Chairman Mick Sheridan's Football Comeback For Clara

ARTICLE COURTESY OF TULLAMORE TRIBUNE -WEDNESDAY 25TH JUNE 2008

Mick Sheridan (right) pictured with Mick Spain of Kilcormac/Killoughey. Veteran Clara GAA administrator, Mick Sheridan made an unexpected comeback when he came on at half time for his club in the Division 3 Football League against Kilcormac/Killoughey on Sunday last in Kilcormac.

Sheridan, a long serving chairman of Clara GAA Club, was forced into action for the second half as his club played with only fourteen players for the first half and they needed fifteen for the second half to proceed. Clara went on to win the game by six points.

Now an old aged pensioner, Sheridan was a talented footballer in his youth, winning Senior Football Championship medals for Clara in 1960 and 1964 while he also represented Offaly. In latter years, he has been well known as a very capable administrator. He has served Clara GAA Club in a variety of capacities throughout his life and has been chairman since 1989. His career at official level in Clara GAA Club spans five decades - the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and 2000s' and he has served in all positions including secretary and treasurer. He has also been a trainer and selector on various Clara teams - He was a selector on the SFC winning teams in 1991 and 1993 - and has also served as an Offaly senior football selector.

Sheridan was also a very capable referee for years, taking charge of games at all grades, including Senior Hurling and Football Championship finals. Sheridan was instrumental in the decision by Clara GAA Club to purchase the old Convent building and land in the town last year and they have ambitious plans for the development of this.

He has been particularly well known as an Offaly GAA County Board delegate where he has often been outspoken and controversial. He served as treasurer of the Offaly GAA County Board for eleven years but resigned in 1992 and was then beaten by Andy Gallagher in a vote when he went forward for election again at a subsequent meeting. Despite that, he has continued to serve the board in a variety of roles, often attending Congress and Leinster Convention as a delegate and acting on various sub committees. Last Sunday's game featured a great mixture of ages as the Kilcormac/Killoughey team featured eighteen year old Shane Melia and forty four year old, Seamus Spain but Sheridan topped the lot when he came on - He wore the number 22 jersey and his trousers and shoes.Whether Sheridan is the oldest man to appear on an Offaly GAA field is a matter of some conjecture but long standing legend has it that a Ballinagar man, Jimmy (The Ferryman) Scully played in a game while 72 years of age and Sheridan still has a few years to go to reach that milestone.

The little town of Clara

Composed by Joe Geoghegan, New Road Clara

There's a spot I'll always cherish, no matter where I roam; A little town in Offaly, my own dear native home, It's the site of an industry where hundreds are employed; That little town of Clara where the Brosna waters glide.

Its matchless gems of beauty are rarely to be seen, The ponds are pure as crystal and the hills are ever green, The old historic Abbey that stands in famed Kilbride, Near that little town of Clara where the Brosna waters glide.

The flowery dells of Erry hills that bedeck the Bawn And the colleens wearing sugar-bags in far-famed Clashawaun, Its there the twist and spin the twine, the best that is supplied, In that little town of Clara where the Brosna waters glide.

It's well I do remember my boyhood days at school, When the Franciscan Brothers, they taught me every rule, The past and present pupils can look on them with pride, In that little town of Clara where the Brosna waters glide

But scattered are that loyal clan of whom I did make one; Some fell in France and Flanders and o'er the maxin gun, And some are in America that land and sea divide, Far away from dear old Clara where the Brosna waters glide.

Oh may God protect her loyal sons though far across the main, And keep their sons and daughters from every blight and shame, And may their love of virtue be, their only pride and joy, In the little town of Clara where the Brosna waters glide.

Farewell to old companions that sailed across the main, Old comrades too, both loyal and true, I ne'er might see again, But my heart is in my native town, where once I did reside, In that little town of Clara where the Brosna waters glide