From Mayo streets to Europa League nights -the journey of David Cawley

How many Mayo men can say they’ve scored a Europa League goal, won man of the match in European competition, received a grilling from Roy Keane, and gone up against Joe Cole and Harry Kane? David Cawley has done all of that, and then some.

His winding career path may have ended earlier this season, when he hung up the boots following a stint at Finn Harps, but his story started on the banks of the River Moy.

It was there where our conversation started too, as he sat down to go through his career highlights with The Mayo News.

Oisín Bradley: You started off in Ballina, what were your earliest memories of kicking the ball about the place?

David Cawley: It was an Under-10s Blitz, I was about 8. I had a couple of good friends all the way through primary school. My friend, Ross Kenny, his dad was over the Ballina Town under-10s, and I first started because of him.

OB: There’s always a sort of nostalgia around playing with your friends, getting to know the game and getting to love the game a bit, isn't there?

DC: Where I grew up in Ballina, all we had were footballs. We were out in the street, morning, noon, and night. Parents chasing us around trying to get us back in. We were all just football mad.

OB: How did the Ipswich move come about?

DC: I was lucky enough, I'd done two years with Mayo down to the Kennedy Cup. In the second year, we'd done quite well, So a couple of letters came in the door. Ipswich Town was one of them, and they invited me over for a trial during the school holidays. I went over two or three times, and they eventually offered a scholarship contract and a professional contract.

OB: It must have been a strange feeling then, moving away from home at such a young age.

DC: Yeah, looking back, it was very young. There were a couple of us from Mayo. Rona Murray, who I spent a couple of years with in Sligo and one year in Galway, we went over together. We were the same age group.

We’d just finished Junior Cert and signed up for TY. It was a big change. At the time, the club had a good few Irish lads over there, to be fair. A couple of them were in the first team at that time, so there were home comforts there in that way.  But still, looking back, we were very young.

Opportunities come, and sometimes you have to grab them the first time around.

OB: How did you find life in the academy set-up? It's something that most people never get the chance to experience.

DC: It was brilliant. It was exactly how you imagined it. Although you were 15, you were treated like an adult. You were treated like a pro. You had to act like a pro. So you had to grow up very quickly, let's say. You were training every day, twice a day most days.  And as the years go on, you turn 17, 18. You're playing Under-18s, but you'd be playing reserves as well.

Of course, playing in reserves, you could be playing with the first-team players; boys coming back from injuries or fellas just trying to get minutes in their legs.  If you came across any of the Premier League teams, they could have one or two lads who were trying to get minutes up to have played Premier League football.

OB: Who are some of those names? Who are some of the names you did come up against during those under-18 games?

DC: Because we were so close to London, we played a lot of big sides. I remember we played a Chelsea team at their training ground, which was obviously top, top-notch. Joe Cole was coming back from injury, and you’d Paulo Farreira.

Nemanja Matic was there. They'd just signed him, but he was obviously very young. We didn't really know at the time who he was. But he went on to have a hell of a career as well? At Spurs, we would come up against Harry Kane. He was a couple of years younger than me. Ledley King turned up one day too.

OB: You trained then with the Ipswich first team under a few managers. How did those managers and the club help to bring you into those environments?

DC: For a couple of years, Jim Magilton was there. I found him really good. He wouldn't hold back, and he wasn't giving you the arm around the shoulder. He had me across training with the seniors a little bit more. Of course, I was really young at that stage. You were always on the edge.

Everything had to be perfect, your touch, your pass. Probably overthinking it because you were so young.  Roy Keane came along then. I'm a Man United fan, so I grew up watching him. You really got to see the demands he put on himself as a player. He put on his players as well. To get to the top where he was playing, it was relentless.

He would always be there for your reserve games. He would let you know if you weren't playing well. Even if you said you were playing well, you were still getting something. To keep you on that edge, to keep going. In my last couple of months at Ipswich, I knew I was leaving. Colin Healy, who was a great Cork City player, was telling me about Sligo Rovers.

He said, ‘If you're going home, have a look at them. They're up and coming. They're in the mix for Europe every year. They're playing great football.’  As it happened, when I went home a few months later, I got the opportunity to train with them.

OB: You joined in a bit of a golden era for the club. You had the FAI Cup. You won the League. What are your special memories of those days when you brought trophies back to Sligo?

DC: Paul Cook was the manager when I was about to sign, he left that pre-season. I was kind of in limbo. I knew he wanted me to sign, but the next thing we were managerless.

Eventually, someone at the club said, ‘There's the deal for you. We're waiting on our manager to be announced.’ It took off from there. The football we played was top-notch.

We had top players. Mark Quigley was in there. Joseph N'Do. He was a joy to watch. It was a joy to play with in the middle of the park. All great fellas. Jason McGuinness. Richard Brush. We won the league that year. Played a couple of games in Europe. Next year, we followed on. We won the FAI Cup. And the Setanta Cup soon followed. There were a few years where trophies were becoming the norm.

But again, there were moments that we didn't take for granted. Many years later, we didn't get near the final.

OB: You said those European nights. There aren't many Mayo men who can say they've scored a goal in the Europa League and come out of the match in the Europa League game as well. If you're looking for career highlights, that's surely one of them.

