AT 26 YEARS old, with two All-Irelands, three Footballer of the Year awards and a following that is not so much cult, as widespread adoration, David Clifford has earned the right to do whatever he so chooses.
And part of that is lending his imagery to the new line of sports clothing that has been launched by Armagh sportswear brand McKeever Sports this week.
It is the first arrangement of its’ kind. He’s far from the first player to leverage his ability and reputation, but the first in such an explicit way.
There is an obvious comparison with Bernard Brogan. Rewind your memory back to the drawn All-Ireland final between Dublin and Mayo, and Brogan was everywhere.
At the half-time break of that years’ final broadcast by RTÉ, the juiciest advertising slot available, Brogan was featured in ads for Benetti menswear and Supervalu shops.
In the matchday programme, it was wall to wall Berno. His face was loaned to Volkswagon, Benetti, the GAA Annual Health and Wellbeing Conference and on the inside back cover for Supervalu.
As you approached the stadium that day, his face was up there on the railway bridge, advertising King Crisps with a strapline of ‘King of the Hill.’
Bernard Brogan during a Supervalu ad campaign, 2016. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
That day on the pitch, Brogan was taken off, scoreless, for the last fifteen minutes.
One thing had no real relation to the other, but it wouldn’t stop the traditionalists from making it an issue.
In his autobiography, ‘The Hill’, Brogan, who would form his own sports marketing agency, ‘Legacy’, explained his thinking.
‘Ultimately sponsorship is good for the GAA, It helps promote our games and our players, makes them more attractive and more likely that kids will want to play and go to our games.
You might still have the odd puritan who has an issue with it, but would you prefer if it was only soccer and rugby players in all the ads and on all the billboards? That attitude is less prevalent now but even starting out I wasn’t going to bow to it.’
Kerry have always been at the forefront of pushing against established norms in the GAA.
In the early 70s, there was some unease among officials that players were wearing boot brands from ‘foreign’ countries.
But in 1972, Michael O’Connell won the contract with Adidas to distribute football boots in Ireland. His first customer was his namesake; Mick O’Connell.
Advertisement
O’Connell (the Adidas one) then approached the Kerry county board and offered to shod all the players. For free.
The county board could not quite believe it.
They had been paying for boots. And boots being the operative word with clunky, ankle shredders by the name of Blackthorn more suited to cutting turf banks. So they agreed.
The players found the boots to their favour, strutting around like Johan Cruyff in these new carpet slippers.
This engagement led to the ‘Three Stripe Affair’ by 1976 when Cork wore Adidas jerseys with the logo blacked out.
A year later and the Rebels were fully togged out in Adidas gear for a Munster semi-final against Clare. County secretary Frank Murphy was angered and ordered players to not even wear the Adidas shorts, at a time when they had to buy their own shorts.
The odd thing was that Kerry – who they met in the Munster final that summer – were fully togged out in unbranded Adidas gear. The cute hoors!
The playing strip was manufactured by Adidas and the tracksuits worn by subs and management on the bench had the full three-stripes branding.
Mick O'Dwyer in an Adidas tracksuit. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
Their relationship was sugared by Adidas making a sizeable donation to the Kerry players’ post-season holiday fund.
The arrangement was kept up, though it brought much anguish in the corridors of power.
The night before the 1980 All Ireland final, the Director-General Liam Mulvihill and GAA President Paddy McFlynn turned up to the Grand Hotel in Malahide where Kerry were billeted.
They had in their possession a bag of green and gold jerseys, tracksuits and shorts and urged Kerry to wear them. Manager Mick O’Dwyer put them in a cupboard and said they would have a chat about it.
When the two officials left, O’Dwyer locked the cupboard, took the keys, proceeded to a window and threw the keys out.
Being a businessman himself, O’Dwyer had no time for the vagaries of the GAA’s muddy definition of amateurism. But he had no hand in the arrangement of the famous photoshoot of the Kerry players in various states of undress beside a Bendix washing machine that ran in two Sunday papers the day of the 1985 All-Ireland final.
