Exactly.
What he has done below in Wexford has been nothing short of phenomenal. Sixmilebridge too.
Yer man Tighe was blowing up his piece all over Twitter there yesterday and there nothing of note in it
They won three county titles in the five years before Davy took over and got to a Munster club final. They are a very solid no frills outfit under Davy but they were a good team under Meehan before him, phenomenal is a big stretch.
Clare club hurling would have been stronger in those years too. Cratloe, Newmarket, crusheen, Clonlara and Ballyea were all to the fore then but age and emigration caught up to them.
In the countryside east of Ennis on the road to Tulla, the Clare GAA Centre of Excellence sits on 68 acres of land in the townland of Caherlohan, purchased in 2005 for ā¬2.3 million. It was billed back then as a tribute to Clareās ambition, a bold step forward in pursuit of their competitors. Ten years later the complex was finally opened, unfinished but useable. In his 2015 annual report county secretary Pat Fitzgerald captured a moment of triumph for the board. āIt is a facility that can stand up with the best,ā he wrote.
Fitzgerald outlined the contents and the cost. Planning had been granted for a clubhouse with six dressing rooms, a dining room and kitchen, public toilets, a refereeās room, a medical room, office space and a gym. The outdoor facilities would consist of seven pitches with floodlighting for four pitches, one all-weather pitch, a covered terrace, low-level perimeter fencing for one pitch, a hill sprint area, boundary fencing and associated site works.
In 2015 Fitzgerald said four pitches and ducting for future floodlighting had been completed at a cost of ā¬650,000. Phase Two, the clubhouse building with four dressing rooms, corridor and the remaining rooms āshell and core,ā a partially completed road and car park with floodlighting for two pitches had cost ā¬1.2m. Phase Three incorporated behind goal netting and goalposts for four pitches, fencing and an entrance gate, totalling ā¬210,000. The rest of the work was incomplete, pending further finances. The bill for those works, including site purchase, was ā¬4.36m. āWhile the project has required substantial investment,ā he wrote, āthe facility will be a monument to be proud of going forward.ā
Instead Caherlohan has become for many a cause of deep disillusionment. Responding to questions in 2019, county treasurer Michael Gallagher put the cost of Caherlohan at ā¬4.8m. In reference to issues raised in January 2018 about the state of the pitches, Fitzgerald himself described problems at the venue as an embarrassment.
The outcome has fallen far short of the complex outlined in 2015. The current complex consists of five pitches, not seven, with floodlighting installed for two pitches, not four. The gym is considered big enough to accommodate 20 people at a squeeze. Photographs taken in December 2020 show second-hand kitchen units installed last autumn in an unpainted, clearly unfinished room. Others show orange ice baths in dire need of cleaning and cardboard boxes of blinds and flooring dating back to 2013 stacked up in the dining room that now doubles as a meeting room. More flooring is stacked in a corridor.
There is no medical room. No defibrillator had been installed by the end of last year. There are no public toilets and the car park outside remains unfinished. The pungent smell from the water was so strong that some players over the years have preferred to shower at home.
The hill sprint area and a hurling alley included in the plans have never been built. Neither has the synthetic pitch, obliging Clare teams down the years to spend more money renting facilities for training at UL. In an interview last December Fitzgerald told the Clare Echo that the ā¬1.3m cost of adding a synthetic pitch was āprohibitive.ā
Fitzgerald described problems at the venue as an embarrassment
Fitzgerald described problems at the venue as an embarrassment
Before returning to training for last yearās championship, the Clare hurling management had requested a deep clean of the facility but still found the complex in a poor state. In the end, they cleaned the dressing room toilets and other areas themselves. A recreation room is plastered with pictures from Clareās 2013 All-Ireland victory, with no reference to their wins in the 1990s, and is rarely used. At the end of 16 yearsā investment, with so much left to do and much of the existing work falling into disrepair, Fitzgerald last year put the price of making Caherlohan useable all year round between ā¬150,000 and ā¬500,000.
Despite a ā¬1.8m development grant from Croke Park approved in 2010 followed by ā¬500,000 from the Munster Council in 2015 ā initially leaving a ā¬1.2m shortfall for Clare to bridge ā funding the work at Caherlohan caused problems from the beginning. In 2013 Fitzgerald implored clubs in his annual report to ābe aware if there isnāt substantial investment in Caherlohan they (sic) facility, which is urgently required, will remain a work in progress and remain closed.ā
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He issued the same plea in the 2014 report, while adding the project remained ādebt freeā. āI suppose there are always teething problems of some description,ā he wrote in 2019, referring to the ongoing problems with the facility, ābut the investment of ā¬4.56m in the Centre of Excellence. . . including land purchase, has been well spentā.
The teething problems never eased off. In 2016 ā¬43,380 raised by the Clare Supportersā Club paid for badly needed gym equipment but within a few years the gym itself was in such disrepair the hurlers decided to paint the room themselves, working in four-hour shifts to complete the job.
