Interviewer: I’m sitting talking to Tom O’Dea, Secretary of Claremorris Soccer Club and Tony Cosgrove, the founding member of the club. Gentlemen, you're very welcome to the programme, and thank you for giving me the time.

Tom: Thanks John

Tony: Thanks

Interviewer: I’ll come to you first Tony, how long is Claremorris Soccer club in operation?

Tony: We’re thirty years this year John, the club was founded in early 1985. A meeting was held in Hanley's Bar and I suppose just to go back a bit. I came here to Claremorris in 1984.

Interviewer: A young Garda?

Tony: Yes, that’s right and I played with about 3 or 4 soccer clubs in Erris, Balla, Shrule and they all went out of business so I said I’d set up a club that would last, it might have been my fault the the clubs went out of business I don’t know but in any case I decided that we’d set up a club. Lads would have been playing soccer here, so it wasn’t like it landed in off the moon.
A meeting was held in Hanley’s bar, and a committee was set up. I was secretary, Seamus McGrengra from Berncurl, a Donegal man, he was chairman and Jerry Prendergast who’s from, a local here was a treasurer. So that was the club that was set up and that was the start of the club.

Interviewer: So you're thirty years on the go?

Tony: Thirty years on the go this year, ya.

Interviewer: Very good, very good. Tell me was it difficult to get the club going?

Tony: It wasn’t. There was great enthusiasm in fairness despite the bad rumours that the GAA didn’t want us and all, there was always a great relationship with the GAA. And we got it up and running and got sponsorship, and our first shirt sponsors were Paul Hanley and Patsy Ring. And various businesses, you know Smyths and everything gave bits and pieces of sponsorships so ara no I must say there was great enthusiasm for it at the time.

Interviewer: And I suppose you mentioned the GAA because they would be seen as the biggest longest standing organisation in any community really?

Tony: Exactly, yes

Interviewer: Was there always an interest in sport though in Claremorris?

Tony: Ya, look at all the clubs that are here, it's one of the, blow in as I am, and yourself you can see the multitude of clubs and sport organisations that are here so it's fantastic town for sport.

Interviewer: And great for amenities. Take me through then Tony from 1985, how it's all developed?

Tony: Yes, well in ‘85 we were admitted to division 3 of the Mayo League and really we were too good for it and that's not being big headed about it but if we went all season unbeaten and won a League and Cup double, we were the invincibles before the Arsenal invincibles, but we went through that season unbeaten, won the league by about 12, 10 or 12 points. Only losing out we'll say the outside competition, the Connacht Cup and the FAI Junior Cup, which were our big competitions, and we were a fledgling club so we had a great season and then we went up, then next year we went up to the next division and you know we had success, we came up and the club eventually came up to the top divisions, the super league. Great success  at underage in the early years as well with a very good under 18 team and in 1988 some great players on it and they all progressed to the first team and they would have won at the under 18's, beaten the likes of, of we'll say legendary teams with historic records, Westport and Castlebar Celtic and that under 18 team were fantastic and won a League and Cup double at that age so yes and the club has progressed up to where it is today and it got stronger, though we did have a few rocky days there's no point in saying otherwise but it is on good footing at the moment. 

Interviewer: OK, I come to you Tom, we'll give you a break there Tony. How is soccer structured within the country, could you tell us?

Tom: Yes, the FAI obviously the Irish team.

Tony: The FAI is at the top, and then you have the Connacht Football Association and then each individual county has their own associations, so we would be affiliated with to the Mayo League and within the Mayo League, you have two sections, you've got the Junior section which caters for the senior players in the over 18 players in clubs, and then you've got the Mayo schoolboys and school girls in youth league, which is from under 18 downwards.

Interviewer: OK, and within Mayo you mentioning you've two divisions, what sort of, tell me the number of clubs first of all in Mayo?

Tom: There would be somewhere in the region of, I would imagine of around 25 - 26 clubs in Mayo. Now in the recent past some of these clubs have been struggling, possibly due to the economic downturn, immigration of players particularly at Junior level, and struggling to put out teams likewise even at under age level, 1 or 2 smaller clubs have gone out of business, because they just don't have the numbers to field teams. But overall you've got plenty of competition and plenty of clubs there for the under age players to compete with. 

Interviewer: Talking of under age Tom, how is it structured? Is it just under 18's or are there other age groups?

