s been around the block a few times. He began his official duties with the county board in 1974 as football board secretary, then as Central Council delegate for 33 years and from there he progressed on to the Munster Council.

“But,” he points out, “I always stayed with the footballers, these days as liaison officer and general dogsbody.”

He was there then through the good years of the 90s, when Clare won one Munster title (1992) and could easily have won a couple more.

“The big thing then was that everything came together. We had the players, guys like Seamus Clancy and Noel Roche, and we got the right man to manage them, John Maughan, at just the right time.

“John was a young man, only the same age as a lot of the players themselves but he had been forced to quit football because of a knee injury. He was an outstanding coach, and the players really responded to him. We were unlucky then that we didn’t win another Munster in 1996/’97 under John O’Keeffe, came very close against Cork and Kerry.”

It’s different times now though. Clare have been in a slump and even the most optimistic supporter would struggle to make a case for a victory tomorrow. “We’re halfway downDivision Four and going nowhere for the last two years — that’s where we are. Last year we started very well, got caught in the last two games, this year we started badly, finished reasonably well, a draw against Wicklow inWicklow. We have an awful small base here and we’re being decimated by emigration. The football area stretches from Kinvara down to Kilrush but it’s a very small population, and the way the economic climate is going, there isn’t a club in west Clare that isn’t affected, some with up to half a team gone abroad.

“A lot of lads in rural areas like that are tradesmen, badly affected by the collapse in construction. Gordon Kelly, our centre-back and captain — he lost his job last year, went back to college, but he has had to emigrate for the summer to America. He had to get work, he had to get bread.”