By John Harrington
The ‘Banner Roar’ echoed around Croke Park quite a bit in the 1990s, but it was the Clare footballers who made a big noise at Headquarters first before Ger Loughnane and his hurling team made the big time.
The colour, vocal support and sheer numbers of Clare supporters who packed into Croke Park for the 1992 All-Ireland SFC semi-final with Dublin was reflective of just how football in the county was on a crest of a wave at the time.
It was a rising tide that nobody really saw coming, apart from Clare manager, John Maughan, and his panel of committed players who were ferociously committed to the cause.
Clare had suffered a humbling 10-point defeat to Tipperary in the 1989 Munster Championship and when Maughan was appointed manager only 13 players would turn up for his first training session after a League defat to Waterford in 1990.
Dublin manager Paddy Cullen shakes hands with Clare manager John Maughan after the 1992 All-Ireland Football Semi-Final at Croke Park.
From the start he made a positive impression on the players, though, taking off his native Mayo jersey he wore to that session to reveal a Clare jersey beneath it.
Maughan oversaw a brutally intense training regime that in time whipped his Clare players into serious physical shape.
"I suppose I brought organisation to it,” Maughan told the Irish Independent in 2012.
“At that stage there was a certain discipline and structure to my life, basic things like timekeeping.
"We trained hard, sometimes very hard. I was young and able to do a lot of it myself. We did great sessions out on Lahinch beach and around by the golf club. It was as much for mental as physical conditioning.
"And there were great sacrifices made. Frankie Griffin came home from London every weekend for training and matches. That was a time now when travel wasn't as cheap nor as regular as it is now.”
Clare manager, John Maughan, celebrates with Clare footballer Frankie Griffin after victory over Kerry in the 1992 Munster SFC Final.
Two years of hard work culminated in 1992 when Clare stunned Kerry in the Munster Final to win only their second ever senior provincial title and first since 1917.
That set up an All-Ireland semi-final showdown with a resurgent Dublin who had won their first Leinster title in three years.
Both teams steamed into the match aboard their own hype-train.
Dublin were hot favourites to win their first All-Ireland title, odds that only narrowed further after Donegal edged out Mayo in a desperately poor All-Ireland semi-final the week before Paddy Cullen’s team were set to play Clare.
Dublin hadn’t won an All-Ireland since 1983 which was a famine as far as they were concerned, and their supporters were energised by the belief that ’92 was going to be their year.
Clare has always sourced die-hard football supporters from the west of the county, but the fact that they were now contesting their first All-Ireland Final in 75 years meant there was no shortage of sunshine supporters happy to also jump on the bandwagon.
Clare might have considered itself more of a hurling county, but they hadn’t even contested an All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Final since 1932 so the chance to support their county in Croke Park, whatever the code, was not something to be passed up.
The Clare players themselves were keen to embrace the occasion too rather than be overawed by it.
“Even going in on the bus with the motorbike escort, sure we thought we were great,” said Clare footballer Seamus Clancy in an interview with the Irish Examiner in 1992.
“It was like the first night the bananas arrived at training!”
Clare asked Dublin plenty of hard questions on the day, but never quite looked like they had the wherewithal to win the game.
Vinny Murphy was in his pomp for Dublin in ’92 and would win an All-Star thanks in no small part to his own individual performance against Clare in the semi-final.
He scored two fine goals, a net-burster in the first half and then another crucial palmed effort in the second-half that came moments after Clare had gotten themselves back into the game with a converted penalty.
Vinny Murphy was Dublin's star-man in the 1992 All-Ireland SFC semi-final against Clare.
The post-match scenes were unusual, with supporters from both counties invading the pitch.
Dublin were delighted to be in an All-Ireland Final, but the Clare supporters clearly felt their team had done them proud with a battling display that earned them honour in defeat.
Even Clare footballer, Tom Morrissey, who was interviewed on the pitch afterwards seemed somewhat conflicted.
He enjoyed the experience, was dismayed by the result, but was optimistic for the future of Clare football.
“Absolutely loved it, loved the atmosphere,” he told RTE’s Jim Kearney. “I was having nightmares last night about this atmosphere but I absolutely loved it. Once I got onto the field I loved it.
“We came up with high hopes, we were well-prepared, our level of fitness was absolutely fantastic, it just didn’t go our way on the day. Some of us did okay, but we didn’t click as expected.
“Vinny’s first goal was a well-taken goal. Fair play to him he caught it well and buried it in the back of the net.
“In all fairness, we had just scored a penalty and that second-goal was a killer blow. Straight after we had scored our goal to see it go into the net at the other end, it’s a heart-break for any team.
“We go away a beaten team but we won’t go away forever. We’ll be back here again.”
Unfortunately for the Clare footballers they wouldn’t be back there again, but perhaps the sparks the struck in 1992 helped ignite the hurling firestorm to come in 1995 and for the remainder of the decade.
Ger Loughnane and Anthony Daly have both admitted that the success of the footballers in 1992 ignited their own belief that the hurlers could also aspire to great days in Croke Park when the Banner Roar would once again be in full voice.