Tom: No, there is a multitude of competitions, like here in Mayo, we're one of the only counties that actually plays summer soccer so our soccer starts in April and runs through maybe till October would be the season. Where most other counties they play winter soccer, when Tony and the lads founded the club it was winter soccer and you're playing on dirty wet pitches but thankfully the quality of pitches have improved over the years but it was decided that Mayo would go to summer soccer. Now that way various grades literally we have competitive league from under 12 upwards so under 12, 13's, 14's,15's, 16's, 17's and 18's. So what happens to the structure there is that the odd numbers would start in April, so your starting off with your 13's, 15's, 17's and we would normally have maybe two teams competing at boys level, in both of them so we'd have a first team squad and a second team squad. And then normally then around the middle of July, then you'll start the even numbers, so you'll have the 12's, you'd have the 14's, the 16's and the 18's and the girls will kick off as well. You know there's plenty of plenty of competition.

Interviewer: Ya, youngsters love competition.

Tom: Ya, well they like, they like competition but I suppose we encourage them to just to play, it's not all about winning or anything like that, within the club, that would be the philosophy we have, we just want to get as many children as possible playing soccer and within the club here, we'd have a very very large under age academy, so once the children turn 6 years of age, we have them here every Sunday morning, out training and learning their skills, developing their skills and they move on up then to play in pitches at age, from under 12 onwards.

Interviewer: Now you mentioned having the training here on a Sunday morning, how are you fixed for volunteers and how are you fixed for help?

Tony: That's probably the biggest problem in the club and I'm sure with a lot of clubs, getting volunteers. It's the same people unfortunately that have been doing the work for the last number of years, with 1 or 2 new people coming in but we really need more parents and more people to help out. And it's only a couple of hours a week, but your helping the children, you know your keeping the children busy , they're not out playing on the Xbox or roaming around the streets. They're meeting their friends and they're getting to know more and more people, so volunteers we have loads of room for more volunteers out there.

Interviewer: But how difficult is it at the moment?

Tom: It is literally, that you're asking parents will they help along and if you can get them involved when they come down with their 6 year old son or daughter, and get them started in the Sunday morning. Some of them parents are going to be there anyways so we encourage them to help out. Some of them may say they don't know an awful amount about soccer and that could be said about the likes of myself too and a number of others but it's just a matter of supervising the children, giving them and showing them how to do a few drills and then progressively bringing them up along, because you will find that some parents when they get started with the children at 6 or 7, the same children are still playing at 16 and 17 years of age.

Interviewer: OK. The other thing Tom I suppose that is there at the moment, how do you cope with child protection then with parents coming in?

Tom: Well we have a child protection officer Louise Murphy in the club and every new coach has got to be Garda vetted, so they get the Garda vetting form and that has to be sent off and completed and literally we just have to keep, monitor and keep an eye on things and see what's happening, but there is a policy there within the FAI. 

Interviewer: OK, and you'd aid with that within the club?

Tom: Within the club, we'd have our, every club has to have their child protection officer. All the members, everybody involved, any of the coaches have to undergo a training course as well with the FAI to be accredited. So our last workshop we had it last October here in Claremorris we had enough people to gather in so from time to time we will advertise when we will hold a child protection workshop and that'll actually be ran by the FAI, Paul Byrne the local development officer will run the course and everybody will get a certificate to say that they have attended the workshop afterwards.

Interviewer: Tom, what does it cost to be a member and to be a player?

Tom: OK, well the registration fee for every child is €80 and then if we have more than 2 children it's €150 per family after that.

Interviewer: OK.

Tom: But for that then they would get regular coaching, matches well looked after in that respect there because it does cost the club quite a lot of money to actually run the whole organisation. So that's the fee and we've kept that fee, since I've became involved in the last 4 or 5 years, we've kept it at that, you know we've remained at that particular price.

Interviewer: OK. And what about away games, how do you manage? 

Tom: For away games I suppose again like a lot of clubs over the last couple of years, we would have some financial difficulties and it was all very good 5 - 6 years ago when money was plentiful and we used to use a lot of buses to bring children to matches so eventually when we look at the finances there a couple of years ago, I just became involved myself with a few other new people and we had to literally get a lid on what was going on so we decided to eradicate buses if we didn't need them for long journeys and only for long journeys so for example if we were going to Bangor maybe down to Erris or Ballina we would provide buses then but provided buses to go to Manulla or Castlebar because what you would always find is that the parents would travel anyways to watch their son or daughter playing, so we just carpool. And that has been a big money saver for the club in the last couple of years, we've got a lid on the expenses so if we need buses we'll get them but predominantly we carpool because again we're maybe bringing 15 or 16 players, 4 or 5 cars will go and you'll have 4 or 5 parents will go.

