David Clarke hails Ballina Stephenties’ county final display as their ‘best performance all year’

“It was nine years ago today we got relegated out of Division 1. I know that because my little girl was born the day before,” a proud David Clarke told the media after Saturday night’s county final victory. 

What a journey it’s been for the 41-year-old legendary goalkeeper who’s been togging for the Stephenites seniors before the likes of Sam Callinan, Luke Jordan, Liam Golden or the Feeney brothers were even born.

Many of those lads were little more than toddlers when Ballina won the All-Ireland in 2005. Nineteen years later, Clarkey is still trucking and still winning county titles.

“At that time we could see that there was a team coming,” Clarke told The Mayo News, recalling that year they got relegated from Division 1.

“It took us a good few years to get out of Division 2…then we gradually got out of the group in a couple of years. We got better and better.”

Long gone are the days when Ballina Stephenites were winning ten county titles in a row (look it up, it actually happened). But when you win one in Ballina, you are expected to retain it.

“Sometimes you can feel that’s your job done and you can take a rest. Credit to the lads, some lads took a break, some lads were away with Mayo, we kept on building and we all came back in and stuck together,” said Clarke.

“One or two lads went away went to go travelling and working and the rest of the lads decided to stay around. There are other things you can do in the town, there are other places you can go in the world. Fellas wanted to stick in and try keep on moving.”

There was no great secret either to them beating the local rivals.

“We just play our football. We push up, we press up high, we try to dominate teams. It’s easier said than done now. And then we tried to play in ten-minute patches. That’s one thing we said tonight, we’ll play in ten minutes,” explained Clarke.

“We got a really good start, sometimes that can go against you. If you get a goal early you can get it back and try to keep on pushing after half-time again to see can we get the first couple of scores. I think we got the first score and then we went into a bit of a lull. We held them off.

“It was a real proud performance, but last year I suppose the whole game got a bit of criticism; criticism of the team, how we played and our misses, we got a bit of criticism. It was good to get a good result.”

A performance as convincing as Saturday’s won’t generate anything like the negative commentary that followed last year’s stinker against Breaffy.

“Last year, it was just disappointing for Mayo football,” said Clarke.

“It wasn’t that we won it, there was huge talk all around the country about how bad the game was.”

Does that silence the critics?

“I don’t know do you need to silence them. For us we need to see can we play better and play more complete. That was probably our best performance all year. I couldn’t say we played that well all year. That was our best performance all year and I am really pleased that we left it for the final.”

Ballina waited sixteen years without winning a senior county title, then two came in as many years.

Seems like the good times are back, and here to stay, for the club founded by James Wallace Melvin in 1886.

“We’re a really proud club, proud that we’re from Ballina Stephenites and really proud that we’re able to bring back county titles to the town.”

Forward to the goal of victory.