In this week’s ‘My Club’ feature, Mayo footballer David Clarke tells us all about the Ballina Stephenites GAA club.

By Cian O'Connell

One of the most famous clubs in the west, Ballina Stephenties have claimed 36 Mayo SFC titles.

Ballina have won three Connacht crowns, while they defeated Portloise in the 2005 All Ireland final.

That was a particularly special day for the Stephenites, who remain a significant force at underage level in Mayo.

Founded in 1886 Ballina Stephenites played their first official fixture against Commercials in Ardnaree.

Further details about the club are available on the Ballina Stephenites website.

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Q: When did you start playing with Ballina?

**A: **In National School at Scoil Phadraig I would have played a bit. Then in Ballina at that time there were town leagues.  The town was divided into five areas and initially I think I ended up playing for the wrong area geographically for a while.  My parents didn't know who you were supposed to be playing with, but I ended up playing with an area because a friend of mine was playing.

The next year I played with Fitzgeralds which was my area.   Barry Murphy was the coach and he is the coach now of the Ballina senior team.  He was a goalkeeper and from then I went in goals with Fitzgeralds.  That was under 8s and under 10s.

Q: Were you always a goalkeeper?

A: The very first year I might have played a game or two outfield, but with Fitzgeralds with Barry Murphy being a goalkeeper I went in at that time.  He was my underage coach right the way up until minor.  I suppose he would have had a bit of an influence on me.

A teacher in Scoil Phadraig, Liam Higgins, he had been a goalkeeper for Ballina like Barry.  He had a bit of an influence on me aswell.  That is how I started getting involved with the club, I loved it.

Q: Growing up had you much success with Ballina?

A: Yeah, we did well enough.  I can remember playing under 12B when I was young which probably gave me a good grounding, we got hammered in every game we played.  After that in my own age group we were very successful.  We had a great team, I think we won under 12, 14, 16 and then we ended up winning three county minors in a row all in A.  We would have been a big enough club at that time.

I had different coaches along the way and we won an under 21 title when I was still minor.  We had a good successful time with a good group of friends.  A lot of them lads went on to backbone the club team that won two or three county titles and the club All Ireland.  There was a good group of players, that doesn't always happen so I was lucky to be involved with that group.

Q: How much of an impact did the underage work have subsequently at senior level?

A: It did have an impact because maybe five or six of the guys I played with were coming off the bench or starting.  I was a sub on that All Ireland winning team, but you had lots of lads involved from the core of the underage teams.  There was good underage coaching, but I'd say the enjoyment aspect made it a good atmosphere.  Fellas enjoyed it.  I suppose when you are successful too it kept on rolling.

Q: With a lot of the guys involved with St Muredach's from neighbouring clubs what did it mean to be playing for Ballina Stephenites?

A: I was in Muredach's, the Stephenites got to an All Ireland Final in 99. They probably hadn't won as much in maybe 10 years before that and there was another gap until the mid 2000s again.  With Ballina we were quite good, but with Muredach's we never seemed to be able to fulfil our potential.  We had lads from three or four clubs coming together, but St Jarlath's were always too strong. 

We did get to a few finals in the different grades, but it just didn't come together.  Maybe we weren't as in to it with Muredach's, but definitely with the club when you are being successful there was a real tight group of fellas.  The team ahead of us mightn't have been overly successful, but when we blended in with them that changed helping us to win three county minors.  There were four or five of us on all three teams.  A lot of players featured for Mayo at various levels: Patrick Harte, Ronan McGarritty, Enda Devenney, Stephen Hughes, Paul Campion.  Guys like that went on to have great senior careers with the club.  It was good and enjoyable, we were a big club and we were successful.

Q: In Ballina you had notable names that were a bit older than you such as Liam McHale and David Brady.  Were they guys you looked up to when you were growing up?

**A: **Yeah, I suppose everyone in Ballina looked up to Liam McHale.  His excellence in basketball and also in Gaelic made him stand out.  Himself and David Brady were on the teams in 1996 and 1997.

