Offaly hurling legend captained St Rynagh's to last Offaly Minor Football Championship title

CLOGHAN will be aiming to bring the fifth Minor Football Championship title to the parish when they take on Tullamore in Sunday's eagerly awaited final in O'Connor Park.

Three of them were won as Cloghan, way back in the early days of underage football in the county, 1931, 1940 and 1941 while St Rynagh's won titles in 1961 and 1968.

St Rynagh's was only formed in 1961 with Banagher and Cloghan joining forces under the one umbrella – they formed two separate but very linked clubs with football based in Cloghan, hurling in Banagher. Prior to that, the GAA had been very scattered in the parish and in the twenty years prior to the amalgamation of sorts, there had also been clubs in existence in Shannonharbour and Ballivor as well as one called Shannon Rovers.

It may surprise people to learn now that Banagher was primarily a football club in its early years and won a Senior Football Championship in 1910 – Cloghan won that grade in 1903 and 1945.

The Cloghan name holds a very cherished place and for an older generation, it carried a real notoriety. They were highly respected and provided some great Offaly footballers, including a 1960s hero, Greg Hughes while they were also feared and not all of this was for the right reasons.

Back in the 1930s and 1940s, an era when violence was not unusual in the Offaly hurling and football club scene, they were central figures in some famously fractious games and brawls. Newspaper reports from the time paint vivid pictures of what occurred and while it takes two to tangle, there is no doubt that Cloghan were the instigators and architects of a good percentage of these.

They were hit with heavy suspensions and it reached a climax in the 1940s when Cloghan members ended up in court. In 1940, six Cloghan junior footballers were charged and fined for a breach of the peace, relating to assault on four Wheery players in some fairly ferocious scenes during a junior football tournament final of all things.

An even more severe reprimand was imposed in 1947 when two Cloghan players were jailed and a supporter fined for an assault on the referee after they were beaten by St Mary's (Cloneygowan and Geashill) in the Senior Football Championship final.

The surnames of most of the people involved in those cases remain very common in the wider Cloghan area and they come from some of their most popular families.

After 1947, there were other incidents – a couple of them were part of folklore in the county for years - but they subsided both in their frequency and severity as the years went on.

The formation of St Rynagh's changed the Offaly GAA world as they embarked on unprecedented dominance of the Senior Hurling Championship, ended the dominance of Coolderry and Drumcullen – two clubs who engaged in their own notorious rivalry for decades and have more than their share of hairy and unsavoury stories to relate – and played a very central role in Offaly's emergence as a power in the 1980s and 1990s: three of Offaly's four All-Ireland senior hurling final winning captains, Padraig Horan (1981), Martin Hanamy (1994) and Hubert Rigney (1998) come from the club.

Ironically football did suffer in the parish following the joining of forces. Cloghan had been beaten by St Patrick's (an amalgamation of St Mary's and Gracefield) in the 1959 Senior Football Championship final but St Rynagh's never reached one – and in recent decades, they have been outside the top flight for the most part, alternating between senior “B” and intermediate.

The future looked promising for St Rynagh's Football Club immediately after the amalgamation. They won the 1961 Minor Football Championship and reached the final in 1962 but that also had a very unsavoury end. A game against Kilcormac had been abandoned earlier in the campaign and the referee gave a damning indictment of what went on, apportioning the blame firmly on St Rynagh's. He outlined how he was threatened and grabbed by the shirt by supporters if he did not allow a St Rynagh's player he had sent off back onto the field, of St Rynagh's players using the boot liberally and not always aimed at the ball. He called the teams together at half time and asked them to take the advice of then Offaly minor football manager and 1971/1972 supremo, Fr Tom Gillooley and to “play football”, only to be told by one man that he was “no f****** good” either.

A number of St Rynagh's players and members were suspended while a man was ordered to write a letter of apology to the Tullamore curate. A replay was ordered and St Rynagh's went onto reach the final and it had a very messy end too.

Because of the delays with the Kilcormac game and possibly other reasons, the final against Daingean was only played on December 16. Daingean were leading by 3-5 to 1-6 with time nearly up when some of their supporters came onto the field to assist an injured player. They were followed by St Rynagh's supporters, one of whom gave the referee a belt on the head – the referee reported that another attempted to hit him.

He abandoned the game and St Rynagh's contested his version of events when it was dealt with. A replay was ordered but Daingean refused to play it, stating that any losing team could force a row and get a second chance if this happened. The County Board upheld the minor board ruling for a replay, Daingean stuck to their guns and it meant that the championship was never finished – Daingean liked to claim for years that they were the minor champions in 1962 but that of course, holds no water whatsoever.

St Rynagh's won their second Minor Football Championship in 1968 and the captain was one Padraig Horan. While he went onto become one of the greats of hurling, a brilliant leader and performer in the 1980s, he was also a very good footballer. He played minor and U-21 football for Offaly and was on the senior football panel for a while, coming on as a sub in a league draw with Kildare in 1971 – he possibly could have been on the All-Ireland senior football panel later that year but hurling was his true love and he concentrated on that.

We can be fairly certain that there will be no big rows in Sunday's minor football final, no referees assaulted, kicks intended to hurt players, or pitches invaded by supporters and that it will be a pure football game. It is also great to see the Cloghan name once again making their mark – backboned by players from St Rynagh's club, they have permission players from a few clubs in south Offaly, including exciting Ballyskenach twins, Rob and Fionn Carney.

Football has suffered in Cloghan in recent years. Numbers has been an issue and commitment to training has often been questioned at adult level. It remains, however, a very important area for Offaly football. They have provided a lot of Offaly footballers in the various grades and they have a cohort of truly passionate football people – men and women who really love the game and want it to prosper in the area and no matter what people may say about the presence of permission players in their ranks, it is great to see a team bearing the Cloghan name once again at this stage of one of the main football competitions.