The day Banner was finally raised

On the night of July 18, 1992, Martin Donnelly sat in his hotel room in the Clare Inn looking at 20 brand new Clare jerseys.

Having come on board as the footballers’ jersey sponsor prior to the Munster final, he had a batch of them ready to hand out to supporters that evening before the following day’s game with Kerry.

He failed to offload one.

“I’d a few for my kids but I’d 20 adults one as well and I couldn’t give them away,” he chuckles now.

“It would have been unusual for somebody to wear one, I suppose, but we were in a Munster final.

“A month later in the All-Ireland semi-final and they say 15,000 jerseys were sold. Everything changed after beating Kerry.”

Donnelly had only become sponsor following the semi-final win over Tipperary. Golden Vale were the previous backers but their agreement went by on a match-by-match basis.

“I think I outbid them by £1,000. They had a figure in mind and they didn’t go beyond it. It was my first major GAA sponsorship. Once I got involved I was at all their training sessions and you could just feel something was happening.”

He’d also given the Clare board a package that included incentives right up until the All-Ireland final.

Donnelly had initially received a call from John Maughan asking would he purchase a pair of boots for each player.

“So I bought them and then he got me in touch with the Clare chairman and we took it from there. I don’t think boots had ever been bought for the footballers before but John was looking at new things the whole time.”

Donnelly, whose nephew Rory lines out for Clare tomorrow, couldn’t have dreamed of better exposure for his power tool company but it was never about that. As his support for the interprovincial series and the Poc Fada have demonstrated, he’s more of a philanthropist than sponsor.

But this was personal for the Cooraclare native living in Meath. The age of the Clare hurler would shortly come but it was the footballers who first brought honour to the county in the 90s.

Without the open draw, that mightn’t have been the case.

“Really a lot of it has to go to Noel Walsh and his strenuous fight to have an open draw in Munster. Limerick had been in the final the year before and had run Kerry close. But for that and having to beat Kerry and Cork, 1992 might never have happened. Look at it now, Clare would probably not be in a Munster final if the draw wasn’t open.”

What they achieved, Donnelly says, echoes to this day.

“Every Clare player’s dream was to play in a final — now it’s to win it. That day each of them won their own battles against Kerry men.

“When we won all hell broke loose but they proved they were more than a good side in the years after ‘92.

“They then went all the way up to Division 1 and played in a league semi-final against Down. I remember 16,000 attending league games in Ennis. They lost to Cork the following year but that Cork team went onto reach an All-Ireland final. They weren’t a flash in the pan.”

This week finds Martin Flynn readying his pub in MilltownMalbay ahead of the Willie Clancy festival.

As Seamus Clancy told this newspaper in May, the corner-forward is the one who keeps everybody from ‘92 in touch with one another.

A text here, a text there. He’ll play a major role in the attempts to organise a 20th anniversary getaway next October as well as the planned charity walk in honour of their late physio, Dan O’Halloran.

It was on the 10th anniversary trip to Lanzarote in 2002 that he got everyone’s number.

“I just put them all in my phone and made sure to keep them,” he says.

“Anything happens now, I’ll just group text the lads. It’s not a big thing but everybody likes to keep in touch.”

The bond solidified by crippling the Kingdom wasn’t so strong before ‘92. Flynn remembers club rivalry had got in the way.

“Up to that year, there would have always a club thing, that fellas wouldn’t be friendly. But after achieving that breakthrough, it all changed. There were no cliques. Before, there were no lads drinking together or anything.”

For Noel Roche and Flynn, veterans of the infamous 9-21 to 1-9 defeat to Kerry in Milltown Malbay (Flynn came on as a sub-goalkeeper) when Pat Spillane totted up 3-1, the win was all the sweeter.

“It was something we only dreamed about and thought would never happen until John (Maughan) came along,” says Flynn about winning Munster.

“Then everything changed. Numbers started to go up. Some of the lads on the team had been there for years and were sick at being at the bottom. John coming on board was the final piece of the jigsaw.”

Before Maughan, while the bond mightn’t have been what it should have, there were indications they were moving in the right direction.

“In 1991, we had trained very hard and we played Kerry in Ennis,” Flynn recounts. “With five minutes to go, we were only three points behind and we conceded two late goals.

“We knew we weren’t too far behind them and then the following season we’d a good run in the league until we reached the quarter-final when Meath beat us by two points in the quarter-final in Ballinasloe.

“They were one of the top teams in the country so we knew we were there or thereabouts.”

But what about the day itself? When did Flynn believe their fallow era was going to end?

“When Martin’s goal went in, we started to believe this might be it but we couldn’t take Kerry for granted. And sure enough, they had that chance but James Hanrahan made a great save (from Pa Laide).

“After that, you started to think it was our day.”

The yarns about what happened next in the haze of the celebrations are endless.

Bringing the cup back from Limerick to Ennis, a group of players with the cup in the back of the car got lost in Quin.

A farmer, giving them directions, remarked on how great a win it was for Clare without adding up the scenario.

All anonymity, however, went out the window that evening and for the weeks ahead. The following two days were taken up by a tour of the county.

“We met up at lunch-time on the Monday but it took us an hour to get into the West County (hotel),” smiles Flynn. “The size of the crowd was shocking. So many looking for autographs and photographs. Everywhere we went was chocablock. There were about 1,000 people out in Lissycasey. On the Tuesday, we did North Clare and we didn’t get to Milltown Malbay until 1.30am.

“There was training then on the Wednesday night. Let’s just say there was a lot of sweating done!”