The reported fee of £5,000 was hardly worth the shitshow of fuss it caused. Especially because by that stage they had gone rogue with a few fundraising initiatives themselves.
One of them was a series of tours around the country to play exhibition games during the winter.
A famous example was a tour of the north in March 1981. They played Down on a Friday night in Burren, one of the first grounds to have floodlights.
On the Saturday, they had a fixture with Tyrone in Carrickmore before striking out for Louth on Sunday. The premise was simple. The adoring crowds just wanted to touch the hem of the Kerry players.
They wanted to see their own county put up a show, but if Kerry turned on the style and walloped them, well and good. That happened in Carrickmore, Kerry winning 2-14 to 0-6. The locals also wanted their pound of flesh.
In the extensive matchday programme, there was an advertisement for festivities later that night in the Patrician Hall. For £1, you could see ‘Leading Artistes, including: Eoin ‘Bomber’ Liston, Paul O’Shea and Charlie Nelligan.’
While Liston was well rested after staying with the Murtagh family in Burren the night before, “In Tyrone, I don’t think we went to bed at all, so there was no need for accommodation. But they couldn’t have been nicer to us. We were chatting, drinking and singing all night.
“It was lovely to play teams we hadn’t played before. But the welcome and the friendliness, the spirit the matches were played in, everything was just lovely. People couldn’t have been nicer to us. The memories I have is the fun we had with the singing and the craic, discussing the match and everything.”
By 2017, there was still a cloud over commerce in the GAA.
When Colm Cooper was talked into a corporate-sponsored testimonial dinner in 2017, he was derided in some quarters as somehow against the values and spirit of the GAA.
Three years later, Dean Rock was facing the same accusations when he offered a course called the ‘Dean Rock Free Taking Project.’
In 2025, there is no discernible begrudgery towards David Clifford for his commercial hook-up with McKeever Sports. Right now, he has arrangements with Davy stockbrokers, Garvey’s Supervalu and Aherns BMW.
None of it affects his performances, as his recent coronation as Footballer of the Year for the second time in three years confirms.
He continues to sign jerseys and give as much time to youngsters as possible. His is a public property that most would crumble with.
This Christmas, there will be many youngsters reaching into their stocking to find, to their delight, a David Clifford hoodie, or jersey.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
From Bendix controversy to David Clifford hoodies, commercial boundaries have been pushed
AT 26 YEARS old, with two All-Irelands, three Footballer of the Year awards and a following that is not so much cult, as widespread adoration, David Clifford has earned the right to do whatever he so chooses.
And part of that is lending his imagery to the new line of sports clothing that has been launched by Armagh sportswear brand McKeever Sports this week.
It is the first arrangement of its’ kind. He’s far from the first player to leverage his ability and reputation, but the first in such an explicit way.
There is an obvious comparison with Bernard Brogan. Rewind your memory back to the drawn All-Ireland final between Dublin and Mayo, and Brogan was everywhere.
At the half-time break of that years’ final broadcast by RTÉ, the juiciest advertising slot available, Brogan was featured in ads for Benetti menswear and Supervalu shops.
In the matchday programme, it was wall to wall Berno. His face was loaned to Volkswagon, Benetti, the GAA Annual Health and Wellbeing Conference and on the inside back cover for Supervalu.
As you approached the stadium that day, his face was up there on the railway bridge, advertising King Crisps with a strapline of ‘King of the Hill.’
That day on the pitch, Brogan was taken off, scoreless, for the last fifteen minutes.
One thing had no real relation to the other, but it wouldn’t stop the traditionalists from making it an issue.
In his autobiography, ‘The Hill’, Brogan, who would form his own sports marketing agency, ‘Legacy’, explained his thinking.
‘Ultimately sponsorship is good for the GAA, It helps promote our games and our players, makes them more attractive and more likely that kids will want to play and go to our games.
You might still have the odd puritan who has an issue with it, but would you prefer if it was only soccer and rugby players in all the ads and on all the billboards? That attitude is less prevalent now but even starting out I wasn’t going to bow to it.’
Kerry have always been at the forefront of pushing against established norms in the GAA.
In the early 70s, there was some unease among officials that players were wearing boot brands from ‘foreign’ countries.