Although the county footballers use Caherlohan regularly, the pitches have been deemed unsuitable for hurling over the years. In 2019, one Clare hurler was badly injured as a result of the poor playing surface. When Clare returned to training last year, the pitch was described as āa meadow,ā sending the team on a tour of club grounds for the winter. In his 2020 report, Fitzgerald said problems had been caused by āthe grass clippings having not been collected over a two-to-three-year period when the pitches were not in useā.
A report on Clare underage hurling in 2019 highlighted questions raised by team mentors over Caherlohanās suitability āas a venue to host blitz games. This was raised on the basis that two of the goalposts were damaged all year and from a spectatorās point of view, there are no toilet facilities outside of those in the dressing rooms and the water is not suitable for consumption due to an ongoing smellā. In the same year, as part of a statement criticising the treatment by the board of outgoing hurling managers Donal Moloney and Gerry OāConnor, the players also asked for more investment in Caherlohan.
Instead of offering a foundation for Clareās biggest ambitions Caherlohan has become a source of extreme antagonism, from the county hurlers exiled to the road by the poor facilities to ongoing questions over the return on the money invested in developing the site, to scepticism over the committee formed this year to examine the problems. āSome of these people have been involved in the past and got nowhere,ā Kilmaley delegate Niall Romer said at last monthās county board meeting. āIn 2011 we said we would have seven grass pitches and an alley. That never happened.ā
What clubs need now is clarity. With the atmosphere still tense in Clare following the setting up of a new independent strategic review committee, due to be ratified at tomorrow nightās county board meeting, unravelling the answers they seek will take time, too. It was confirmed last week that former Davy chief executive Tony Garry had stepped away from Clareās new independent strategic review committee before last weekend having been identified among 16 employees who profited in 2014 from the sale of Anglo-Irish bank bonds. RĆ³isĆn Glynn was added to the committee along with county vice-chairman Kieran Keating. An extra member, Enda OāFlaherty, is expected to be included tomorrow night.
When their work eventually begins, the pitiful state of Caherlohan will be among their key items of interest. At last monthās meeting Fitzgerald told delegates work on Caherlohan would finally be concluded in 2022. Itās not the first deadline for the project. It needs to be the last
What a shit show, thank god Iām from Limerick.
Correct. You are all cunts.
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Best not to talk about your betters until permission is givenā¦ thatās usually how it works
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Whatās he done in Wexford exactly? Beaten KK and nobody else of note in the championship. The semi final implosion against man down Tipp was embarrassing. He threw the players under the bus after then.
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Lookit, I canāt counter or agree with the above but unless people are willing to back up accusations & rumours Iām surprised you are even inclined to be posting that.
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Again Iām not privy to panellist chat as regards training regimes but is this yet again another cliche trotted out about Davy over training his panels?
Last year was a funny year and only Limerick kept an even trajectory throughout it all.
Waterford in fairness bounced but that was down to the Cahill/Bevans effect.
All the other main players flattered to achieve so blaming Davy directly is a tad ott imo.
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No. I dont think its a cliche. Infact Id say its an understatement. He loves running the shit of lads.
They wouldnāt have been next nor near an All Ireland Semi Final without him.
They were probably the 4th best team in Leinster when he took over so to win a Leinster Final and put in such a performance for 60 minutes in the Semi final was fair going. It was far from embarrassing.
The hurling they played in the first half against Tipp was magnificent stuff. Shaun Murphy and Dee OāKeefe and these fellas popping up in all sorts of positions was like watching a different sport.
Was 7 pitches a bit ott in Caherlohan anyway? Surely 4 be plenty?
Last year was only a cod of an Inter county championship.
While this is obviously Pat Fitzās shitshow, everyone involved in Clare GAA should be ashamed of themselves at this. A bad junior club would have a better set up
Agreed.
But again the Clubs should be evenly taking the heat here on this.
Weāre lucky to have such a centre of excellence in Mick Neville Park.
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I mentioned it here before, I know someone who was involved in Clare development squads and the senior set up recently. The kind of fella you would want involved with your development squads, good coach and a level headed operator. He opted out and took over an underage team with his own club last year which is a small enough rural club and he maintained he had way more resources and far less hoops to jump through with the club than dealing with pat.
When the county underage set ups canāt compete with a small rural club in terms of resources it says it all. The clubs have to take plenty of blame but this is the man inevitable consequence of having someone in a leadership position for 30+ years.
If I was a Clare man walking into that place Iād be ashamed of my county and myself if I didnāt make some effort to sort it. By the looks of it from the outside the Clubs have let it fall to shite around them.
I understand entirely this all comes back to Fitzgerald but fucking hell, to let it come to this. Talent and resources in ruins. Iām angry and Iām not even from Clare.
Counties can be hard to sort because most of the good people in the county would rather put their time into their own clubs which is understandable
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Itās easier to whinge from the terraces, stands and counters as per normal.
It takes courage like the lad from Eire Og to sort this shit show out and now with the public media humiliation itās going to be interesting to see if Club Clare give an actual fuck.