Interviewer: The only difficulty with that Tom though is if a parent brings a kid and they don't get to play.

Tom: Well that's it too, I suppose. Don't talk to me about that, but again I suppose that's one of the reasons why we're probably fortunate that we can run 2 squads, we'd have a fairly competitive A squad and then we'd have a as I call it the social squad, the B squad. And again I think I would always encourage that we get every player on the pitch as often as possible and in fairness with the Mayo League, they will allow players to roll on and roll off and what that means once you're both managers and the referee are happy enough with it, you can put on a player for 10 - 15 mins take them off, put them back on again so they'll all try and get as much football as possible but you do, you have to try and appease the parents. 

Interviewer:  So for your €80 Tom, that's it?

Tom: That's it, you know. That's it, ya.

Interviewer: Everything is in for that?

Tom: Everything is in for that, ya. 

Interviewer: Tony, come back, take me back now. The development of the club, we're sitting here in a new dressing room, new pitch facilities. 

Tony: Yes.

Interviewer: How did all of that come about? 

Tony: Well the one thing, I should have said it at the start. When we started all the committee were players apart from say Seamus McGwenra which I always said we needed to get people, you know that weren't playing involved and that's in play now, that you have your committee of the field that are not playing because it's hard enough trying to play but then trying to organise finances and that type of thing but over the years you know there was very good people involved that as I said as a referee I had to sever my ties with the club when I started refereeing many years ago. But a lot of good people came in then, you know and raised funds and got sponsorship and got this clubhouse here up and running and the pitch as it is, and also the second pitch up near the mushrooms there and the AstroTurf. You know there was a lot of good work, there's no point in naming anybody because I'll surely leave somebody out but you know that all developed and a very good committee and even the AstroTurf was opened up there by the FAI president, John Delaney some years ago so you know that there was a lot of good work done by a lot of people.

Interviewer: So the facilities you have at the moment, the first pitch here, the first team pitch we'll call it.

Tony: That's it. 

Interviewer: You have your dressing rooms, showers facilities, changing rooms.

Tony: And.

Interviewer: Then you have the AstroTurf

Tony: The AstroTurf and then a second pitch was developed up there now it's not, it hasn't been fully finished yet but it's you know it's great to have it there to have that bit of ground given to us or given to the club by the trustees.

Interviewer: Yeah, that was, that was great. Your part of a great facility here, that you have, you have the rugby pitch is coming, you have two GAA pitches, you have your training pitch, you have your AstroTurf and you have an athletic track close by.

Tony: You have and indeed just to go back to this pitch here. I went to the late Paddy Smith's when we set up the club in 85, and I asked him for, I know there was ground here now this pitch out here was at a big slant towards the road at that stage, it was as Tom said earlier the winter soccer was really muddy and all that. But there was very very accommodating,  very good to us and gave us that, we got this pitch here for a nominal fee, a shilling a year was the, was the fee. We also play at in Ballindine in the Davitt's training pitch, we played there for a while so you can see there was no animosity towards soccer and gaelic, they didn't mind and we also played out in Barnacarrol in a farmer's field, Paddy Donnell's field and local wit nicknamed it Duck House Park.

Interviewer: Describe it, that was, was that for the players or the pitch?

Tony: Yeah.

Tom: Think there might be ducks on it during the week, we'd play on it on a Sunday.

Interviewer: I thought he was describing the players.

Tom: Maybe.

Tony: Yeah, maybe.

Interviewer: If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.

Tony: So we moved around a bit and developed this pitch, it took a bit of work to develop this pitch and we got, the mushrooms I saw an opening and I think when the mushrooms were here, you were probably involved John?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Tony: At that stage, I saw an opening for the soil of the mushrooms and we commandeered that for the pitch out here so ara look a lot, thirty years is a long time

Interviewer: Tis a long time.

Tony: A lot of things have happened.

Interviewer: Go back on those thirty years Tony. What was your best and greatest achievement would you say?  Well the club's greatest achievement?

