Clarke enjoying his club Indian summer

David Clarke’s club career with Ballina Stephenites has been more troughs than peaks so it is little wonder the two-time All Star goalkeeper is enjoying being part of a three-in-a-row chasing team.

Despite being Mayo senior sub-goalkeeper while still a minor, Clarke often found himself on the bench for his club as his duel with clubmate John Healy for the Stephenites’ number one jersey became one of the most fascinating sub-plots of a golden era of Mayo club football.

So much so that Clarke’s first county senior title on the field of play did not come until 2007, having watched from the bench in 2003 and 2004, and in the All-Ireland final of 2005.

Having finally got his hands on the jersey by 2007, when Ballina won county and Connacht crowns, it was Clarke’s misfortune to watch the ’05 All-Ireland winning team fade away.

It would be fully 15 years before they were in another senior final, the 2022 loss to Sunday’s opponents Westport, and they flirted with relegation from the senior ranks in 2012, beating Kiltane in the relegation final in Knockmore.

That was the game where David Brady came in to manage the team for one game only, the Stephenites having parted ways with Anthony McGarry after their semi-final loss to Breaffy.

All the while, despite all the struggles, Clarke remained a constant and inspirational presence between the posts but the thought of chasing three Moclair Cups on the spin would have been fanciful a decade ago.

“It’s just great to be competitive,” he told the Western People after Ballina’s semi-final win over Knockmore. “I remember seven or eight years ago a management team came in and one of the key things was just to be competitive and we’ve probably been competitive in every game in the last seven years and that’s a massive difference and you can see us just getting better as a team.

“You’re not going to win every game but if you’re competitive and you’re trying to do the right things and fellas are really working hard from February on … And that pushes me on then as well, it’s great.” 

Clarke readily admits the three-in-a-row is ‘definitely a bit of a focus’ but adds ‘we’re not good enough or naïve enough to think that we can just think about getting to a county final, we knew we’d to do a whole lot of work’.

They were put on their backs by Crossmolina in the group game but perhaps that proved to be a blessing in disguise.

“Crossmolina gave us some doing here in the second round. That refocused a lot of things, probably brought a lot of things back down to ground, we went back to basics. [It was] great for us that it happened at that stage in the competition, it was good like that and after that then it was all or nothing. It was a bit of a focus but I suppose you’ve three or four key metrics in every game that you go after more often than not.

“We did a lot of good things [against Crossmolina] but there were other things we didn’t do at all and it was great to actually just see them staring at you in the face, no hiding place about it – we have to do those better in the next couple of games. Confidence was down going in against Garrymore and we built ourselves up slightly each game,” he said.

Clarke will turn 42 in November but is as lean-looking and as commanding of his square as ever. He is relishing still competing.

“Yeah I’m enjoying it. We’ve three children at home, they’re enjoying going to the games. My wife (Paula) has a lot of pressure on her! I’m still coming and going here and there but I am really enjoying playing football. It’s the young lads, we’ve a massive bunch of young lads there who are early 20s and who are really driving the team. I’m just lucky that I am just kicking out the ball! I’m not doing a whole pile.. the lads are doing all the football, they’re driving a whole lot of things. It is really great. 

"We had a lot of years when things weren’t great around the club, fighting for survival and the last few years have been great.” 

As we speak, his son Pearse plays with his gloves. They are, in every sense, big gloves to fill. But Clarke nods down to sub goalkeeper Eoghan Coleman who is waiting on the two-time All Star so they can do a bit of goalkeeping work to round off the day. His comments speak to Clarke’s natural humility.

“I feel bad in many ways. He’s top class. He’s probably as worthy as playing as me. He’s as competent so we’ll see. I’ll hopefully just enjoy the next week, see if I get on the pitch and see where we go from there,” he said.

One thinks he might just get the nod.