Clonmel R.F.C. Finance and Development

This is an effort to chronicle the progress of the development of facilities in our club, now one of the finest in Munster, from 1999 to the present. It is also a testament to those dedicated members of the Finance & Development Sub-Committee, to whom everyone in Clonmel RFC is indebted.

It is hard to believe now that the club had no grounds before 1972, when the first piece of land was purchased at Ardgeeha. This reflects a vision in the club, which has been carried on to the present day. That foresight was furthered evidenced in 1990 when the new Clubhouse was officially opened. That effort seemed to drain the club, both financially and psychologically, and matters settled for a few years. But there was always talk of development and the club Lotto was set up by Paul Garrett with a view to raising finance towards capital expenditure.

In 1997, the Chairmanship of the club was taken up by J.J. Killian, who was strongly of the view that the club should be run in a more business-like fashion. In 1998, the Finance & Development Sub-Committee was set up, consisting of J.J., Jimmy Harney, Paddy Fitzgerald, Paul Garrett, Maurice Moloney, Ned Nugent and Paul Lonergan. There was a lot of talk, argument, contrasting visions and goals and sometimes a lot of heat was generated – but all had a common goal – the betterment of Clonmel RFC.

The first step was the production of the Club Development Plan, 2002-2006, which connected all the aspirations to reality and is still our guiding document today. The text of that plan (without appendices, maps, plans,etc) is available here. It is to the credit of the F & D sub-committee that many of the stated goals have been achieved and the plan remains on track. Clonmel was one of the first clubs to produce such a plan and it has been copied by many clubs since. It was also widely used in the drawing up of the Munster Branch Strategic Plan 2005.

One of the first steps was to apply to the IRFU in 1999 for a loan of £50,000. To their credit, they came up with the money. This was to be used for the purchase of 3.0 acres of adjoining land from the then South Eastern Health Board. We were now into the realms of title deeds, planning applications, masses of administration, legal wrangles, etc. It is amazing to think now that this was all done voluntarily in the spare time of the F & D people, without any consultancy!

There was now serious debate regarding the positioning and levels for a new third pitch, the first suggestions for all-weather pitches to provide a revenue stream, upgrading all services and putting these services under a new car park. In tandem with this had been our first application for funding under the 1999 Sports Capital Programme (National Lottery). This application entailed a very comprehensive body of work – we felt we had done a good job and waited for results. It was a major setback to be informed in July 1999 that we had received nothing. We licked our wounds and vowed to learn from this.