Tony: That's a tough one. I suppose I find it very hard to forget that the under 18's squad of 1988. They were outstanding, and as I said we got really bad press from some of the papers that we were able to beat the likes of Castlebar Celtic and Westport out in, we played out in Ballindine. I remember winning the league and one particular journalist rubbished the club and rubbished the pitch and everything. That was a fantastic achievement, some years ago, not that long ago, the first team almost won the super league, which would have been a great achievement. I suppose in recent years our greatest achievement was our under 18's winning Connacht Cup last year for the first time ever and they won all the Mayo Trophies as well, under 18. I suppose you know to win a Connacht Cup up against the likes of Mervue's and Salthill.

Interviewer: All the city clubs.

Tony: All these big clubs, that might have two or three hundred per each under age teams, I think that probably was the, it's a tough question overall but I like to think that the existence of the club that it has lasted the through bad times and good times.

Interviewer: Every volunteer organisations, every club I talk to has the same, same issues, the very same problems.

Tony: They have.

Interviewer: You know. Where Tony you set up the club, where do you see it's future? How so you see it going?

Tony: Well I suppose you know just to, try and push on with, your really, your yardstick is the Super League, you know, to win the Super League and to stay in the top division. Really that's what every club should be aiming for, now the under age structure has to be in place because in the early days we didn't have a under age structure until maybe three or four years in and that's your future so I would hope that they will continue, they a good under age structure here, hope they continue with that policy and bring players through and you know, maybe some day down the line be good enough to win the Super League and compete with the likes of Westport and Ballina and Castlebar Celtic and be at the top table.

Interviewer: Would you not look further than that Tony, maybe some players move on to play for larger clubs and play for the Republic of Ireland some day?

Tony: Oh, indeed of course we would and it would be great. I don't think we have any, anybody who's played for Ireland, I'm not sure offhand but oh ya of course that would be the pinnacle. If you got someone to play on the full Irish international, it would be, it would be something but ya hopefully.

Interviewer: Hopefully. Tom, what about, what about I've asked Tony about the future and where do you see the biggest, your biggest challenge as secretary?

Tom: Well just before I go on to that, I think the point the Tony mentioned there in terms of one of the greatest achievement of the club was that under 18 team that won the three cups in 2014, the Connacht Cup beating Salthill Devon in the final on penalties and winning the Helen Johnston Cup and the Quigley Cup. And that particular group of lads, they were a group of lads that nearly played together from under 11, under 12 upwards and they never won anything, but they stuck together and they kept together as a tight squad and eventually perseverance paid off, so it just shows that you mightn't be brilliant when you're 12 or 13 but it could come good for you later in life, later on. So that's, just to mention that and they did win a Western People Merit Award as well as a team so it was a fantastic achievement for the club. But sorry John, going on as the challenge that myself as secretary in the club in the future, I suppose as Tony mentioned we have to develop the club a bit further. Tony mentioned we have great facilities, we have two pitches up there in the back, the training pitch that we use and we have another pitch there that needs some more investment and the AstroTurf. So I suppose the challenges to get the facilities finished there, we would hope at some stage, we'd be in the position to build dressing rooms up there and maybe we would go in with co with some of the other clubs that have facilities there as well, we're very open to that. And working with other clubs and organisations to develop the facilities so that's one of the biggest, is the big challenge and of course the other challenge is getting more people involved, you know getting more people involved to help out because you'll find that, you've got people that are there, officers of the clubs, even though they are not playing anymore but maybe coaching teams, you may be out doing fundraising and the amount of hours that it takes every week that your putting into yourself, it does take time so if we can get more people involved, a couple of hours a week, getting more people out, getting more people involved, is a big challenge John.

Interviewer: OK, you mentioned having shared facilities you're open to that, there was work done on that some years ago, some years passed?

Tom: There was a few years ago, the GAA club and the rugby club and the soccer club got together and some great people involved, I wasn't involved in the project but a proposal was put together and an application was made for lottery funding. Unfortunately we weren't successful, not the rugby club are in the process of developing their pitches up there and certainly if any of the other organisations come back to us and we will  be talking with them, we have no problem working with them and pulling money together because it would make sense to have one decent clubhouse there, you've got three teams involved in field sports, you've got the rugby that play maybe a winter season, you've got the GAA and soccer that have a summer winter season as well and if we have good facilities and look after them together, I think it'll be much easier to build something right, one right facility and everyone use them and look after them.

Interviewer: What about, what about, tell me about the effect the lack of employment or has on holding on to players.

