Top honour for Seamus, elected first Down Supporters Club President

Seamus has been a lifelong Down supporter and a fundraiser for the County for fifty years, long before there ever was a supporter’s club. When the Down Supporters Club was formed in the mid eighties Seamus had found his true home and served in many positions on the committee over the years, including Chairman. Many tributes were paid to Seamus on the night. Proceedings were coordinated by former County Chairman, John Devany who welcomed Seamus’ family and friends and the assembled guests. He said that Seamus McClean was the epitome of what the Supporters Club Officer should be. He spoke of Seamus, together with a few friends, travelling to away games since 1968 selling paper hats and rosettes which had been hand made in his garage over the winter months. P J Quinn, current Down Supporters Club Chairman, welcomed Seamus’ family and friends, County Chairperson, Maureen O’Higgins, MC for the night, John Devany, former Supporters Club administrators and faithful Down supporters to the celebration. He said a few months ago: “I was thinking about the origins and history of the club and the visionary people who had the forethought to form the supporter’s club which is now the longest running county supporters club in the country. I was amazed that none of those people had been appropriately honoured”.

The committee agreed to create the position of President where members with qualities such as honesty, integrity, contribution to the club, knowledge of Down GAA history and respect within the GAA community could be honoured. One man, Seamus McClean, had all those qualities and it was agreed that he should be the first President. The next speaker was current County Chairperson, Maureen O’Higgins who said she had known Seamus for a lifetime and she spoke of all his legendry fundraising schemes for the county over the years but she said his greatest qualities were his, gentleness, kindness, calmness in adversity and his genuine love of his county. Maureen also spoke of his great knowledge of Down GAA history and of how he had produced, A4 page, black and white match programmes for County games, before graduating to the production of colour programmes, thought to be the first in Ireland at the time. Maureen ended by congratulating Seamus on his award and wishing him many years of good health to enjoy it. Several members of the audience then added their tributes before everyone went on to enjoy the excellent finger buffet provided by the Burrendale Hotel. The Supporters Club wish to thank the Burrendale Hotel for their hospitality, the Co Board for financing the night and John Devany for coordinating proceedings. The Down GAA Supporters Club honour Seamus McClean for his years of dedication to the Club with the president’s award for service. What follows is a short story about Seamus and his involvement with the committee. Down fans don’t come much more dedicated than Seamus McClean. Although Seamus has been part of the supporter’s club since 1989, his love affair with Down Football started 30 years before that. Indeed, parts of Seamus’ home are a shrine dedicated to the men in red and black. Newspaper clippings, scrap books, videos, posters and flags are just some of the artefacts that decorate the walls. Seamus started following the County side in 1968, travelling all over the country with his new work colleague and friend TJ King from Castlewellan along with three other stalwart supporters Bertie Charles, Kevin Kelly and Tommy McCormack. In TJ’s Ford Anglia the friends covered over 2500 miles that same year and had the pleasure of seven visits to Croke Park along the way, in fact the only county ground that Seamus hasn’t attended a game involving Down is the Nowlan park in Kilkenny. TJ King had developed a great interest in Down Football and Seamus was very happy to tag along in his early years supporting the county. During the 1968 season the boys had 14 journeys with the team and the only games they missed were the two games in New York (The Ford Anglia just couldn’t make it) in which Down brought home the World Cup Trophy beating New York over two legs. Seamus gave a short interview at the time and was recalled saying we never had it so good and he hoped that it would be like this all the time. Seamus’ years as a Red and Black fan had started, he was to continue compiling info from that day to now and we believe his roof space is completely full of all types of different memorabilia at this stage. Seamus was to become a member of the Down Supporters Club which had formed in Newry in 1985. He joined the club in 1988 and was quickly established as the treasurer soon after. The Supporter’s Club was officially recognised as a club by the county board in 1991 and here’s where Seamus got really into his own. He wasn’t long contacting the county board to see if he could get involved in the programme production for the county games and he produced his first program in 1993 a black and white 2-page fold over. Seamus then started asking people to sponsor small adds in the programs which eventually led after a few years to an 8-page booklet full of quiz’s, snippets and interesting stories which were all provided by Seamus. Seamus also had by this time asked a few people to come on board to help him with the programs. This led to the first ever colour production in the program world with the front and back covers in full blazing colours. We recall at the time his favourite players being Benny Coulter and Liam Doyle, so he had a dilemma of who to go with on the front cover. Seamus being a true Down man went with both of them on the front as the team we were playing being Wexford couldn’t provide any colour images for the cover. The following year and all of the years since the supporter’s club has gone full colour in all productions, all thanks to Seamus. Seamus through the supporter’s club had started to generate some income from the advertising ads and his great work organising table quizzes and other events round the different clubs in the county. In the early years the fundraising was around the £2000 pound mark and as the years went on the amount got bigger with probably the best year being 2015 with a presentation of £25,000. Seamus was also the man to go to if anyone needed information about anything Down related. He has amassed a huge amount of information and if he didn’t know the information required at the end of the phone, he would kindly say gimme a ring in an hour I need to go into the roof space.

Another wee story about Seamus was when he was serving as registrar one day he was sitting in the kitchen at home and his wife Marie passed him with an old ironing board she had finished with. Seamus asked her what was she doing with that and the moment she told him it was for the dump he had other ideas bringing it immediately out to the shed and with a bit of red and black paint and a few flags, it was to become his membership selling table for decades. We are sure he still has it pride of place at home somewhere.

During his years Seamus has also been involved in everything as a supporter’s club member; serving in every role including treasurer, secretary, transport manager, chairman and registrar on the committee, Seamus was also always heavily involved in his most favourite thing about the Club, getting people to matches. One of his more famous bookings was when he booked a full train for a trip to Tralee. Seamus didn’t only book the trains and busses, he would provide a timetable for all aboard with restaurants, clubs, places to visit and of course the local mass times in the area where we would be arriving. Seamus has had a lifetime of dedication to all that is Down GAA and his first love ending up being in the supporter’s club. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​It was a pleasure to work with or work for Seamus in anything he done, he never had a cross word for anyone despite some of the challenges he faced along the way and all he ever wanted to do really at the end of the day was to get people along to the Down Matches to support his loved county.