*Tom Meehan and Shane Meehan celebrate. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
WHEN it celebrates fifty years as a club next year, the Banner will line out in the top tier of Clare football for the very first time which dual-star Shane Meehan labelled as “really special”.
Changing of the underage structures in the town of Ennis and the disbanding of the juvenile urban board in 2012 is cited as a landmark moment in the history of the Banner. The huge strides made over the last fourteen years have seen the club become competitive in a host of underage grades which has led to securing titles at adult level, the most notable being the Clare intermediate football championship on Saturday.
Development of generational talents for the club has been a massive factor in the club’s rise, chief among those players is Shane Meehan who was the first player from the club to play senior hurling for Clare and also the first to win an All-Ireland SHC medal.
Lifting the Talty Stores Cup is symptomatic of their progress and they have a chance to wrap up a double if they can overcome Inagh/Kilnamona in Sunday’s Clare IHC final to win promotion to the premier intermediate hurling championship. “it is a rising tide for the Banner and hopefully it continues, we’ve the hurling next week so we’ll enjoy Saturday night and focus on that,” Meehan outlined.
Central to their success on the football field, Shane struck 0-3 in Saturday’s final while he got Banner over the line in their semi-final victory over Kilrush Shamrocks when kicking 0-4 in the final seven minutes including a two pointer to see them go from one down to winning by the smallest of margins.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Shane admitted it takes time to get his football game to the standard he aspires to, given he spends the year as part of the Clare senior hurling panel. “You can ask the lads about me for the first three rounds when I was missing shots, finally by the semi-final I got my eye in a small bit, it takes a little while but it is never that hard when you’re going back to play in Cusack Park, it is a special place to play”.
In Saturday’s final it also took time for the Banner to get in top, the concession of 1-1 before half-time prompted the Ennis side to come out firing in the second half where they kicked 1-4 in the first eight minutes. “You could see the nerves in the first half, we needed to get a couple of scores under our belt, finally we got them and we said at half time that our nerves were gone so we could go out and play. For the ten minutes after half time, we were really good”.
Special moments were captured at the final whistle with Shane fresh from celebrating the success while standing in for a photograph with his brother Darren who was part of the panel and his father Tom who was a selector and a pivotal figure in the club’s rise on the football scene. “It is amazing, it is people like my father and Darren who have put in the time over the years that we’re really happy to get the win for”.
Playing senior football is the best present they could ask for while celebrating fifty years. “People said to me about the fifty years and it didn’t really hit me until now, it is really special. We’ve been working so hard for this, the work done underage for teams like my own team and even younger again, finally we’re seeing the work come to fruition”.
Belief has always been in the Banner that they could reach this level, he said. “There’s lads here that played in Junior B finals, Junior C finals like Cian Rynne and Johnny Martyn, they played every grade all the way up and each time they have brought their level up to match the grade, we’ve always had really good players but now we have a mix of youth which has made the difference”.