Tom: That has been a problem I suppose, a number of years ago as Tony mentioned there the club went very close to winning the Super League, very very unfortunate that they didn't win it and that would have been the pinnacle of achievements for the club and around that time then we had a number of lads maybe that began to emigrate. And there was no jobs being created locally for them, so we actually got demoted then from the Super League. We used to run two teams at senior level there as well, we'd a reserve squad and we'll have the first team ans we weren't able to field reserve squad because we just didn't have enough players locally. We would have had a lot of lads that would have been involved in the construction industry working locally, these were all guys that played their football at the weekends, it was a social thing for them as well so when there was no jobs the guys were gone so we ran into difficulty there and then even with the first team squad we've been dependent very much on the younger players, which is great for the development of the club and that under 18 team, a lot of the guys are beginning to come through now to play, but I suppose the danger there now if some of them are going to be going off to college and as long as they are coming back, so again if there's no major employment locally it does have a problem keeping players together.

Interviewer: Yeah, I think that is an effect, as you said earlier that is affecting every club in the county and in the country probably.

Tom: It is, it is ya. You know we have a couple of guys that you know they working in Galway which is great and they're coming down for training during the week, no problem at all like but certainly any further than Galway would be, would be difficult. 

Interviewer: OK. Tony, can I just, the thing that's bothering me, you referee a lot around the county?

Tony: Yeah.

Interviewer: Do you see a difference with towns, the reaction of town clubs and rural clubs, real rural clubs?

Tony: Yeah, I do there's a big difference really, the town guys will challenge a lot more and whereas the rural guys are they're more manageable shall we say but ah yeah, just it is a thing, I think it's in every sport, you see it in Gaelic and you see it in, I mean, you know you see it in other sports as well but there's more of a comradery with the country teams, you see it in the Gaelic teams, who's won all the county titles over the years and it's country teams like Ballintubber, Garymore, Knockmore and all those,  you know the rare town like Ballina and Castlebar win it now and again but I don't know there's just something, there's more of a togetherness with and I wouldn't really class Claremorris as a town as such well it is a town but as a town team it's more, it's more in between country and rather than your bigger towns like Ballina and Castlebar and Westport, they are certainly challenging for referees.

Interviewer: OK, Tom just finally we're sitting here, this has been named Concannon Park, CBE are good sponsors here?

Tony: Yes, CBE are good sponsors to us there, Jerry Concannon and the business have been very good to us over the years and that's why it was called Concannon Park and it's good to have them there. You know good to have them there. 

Interviewer: Where, I asked you about the future, what about, what about players then moving up, you hope to get players to move on.

Tony: Ya, I think, the point there in terms of you know the town and the rural, I suppose we're a club here in Claremorris, we're called Claremorris Soccer Club but yet we would have guys who play football with Holymount, Carnmore, you'd have guys from Davitt's, you'd have guys from Garrymore, Mayo Gales even the odd lad from Aughermore and Eastern Gales. So even though we would have say five or six GAA clubs around us, a lot of them guys come in here to play as well and one of the things actually we found with parents who are bringing in the small 6 and 7 year olds and 8 year olds, they want to get their kids integrated, to know other kids in the town area. So when they go to St. Colman's College, they're not coming in from small rural school with maybe four or five lads because they could be put into a class of no one from their own school, that they get to know these kids and that actually we found, parents have said that to me that they want them to get to know the wider circle of young lads and young girls. So that would be the good integration there as well. 

Interviewer: Yeah, I should have asked you one of the things, you've named it there, your feeder areas, who are your opposition, who are your nearest clubs now, who are you competing against?

Tony: Well I suppose,  yeah the nearest clubs would be Knock, Kiltimagh, we have a very good relationship with Knock Kiltimagh, you know we would organise an awful lot of friendly matches pre season with the the club down there and they would be the nearest club to us. We also then would have say Manulla, who would be on the way to Castlebar and then you have Ballyglass as well now I suppose Ballyglass in fairness to them are doing very well in the Super League this year, very good club and their under age structure wouldn't be as big as ours and we'd probably have a few schools, country schools where some lads might go play with Ballyglass and some might come and play with Claremorris but overall they would be the main clubs around us there at the moment.

Interviewer: OK. What about, what about there was one question on my mind now. Anything else you want to say now before we finish?