O’Connell (the Adidas one) then approached the Kerry county board and offered to shod all the players. For free.
The county board could not quite believe it.
They had been paying for boots. And boots being the operative word with clunky, ankle shredders by the name of Blackthorn more suited to cutting turf banks. So they agreed.
The players found the boots to their favour, strutting around like Johan Cruyff in these new carpet slippers.
This engagement led to the ‘Three Stripe Affair’ by 1976 when Cork wore Adidas jerseys with the logo blacked out.
A year later and the Rebels were fully togged out in Adidas gear for a Munster semi-final against Clare. County secretary Frank Murphy was angered and ordered players to not even wear the Adidas shorts, at a time when they had to buy their own shorts.
The odd thing was that Kerry – who they met in the Munster final that summer – were fully togged out in unbranded Adidas gear. The cute hoors!
The playing strip was manufactured by Adidas and the tracksuits worn by subs and management on the bench had the full three-stripes branding.
Their relationship was sugared by Adidas making a sizeable donation to the Kerry players’ post-season holiday fund.
The arrangement was kept up, though it brought much anguish in the corridors of power.
The night before the 1980 All Ireland final, the Director-General Liam Mulvihill and GAA President Paddy McFlynn turned up to the Grand Hotel in Malahide where Kerry were billeted.
They had in their possession a bag of green and gold jerseys, tracksuits and shorts and urged Kerry to wear them. Manager Mick O’Dwyer put them in a cupboard and said they would have a chat about it.
When the two officials left, O’Dwyer locked the cupboard, took the keys, proceeded to a window and threw the keys out.
Being a businessman himself, O’Dwyer had no time for the vagaries of the GAA’s muddy definition of amateurism. But he had no hand in the arrangement of the famous photoshoot of the Kerry players in various states of undress beside a Bendix washing machine that ran in two Sunday papers the day of the 1985 All-Ireland final.
The reported fee of £5,000 was hardly worth the shitshow of fuss it caused. Especially because by that stage they had gone rogue with a few fundraising initiatives themselves.
One of them was a series of tours around the country to play exhibition games during the winter.
A famous example was a tour of the north in March 1981. They played Down on a Friday night in Burren, one of the first grounds to have floodlights.
On the Saturday, they had a fixture with Tyrone in Carrickmore before striking out for Louth on Sunday. The premise was simple. The adoring crowds just wanted to touch the hem of the Kerry players.
They wanted to see their own county put up a show, but if Kerry turned on the style and walloped them, well and good. That happened in Carrickmore, Kerry winning 2-14 to 0-6. The locals also wanted their pound of flesh.
While Liston was well rested after staying with the Murtagh family in Burren the night before, “In Tyrone, I don’t think we went to bed at all, so there was no need for accommodation. But they couldn’t have been nicer to us. We were chatting, drinking and singing all night.
“It was lovely to play teams we hadn’t played before. But the welcome and the friendliness, the spirit the matches were played in, everything was just lovely. People couldn’t have been nicer to us. The memories I have is the fun we had with the singing and the craic, discussing the match and everything.”
By 2017, there was still a cloud over commerce in the GAA.
When Colm Cooper was talked into a corporate-sponsored testimonial dinner in 2017, he was derided in some quarters as somehow against the values and spirit of the GAA.
Three years later, Dean Rock was facing the same accusations when he offered a course called the ‘Dean Rock Free Taking Project.’
In 2025, there is no discernible begrudgery towards David Clifford for his commercial hook-up with McKeever Sports. Right now, he has arrangements with Davy stockbrokers, Garvey’s Supervalu and Aherns BMW.
None of it affects his performances, as his recent coronation as Footballer of the Year for the second time in three years confirms.
He continues to sign jerseys and give as much time to youngsters as possible. His is a public property that most would crumble with.
This Christmas, there will be many youngsters reaching into their stocking to find, to their delight, a David Clifford hoodie, or jersey.
Isn’t this what Brogan argued for?
Isn’t it impossible to argue against?
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Believe I can fly clifford GAA Gaelic Football New Era Top Gear