DC: They were brilliant games. Proper games of football. Big stadiums. Proper crowds. Everyone knew the financials around going through rounds and winning the European games. They were brilliant.

There were massive memories.

OB: After that, you went to St Pats. You added the League Cup medal there. You found yourself then at Galway United. How were those stints?

DC: Sometimes you don't always make the right moves. That's no fault of St Pat's. We had two young kids. I made that jump thinking I could get up and down the road to Dublin no problem for a whole season.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out like that.  Eventually, it told in my performances, I have no problem saying that. I wanted to play under Liam Buckley.

He rang a couple of years previous. He played lovely football. I just wanted to do something fresh. I made the long road home. I went to Galway under Shane Keegan. You might find it weird to say because three teams went down that year, and we were one of them, but it really got me back enjoying football.

I was a little bit closer to home. The commuting wasn't as bad.

OB: Eventually, you found your way back to Sligo. You had some great milestones there second time around, hitting the 300 appearance mark. It must have been great to settle back into things and start enjoying your football again.

DC: That was the move I wanted, but just because I wanted it didn't mean it was going to happen. Thankfully, when my contract ran out with Galway, I broke the news to Shane Keegan.

If it wasn't Sligo Rovers ringing me, I would have stayed with Galway. Thankfully, Shane understood that Sligo was definitely my club. I was back enjoying my football again. I think that told in the years to come.

I think I got my most goals in a few years. I was playing a different style. I was box to box, exactly what I like. Back in an environment I was used to.

OB: Moving on from there, you went up to Finn Harps, a club that I'd be quite close to. How did you find life in Ballybofey?

DC: It was brilliant, honestly. It was at a stage I was lucky enough to play under Darren Murphy, who was the perfect man at the perfect time for me.

At that stage in my career, I wasn't commuting up and down the country again full-time. It was the perfect timing with Murphy ringing me. It's still a bit of a drive for me. Murphy would have been good to me if I were struggling on the road.

He would have told me, ‘Stay at home, go to the gym, go for a run. You're 32, 33 years of age, I can trust you. You've been around a long time.’

It didn't happen too often, but when it did happen, it was nice. It’s a great football club, with great people around it. Very similar to how Sligo Rovers is.

OB: It all came to an end quite recently, when you came off in that Athlone game. Did you know after that, pretty much straight away, that that was it? Or was it an injury thing that you thought you could have come back from?

DC: I'm blessed it wasn't an injury thing at all. Murphy asked me if I was ready for another season. As the first couple of weeks of pre-season went by, he said, ‘I can see second-season syndrome in you.’

I didn’t know what he meant. He just went through his experience as well when he was commuting as a player. For me, with the business, the kids, and part-time work, it was just taking its toll.

The journeys were just taking their toll. He could see it long before I could. Did I know I was coming off against Athlone in the last game? I didn't. I had a feeling it was going to be soon, but not right away, maybe at the end of the season.

OB: It's been a while since you've laced up the boots. You had a bit of time to reflect. How do you look back on your career? What do you look back on and think, ‘those were the days I really lived for when I was growing up’?

DC: So many kids dream of growing up and playing football and making it to the top. But football is never straightforward. There's never a straight path.

A lot of players that I would have played with growing up came across hurdles, and some of them couldn't really manage it. I don't know what it is. You just have to, as I say, stay in the fight.

When I look back. I've won and lost all along the way. I've lost many games of football. There’s losing 5-0 in Europe, relegations, and losing cup semi-finals. But they're all experiences. I have no regrets.

Do I wish I'd won a couple more medals? Yes, but I'm absolutely blessed to have won each one as we've come along. I've played many games in Europe. I think I'm the record holder for European appearances for Sligo Rovers.

Not everybody can say that. I'm definitely blessed that I walked off the pitch and didn't have to call time on my career because I had a bad injury. I've seen young lads in their early 20s who haven’t been so lucky. So when I look back, I'm definitely one of the lucky ones.

OB: What would you miss most and least from your day-to-day in football?

DC: I'd miss most just the dressing room and training every morning. And the hard work that comes with it. Every day is hard work. But it doesn't feel like hard work because you're enjoying it so much. The one thing I probably don't miss is when Tony McNamee texted me last year about Kerry away.

And then if you lose, the journeys are even longer. And you're getting home at 3 or 4 in the morning. It takes you two days to get back on the mend. But that's probably about it.

OB: What’s your best goal and your favourite goal you’ve ever scored?

DC: I didn't score loads of goals, but when I did get a couple, they were from outside the box.

I don’t want to, but the answer for both is the same. I'll go with my very first competitive one, which was in The Showgrounds.

It was 2012, and Shamrock Rovers were the reigning champions. It was my first league start at home, but it was also my first time playing live on TV. That was definitely my favourite goal.

OB: Lastly, you don't know where it’s going to go, but what do you think the future is going to hold for you? Are you thinking of anything at local level, playing-wise or in general?

DC: I'll definitely be involved in football. I do loads of coaching on the side. My coaching business has taken off, so that'll definitely keep me within the game.

Playing-wise, I'm not too sure. There have been a few phone calls, but look, I'm still in that frame of mind where I'm unwinding from and reflecting on everything. Then we’ll see.