Clare’s Oscar Traynor winning soccer team will be honoured by Clare County Council with a civic reception in the coming months.
Independent Cllr Gerry Flynn proposed the motion which received unanimous backing from the elected representatives of Clare at the July meeting of Clare County Council. Cllr PJ Ryan was one of those who seconded the motion and said the team were fully deserving of the honour.
Joe Cooney a Fine Gael Cllr and also Chairman of Clare GAA offered his support to the motion. He praised all clubs for the work in promoting the game of soccer and was very happy to see players from East Clare on the team. Cooney highlighted the facilities at Tulla United and the positive impact they have on villages in the County.
Newmarket-on-Fergus Cllr Pat McMahon gave an insight of the success to fellow members of the local authority by putting their achievement into context giving the recent domination of the competition by city teams and city leagues. McMahon expressed his personal pride at seeing so many members of the Newmarket Celtic club involved in the success.
“Clare is a fantastic sporting county” remarked Fine Gael Cllr John Crowe. He paid tribute to all involved for the trojan work they have done for promoting the game. His party colleague Mary Howard stated that there wasn’t a strong ethos of soccer in Clare and stressed the importance of acknowledging their success.
On May 8th this year Clare ended a twelve year wait for the Oscar Traynor Trophy as they blitzed the Leinster Senior League 5-2. David McCarthy stole the show for the Banner in that outing scoring four goals while his Newmarket Celtic clubmate Eoin Hayes also chipped in with a goal. Donie Garrihy was manager of the victorious team and was joined by Denis Hynes and David Russell on his management team.
Proposer of the motion Cllr Gerry Flynn told The Clare Herald he was honoured to put forward this particular proposition. “It’s fantastic, I’m from West Clare and I played soccer when the ban was there, I went training for the underage football in the local football field and then we went to a local area called The Crescent in Miltown Malbay and we played our soccer behind closed doors and I’m certainly honoured to be able to propose it with my colleagues this evening for a civic reception for the Oscar Traynor team and I think the soccer league in Clare has done phenomenal work”.
Flynn maintains that soccer is appreciated in Clare. “We love our soccer here in County Clare and I love playing it and I loved the inter-firms years ago when I was working in the industrial estate we had the inter-firms and they were fantastic, great battles with our neighbouring counties. Soccer is alive and well”.
The civic reception is expected to take place in September.