In this week’s ‘My Club’ feature, Tipperary senior footballer Michael Quinlivan tells us all about Clonmel Commercials GFC.

By John Harrington

Clonmel Commericals Gaelic Football Club are located in the South Tipperary town of Clonmel. Founded in 1934, they’re the second most successful club in the county with a total of 16 County senior titles and 23 South Senior titles won.

They made history last year by becoming the first ever Tipperary club to win the Munster Senior Club Championship thanks to a dramatic victory over Cork club kingpins Nemo Rangers.

That success was inspired by a golden generation of young footballers who have won all before them at underage level in recent years. So far this decade they’ve won five county minor titles, five U-21 titles, and two county senior titles.

Winning the Munster title meant a lot to the club because they’d come close to the Holy Grail in the past, losing four previous provincial deciders, the most heart-breaking of which was a defeat to Kerry’s Dr. Crokes after extra-time in 1990.

Commercials are a football only club, with many of their players also playing hurling for St. Mary’s hurling club in Clonmel.

For more information about Clonmel Commercials, visit their website at http://commercialsgfc.com/

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Q: Clonmel Commercials is a club with great tradition, isn't it?

**A: **Yeah, I suppose its been built over a few years of playing in Munster, having great battles. I can still remember being told about the ones against a Waterville team with the great Mick O'Dwyer and that's probably where the history came from. Thankfully we made the breakthrough last year in Munster and we saw how much it meant to everyone in the club.

Q: Can you remember the first time you got involved with the club?

A: Yeah, my Dad used to train us. He's still a selector with the seniors at the moment. I've never gotten away from him unfortunately! He trained us from when I was four or five and it was just all the lads in my class and maybe the class below us and it went all the way up from there.

Q: That group that came together as five year olds seems to have largely stuck together and now forms the core of the Clonmel Commericals senior team.

**A: **Yeah. Myself, Seamus (Kennedy), Ian (Fahey). Evan Comerford would have been there until he moved to Kilsheelan. Kevin Fahey has obviously gone away and Jason (Lonergan). We had a good team growing up and it's just I suppose we ended up backboning the senior team now, thankfully. A lot of us have stayed involved and it's been a bit of a good ride. I think my year and four years below me have never lost a competitive game in Tipperary.

Q: Never?

**A: **Yeah. I won U-12, U-14, U-16, Minor, and U-21. We have that for three years and it'll be four next if they were to do it again.

Q: So how many underage county medals have you won?

A: One U-12, One U-14, one U-16, two minors, two U-21s, and two seniors.

Q: Before your generation came along, the club had gone through a lean period at senior level. Is that right?

A: Yeah, the lads I'd be friends with, the lads my age and a year older and a year younger, before us, maybe only one player had come off every underage team onto the senior team for six or seven years. We nearly walked in and a lot of us broke through at the same time. It was always going to take a bit of time before we became accustomed to playing at senior level.

Q: Had the club taken its eye off the ball in terms of its underage structures for a few years before your group came along? Is that why Commericals didn't have their usual success at senior level for a number of years?

**A: **Yeah, there was a bit of a fallow period for a while in the noughties. They came up against a very, very good Moyle Rovers team with Declan Browne in it. He was going to cause any team problems around that time. And, you know, there were 12 years between winning our last county in 2001 and 2013. You just go through periods like that, thankfully we've come out the other end. I didn't have to go through some of the hardship that the older lads in our team had to go through over the last while.

Q: You mentioned Moyle Rovers, they're based just outside Clonmel. Presumably they're your biggest rivals?

A: I live with four of them in a house! Before the County Final last year it was a bit of a weird week where you were trying to dance around the main subject in the house for the whole week.

Q: Quiet enough breakfasts?

**A: **The evenings were long!

Q: How hot is the rivalry or is it a friendly one?

**A: **It used to be a lot hotter in years gone by. A lot of the older lads in our club, there was no love lost there especially around the time of the three replays in 1995. But we've grown up with a lot of the Moyle Rovers lads as some of our best friends so it's probably not as hot as it once was. It's easy for us to say that after winning against them last year, though. I still wouldn't like to lose to them, I'll put it that way.

Q: Last year was a real odyssey for the club winning the Munster Championship. What was that like?

**A: **Bedlam! I can remember standing on the field with about two minutes to go and Nemo were going over and back with the ball much like what Mayo did against Tyrone the other weekend. I was just thinking, 'Are we ever going to get it back here'.