Tony: In terms of finance with the club in the last couple of years would have been difficult I mentioned earlier on about expenses and buses and that. And in the last number of years to run events would have been difficult that you could actually turn money on, we were using the, the FAI ran a club development tickets there for a number of years, where might be, each ticket that was sold for €10 the club got about €8.50 out of it there so that for a few years raised some funds on that. We have some good sponsors, as you mentioned as well and you know a couple of them that don't want any credit, you know they are just anonymous people in the community but that gives us some funds. But recently we launched a 50/50 draw, for the soccer club and this has become very popular in a lot of clubs and organisations around the county and the principle behind that is that whatever money you gather in, so say for example you gather in €1000 of a week, you give 500 of that back out, you give 500, 50% of it out again and the big thing that we found, we have going about 12 weeks and it's been great, you know it's been fantastic for the club, a great source of revenue.  And the big thing, the reaction we're getting from people is that, there's a winner every week and it's normally a local winner, you know, there for example, there was two neighbouring pubs in town that one week one person won it in that pub, the next week the person won it in the next pub there, you know there was a couple of great nights in the pubs when they got the cheque but everyone it's a local winner, so that's 50/50 draw is going and how we sell tickets through a lot of outlets in town and then every Saturday night we get a maybe four or five lads go out and try and sell a few tickets around the pubs, and then have our draw in a pub as well. So that's been a good source of finance there for us, so the finances are improving, we have some projects we want to spend some money on around the clubhouse here, tidy up a few of the facilities and look to develop the new pitch up above us as well so we have projects to spend that money on. 

Interviewer: You, yeah, we mentioned this earlier but just your vision then is to finish off everything?

Tony: That's our vision yeah, you know get, tidy up around the main pitch here as we call it currently, it would be great, then we'd tidy up the new pitch at the back there and then I suppose ultimately it would be great to build a clubhouse facilities, dressing rooms, meeting rooms, kitchen facilities up where the rugby club is, where the soccer club and where the GAA club and that would be, that would really tidy up and finish off that whole area for all the clubs involved because no club has a dressing room up there and yet the GAA have a couple of nice pitches up there, the rugby club will have fine facilities there as well. So that ultimately the three clubs should work together to ultimately put fantastic facilities there and rubber stamp the amenities here in Claremorris. 

Interviewer: I forgot to ask you earlier on Tom, just talk to me about ladies soccer, how you're looking after that.

Tom: Ladies soccer is a difficult one here in Claremorris. A number of years ago, we had a lot of girls playing, we had under 12's, under 14's and under 16's teams but unfortunately this year we've had difficulty with under age. We have an under 12's team, the under 12's team play seven aside and we have an under 16's team and they play full eleven aside, we weren't able to field an under 14 team and a lot of it is down to volunteers, that we do not have enough people to look after the girls, look after the team. Last year we had a parent involved in looking after the under 14's team who unfortunately couldn't do it this year. The under 16 team I'm involved looking after that myself my own daughter plays in that particular team but I can just see next year, possible having a difficulty fielding a team there so again the ladies soccer unfortunately is one area where we're having difficulties with. 

Interviewer: Because there is a lot of emphasis on Ladies, you have Ladies rugby, you know a lot of, well also have tag rugby as well.

Tom: You have tag rugby as well and then you have you know, the Ladies GAA a lot of girls play GAA there as well now the same girls could complement playing soccer as well but it's just a difficult one for girls there at the moment but it would be, it's great to see the small kids, like we have them there on a Sunday morning, the 6 and 7 year olds and they're very enthusiastic right up to the 9 and 10 year olds playing under 12. But we're having a difficulty after that, so that is one area that we would nearly need to have, I don't know how we are going solve that problem, we'd have to have someone that would come in and just take total responsibility for the development of that again or else unfortunately I could see us maybe fading out of Ladies soccer.

Interviewer: OK, finally Tony, my last thing to you, is, you're one of the longest serving members of the club, you're a long time here, what. Are you glad you did what you did?  

Tony: Ay, I am.

Interviewer:  All the time?

Tony: All the time. Ya, I would, I'd be proud of, that I kicked started it unfortunately I'm as you say not a member of the club now but that might, the future I could come back into the fold when I hang up the whistle. Yeah, it's something that I would feel proud of, you know I came into this town and you know people were very welcoming and very open and like to feel that you maybe gave something back and it's great to see it here and I always anytime there's a match when I'm passing I always have to shove my head in and see who's here so yeah it's something. Something to give me a bit of proud.

Interviewer: Good man, Tony Cosgrove founding member of Claremorris GAA Club and Tom O'Dea current secretary. Many thanks. 

Tony: Thanks John 

Tom: Thanks John