Then I was lucky enough to play with David Brady for a while on the Mayo team.

You had great clubmen too like Brian Ruane, who was a fantastic trainer, he was around Mayo panels.  Kenny Golden was a tough guy too, a real clubman.  He was tough and hard as nails, who always turned up for his club.  Then you had the two Bradys, Paul McGarry, another fantastic servant.  Sometimes a club might benefit a bit more from the likes of them lads because when guys are with a county team they can be taken away a bit.  In Ballina we were lucky and I learned from some fine players.

Q: There was a time when you had Crossmolina, Ballina, and Knockmore all reaching All Ireland club finals.  It was a strong spell for that part of Mayo?

A: Yeah, you even hear people talking about it now.  ‘Why isn't there any north Mayo teams in a final?’  Now it seems you have teams based around each other like Breaffy, Castlebar and Ballintubber going strong.

Q: Is it just a cyclical thing?

**A: **Possibly, yeah.  Sometimes I ask the lads does it have to do with huge emphasis on coaching at underage or is it just that you get a bunch of players at the one time.  Obviously the structures that are put in place within club’s matter.  Ballina won two minors in a row four or five years ago so there was further good work.  In Mayo at the moment you see Westport and Claremorris being hugely successful so it could be cyclical. 

It was a fabulous time in north Mayo, huge Championship games were being played.  In Knockmore and Crossmolina you'd have huge crowds, real tough battles against big, strong men, hitting hard, but they were good footballers.  It was an enjoyable time to be around, but unfortunately I was a bit injured at times.  I did my cruciate when I was 18 so I missed a year and a half.  I missed some of those big games, but it definitely gave me the hunger to get back.

Q: How are Ballina placed at the moment?

A: There is huge work going on behind the scenes.  I was lucky enough to be asked to be the players representative on the executive of the club.  It is only when you get involved in something like the executive that you see the huge amount of work going on behind the scenes.  In our club it seems to be six or seven people, maybe a bit more who are doing the majority of the work.  It is a town club so it can be hard for people to become involved.  Both of my parents aren't from Ballina originally and a lot of people are like that in the town.

It has really opened my eyes to the amount of work that is going on behind the scenes.  We had a development done on the pitch, we had a development done in our gym.  Huge work is going on at underage.

The senior management have put in place a system where the senior players go to under 6s and under 8s training to get involved once a week.  It has started off from our new management team, it is trying to get back to basics.

Q: Those type of initiatives must help to create a good culture?

A: Yeah, it is a great idea, but one thing we are hit with is that a huge amount of lads are away.  We don't have that many lads in Ballina.  They are coming back after college now because we have quite a young squad.  During the winter part of the season we might only have had six, seven or eight in Ballina so we occasionally trained in Milltown because we have a good few lads in Galway.  Challenges exist, but I suppose we have to try to face them.  There has been a good buy in.

There are a lot of distractions, Ballina Rugby Club are hugely strong and Ballina Town Soccer Club have nice facilities.  We have ongoing problems because the club are trying to develop facilities at the club with astroturf pitches and things like that.  Huge work is going on and we have a Supporters Club doing the same.  I think we are going in the right direction.  The amount of work sometimes doesn't necessarily correlate to success on the pitch.

We have a young group, based off that two in a row minor winning crop - Evan Regan's age group.  We are trying to start again.

We are in Division Two in the league unfortunately this year, but we are still in the Senior Championship.  We got to the quarter-finals last year and we will be pushing to get out of the group again this year.  Hopefully we will get out of Division Two, but it won't be easy.

Huge work is going on at underage.  Eanna Casey, a former player, is Director of Coaching so he is involved and is doing huge work trying to get coaches looking in the same direction.  With some of those things you mightn't see the success straightaway, but hopefully in time it will pay off.

I definitely tip my hat to the people I've seen on the executive, the work that they do and fellas like Eanna.  Our new management team are trying to do things the right way.  The players are buying in.