With everyone away from the Oval for an undetermined period, we have decided to bring Glentoran supporters some of the most compelling content from the multi award winning Glentoran Gazette. We hope you will enjoy the stories and player interviews we bring and that it will encourage you to buy a Gazette at our home matches when football returns. Many thanks to the Glentoran Supporters Committee (1923) for use of this material. The "Team Talks" series will consist of interviews with current squad members with John Grayden this season.
Seanan Clucas
interview with John Grayden
If life had been a little kinder, Seanan Clucas today could have been grafting under Michael O’Neill instead of Mick McDermott.
The Dungannon-based midfielder – then plying his craft for Bristol Rovers alongside current Northern Ireland international Michael Smith and former Crusaders and Derry City defender Mark McChrystal – was in the sights of former Stoke City boss Tony Pulis when fate took a hand.
It was February 13, 2013, in a game away to Morecambe when the Northern Ireland U21 international suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury, ruling him out of the game for nine months.
It was the following season, after his recovery, when he learned of the proposed £200,000 offer from the Potteries club by chance.
“I’d been called back into the under 21 camp when the then boss, Stephen Robinson, let the cat out of the bag. By that stage I was one of the panel’s more experienced players and he wanted me to look after some of the younger boys. He told me not to worry about the fact that the move broke down because of the injury and was surprised when he found I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about,” the Glens new signing said.
“It turned out that my agent hadn’t told me at the time in case it knocked my confidence during my rehab. In fact, he probably would never have told me if Stephen hadn’t said to me,” he added.
By that time Seanan, barely out of his teens, had played for Preston North End, gone to Burton Albion on loan and moved to Bristol. After making almost 40 appearances for the Pirates he came home, signed for Linfield but after an unhappy time at the National Stadium moved to Derry City in the Airtricity League.
After a less than harmonious time on Foyleside he took off to other side of the world in 2015 after an offer to play in Australia’s A League but when that move fell through after the coach who had lined him up was sacked, he took off around the country on the equivalent of a student’s gap year.
It’s been well documented that he drank too much and ate too much but Seanan offers up a defence. “There’s no doubt I enjoyed myself in Australia, but I was still young and I felt I had missed out on my teenage years a bit as I’d gone to England as a full-time footballer when I was 16.
“However, after about ten months I realised I couldn’t go on like that. I needed structure in my life, I was used to a routine and I realised I was missing football, so I came home again,” Seanan said.
He moved back in with parents Tracy and Martin and signed for Dungannon Swifts, a move that was to see him going on to make more than 100 appearances for the mid-Ulster team and even turn down an offer from the Glens last summer.
“The Glens had approached me in the summer, but I had agreed to stay with the Swifts, especially after we had lost three big players to Crusaders at the time,” Seanan, who is cup-tied today, said.
“When the club came back in for me this time, I sat down with my girlfriend Melissa, who lives in east Belfast, and talked about it. The deal took most of the window to go through, it was a slow process.
“I was offered a full time deal which would have been the equivalent of my full time job and my football wages but at 27 it’s too big a risk for someone my age. I’m hoping to get a mortgage on a home in around a year’s time so I reckon a bank manager would look at the facts and think a full-time footballer on a short term contract would not be in the most secure position,” he added. “If I had been a teenager, I probably would have gone full-time”.
Seanan, who works for an engineering firm at Edendork on the mid-Ulster manufacturing super-highway between Dungannon and Coalisland, has signed a part-time deal with the Glens on a two and a half year contract and kept his full-time job.
“However, before I signed I also spoke to the owner of the company about the move as it involves being in Belfast early in the evening for the full squad sessions three times a week. Thankfully, the management of the firm were fully behind me and said to sort out the football deal,” Seanan said.
He admits that working with Mick McDermott and Paul Millar was an attraction.
“I was always going to look to better myself and if I was going to move from Dungannon it wasn’t going to be a sidestep. Mick and Windy were a big draw. I was interested in working with Mick because of the kind of experience he has had. Somebody who has worked at that level will only improve me,” he added
“When I came home from England at first, I felt as if learning about the game had stopped. None of the coaches I was working with were pulling me to the side and telling me what I was doing wrong. It wasn’t until Kris Lindsay came to Dungannon that happened.”
Now he is gearing up to win the trophies that have eluded so many players down the years.
“The league is now in a great position with the top teams going full-time, money coming in and young players like Gavin Whyte and Mark Sykes getting moves across the water and the Glens are well placed to get back to where they should be,” Seanan said.
