Football

Boss Tommy Coleman hoping there's more road ahead of Clann Eireann

Tommy Coleman was delighted to get another chance to manage his hometown club again
Tommy Coleman was delighted to get another chance to manage his hometown club again Tommy Coleman was delighted to get another chance to manage his hometown club again

TOMMY Coleman wants to make it clear. He is not the revolution. Sure, he’s played a role – just like so many others around the club – but Clann Eireann’s dramatic, fearless rise has been a collective effort.

After a wait of 58 years, Coleman helped guide Clann Eireann to the holy grail of Armagh football last month. They did it the hard way too.

In laying their hands on the Gerry Fagan Cup, Clann Eireann had to overcome Maghery, Ballymacnab and Crossmaglen Rangers.

As if winning the Armagh championship wasn’t enough, Coleman’s side produced a barnstorming display to see off Antrim champions Kickham’s Creggan in their first-ever Ulster Championship match earlier this month.

On Saturday night, the devil-may-care Lurgan men travel deeper into the provincial series to face Derrygonnelly in the semi-finals – an opponent that is familiar with the terrain having swept the boards in the Erne County six years out of the last seven.

The day before Clann Eireann travelled to Corrigan Park to face Creggan, Coleman and his backroom team watched Derrygonnelly dump Tyrone champions Dromore out of Ulster.

“Derrygonnelly are a very good side,” says Coleman.

“They’re well organised, strong, full of experience and they’re going to be a handful. They’ve a lot of experience in Ulster. We’ll have total and utter respect for them but we certainly won’t be fearing them.”

Coleman is not well known outside of his native county – but he’s a wily operator who’s been moulding teams close to 40 years.

“I was out walking my dog around Clann Eireann one night and a lad was coaching his daughter’s team and I shouted over to him: ‘What age are you now, Junior?’

“And he said: ‘Tommy, I’m 49.’ I remember coaching him when he was U10. So I worked it out: I’ve been coaching for 39 years at different levels.”

Over the last four decades Coleman, a caretaker at St Francis Primary School “on the other side of town”, has been around a few corners.

During his playing days, he was good enough to win county honours, the high point of which was making his Armagh debut in 1984 alongside Ger Houlihan and scoring a goal in an Ulster semi-final win over Monaghan.

Coleman played right half-forward in the ’84 Ulster final against Tyrone – a game that became known as the Frank McGuigan final.

By that stage, Armagh were still getting a tune out of a number of the ’77 crew, including Joe Kernan, Colm McKinstry, Brian McAlinden and Joey Donnelly – but once McGuigan began to fire at Clones that day, the game was up for the Orchard men.

Coleman was mesmerised by McGuigan’s 11 points from play.

“I remember looking at Frank McGuigan that day – because Frank at that stage was a bit older,” Coleman said.

“I saw players in better condition than Frank and I was scratching my head wondering what I’d just witnessed. He gave a display of football that I’ve never seen again.

“It was so good, so skilful. He was the best player I was ever on a field with.”

Coleman flitted in and out of the Armagh set-up before becoming Clann Eireann’s player/manager in the 90s.

“We were in the First Division for long periods and we got to a championship semi-final.”

“We were a very good side but we just hadn’t got that belief, that desire and work ethic to get over the line. I think there was enough talent within the squad. I remember one year we played Armagh Harps and they were nailed on favourites to win it and we beat them but the next week we went out and lost.”

He assisted the late Kieran McGurk as Clann Eireann claimed an intermediate title in 2002 but being a father to four girls, Coleman became heavily involved in the ladies’ game and enjoyed minor success with club and county.

He still lends a hand to the UUJ Ladies with Sean O'Kane.

He coached countless underage teams at Clann Eireann and in more recent times he enjoyed managerial spells with St Paul’s, Eire Og and Tullysaran.

“I really enjoyed those clubs, particularly Tullysaran because we’d just won the league that year. My intentions were to stay on at Tullysaran and maybe try and win an intermediate title with them but when your own club comes and knocks your door it’s a different story.

“I always said I’d love to finish off my managerial career at my own club. My first senior game for Clann Eireann was at 15 years of age and I played right through until I was 37. I was player/manager at the time. There was always that wee thing in me to go back and manage them.”

A few weeks after taking the reins, COVID swept through the country. All those best-laid plans were shelved.

When football finally resumed Armagh decided to finish out the league campaigns that had already started and after a few bumps on the road, Clann Eireann gained promotion out of Division 1B, finishing runners-up to Madden.

Promotion was perhaps the height of Coleman’s ambitions. They would enjoy having a crack at some of the county’s big guns in Division 1A, put a few more Clann Eireann players in the inter-county window before he envisaged handing the baton over to someone else to give the Gerry Fagan a proper crack.

It’s fair to say Clann Eireann are ahead of schedule under Coleman.

“It has been an unbelievable journey,” says Clann Eireann’s affable leader.

“It’s been a collective effort from the whole club. Winning the Armagh championship was down to everybody. It wasn’t down to just me or the management team.

“But it is something I’ll never forget ‘til the day I die, just the raw emotion of it. I broke down in tears after the county final [against Crossmaglen], and I wasn’t the only one, after such a long battle.

“At times I sit back and think: have we really done this? And now we’re on the path of Ulster.”

With TJ Kelly, Conor Turbitt, Barry McCambridge and Daniel Magee playing fearless football, Derrygonnelly will be mindful of the unlikely upstarts from Lurgan ahead of their Ulster semi-final at Kingspan Breffni Park on Saturday night.