The next thing the ball just comes in and I can just remember the whole stand was nearly out on the field! And then sure for the two days afterwards it was just an over-riding feeling of happiness. We had an unreal two days in Clonmel.

For a club that had lost four Munster Finals, especially the one against Crokes. Dad was playing in it so I've heard enough about how they should have won it and the things that went against them. So to be the first team from Tipperary to get over the line...there was even a lot of well-wishers from all the other clubs in the county as well. Hopefully we're not the last Tipperary team for another while that can do it.

Q: The goal you scored to beat Nemo Rangers and win that Munster Final must be as iconic for Clonmel people as Seamus Darby's is for Offaly fans. Have you a crystal clear memory of it?

**A: **I've watched it back a couple of times and there's a lot of luck involved. I touched the ball onto your man's head and it just kind of sits there. Then I suppose I just hit it as low as I could because if I hit it high it would have been saved.

Q: You didn't even have time to look?

**A: **Not even, really, no. It's not often you you drop-kick a shot with your left-leg and it goes into the corner. I don't think I'll be trying that again for another while.

Q: The nature of the All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Ballyboden St. Enda's must have been gut-wrenching?

**A: **Yeah. I suppose I haven't had too much time to think about it because we were straight back in with Tipperary the following week which was a God-send in one way. For a lot of the lads who were just playing club football it must have been eating away at them. Look, it was an opportunity lost, there's no point denying that.

And it would have been an unbelievable achievement. 'Boden went on to win the All-Ireland. There's no point saying we could have done that, but it was definitely an opportunity lost. I think that sort of thing drives you on for the next year and the year after. Just keeping that in the locker. The hurt that we felt after that game will be kept in the locker for another while.

Q: The age profile of the team suggests ye can continue to challenge for silverware in the coming years.

**A: **Yeah, it's very, very young. But who knows where we'll be in five or six years time. There's been a lot of club teams around the country who thought for maybe the next ten years they could take over somewhere and it didn't work out. You take each year on its merits. We're about to lose our midfielder Aldo (Matassa) who's going to Edinburgh this year to study and we'll be short another couple. We'll keep plugging away and see where that takes us.

Q: There has to be confidence gathered from beating the likes of Nemo though and going so close against the eventual All-Ireland Champions? Ye must know ye are a very good team after that?

**A: **Yeah, we do, yeah. We know we're at that level. But then again it probably shows there's a lot of teams in Tipperary saying we're not that far ahead of them and look where we're at. It gives confidence to nearly every other team in the county too. We have to keep producing because there's a massive target on our back now. When we're going out everyone is playing the Munster Club Champions so they want to be the team to take us down.

Q: How healthy are the underage structures in the club now? Is there even more talent coming through?

**A: **We're very lucky in the club that a lot of the lads who've played senior over the last 10, 15, 20 years have all taken teams the whole way up. Thankfully we do have a thriving underage scene. We'd have great lads looking after teams, the likes of Tommy Kelly and that have done phenomenal work over the last while. Brian White too, with our underage teams. If we can keep those players coming through and keep them interested, that's the next generation. And when we finish up, whenever that is, they'll be the ones taking on the baton then and hopefully bringing on Commericals even further.

Q: Did you play much hurling or were you always primarily a Gaelic Footballer?

**A: **I played. Not well! I wasn't very useful with the hurley itself, but I could catch the ball, that was about it. Catch it and give it to someone who could hit it. But, you know, all my age-group all grew up playing soccer together as well as football and hurling.

I only played hurling until 15 or 16 and then I decided what I wanted and hurling got a miss. That was just the way it was. When you're that young you're not really thinking about it, you're just playing with your friends. It wasn't an easy decision, I'll put it that way.

Q: Clonmel has produced some good hurlers, but is it fair to say it's always primarily been a football town?

**A: **Soccer was actually number one for me, to be honest. We had an unbelievable team and got to a Danone Cup at the age of 12. The year ahead of us was Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick. We traveled down and went to that two years in a row. And a lot of that team back-boned the All-Ireland winning Tipp minor team and now the Commericals team.

Soccer was always number one. While we played football, had a lot of success, and enjoyed it. Over the last while football has taken over completely. And unfortunately now I've had to make myself a one-sport person.

Q: So, to sum up, it must be a great time to be a Commercial?

**A: **Yeah, look, I've been playing senior now for five or six years. I saw what was going on when I first went in there, how much we were struggling, and how much hurt was there. So we're really thankful that we're in a good place at the moment. We're still in the Championship. We got knocked out at quarter-final stage a couple of years ago, so we'll cherish this and hopefully we can make some more memories.

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