*David McCarthy. Photograph: Natasha Barton
CONTINUED SUCCESS brings with it an inherent self-belief and this can steel Newmarket Celtic to hold off a fancied Avenue Utd in their quest to retain the Clare Cup and Premier Division titles according to David McCarthy.
Now in his seventh season with Newmarket Celtic having transferred from Avenue Utd, McCarthy as one of the players in the county quickly established himself as an invaluable member of the Celtic attack.
Over the past two years and the intermittent lockdowns, the Cloughleigh native at times questioned if he was prepared to return the sport and give the commitment required but he quickly found the answers he was looking for. “I think COVID gave me a new lease of life, I got to spend some time at home with the family and the kids, then suddenly I got a new lease of life and got reinvigorated when we came back after lockdown, sometimes you can take sport for granted until you can’t do it, certainly after COVID it has given me a new pep in my step, I’ve applied myself fully and I’m really enjoying my soccer”.
Adding to the freshness has been the introduction of his younger brother Martin to the A team squad for the first time. “It’s great to have him on the A team, he is a very good young player, he’s here to play Youths and U19s, he has impressed the management with his showings there and he’s been called up to the first team with Cael Gaffney, Davy Lennon, James Fahy and Eddie Shaw, we have a good mix of youngsters coming through, they are all really impressing in training and now they have been given a chance in the busy run in we’ve had, they’ve taken their chance as well. It is great to see five youths making the step up and giving fresh blood to the squad”.
A need to rejig the Newmarket side has been apparent in recent seasons, he acknowledged. “That’s always the case, you need to freshen things up, ideally you want to bring one or two players through a season and if they can come from your Youths team even better, in some cases the step up can be too big and it’s unfair to put people into the first team if they are not capable, the quality has to be there in the first place, if you can get them through the Youths ranks in the club it’s the natural progressive route, this season has worked out well for us”.
Last season both Newmarket and Avenue faced off in a bizarre six minute refixture while over the course of five days this week they will meet in two crunch ties to determine the League and Cup champions. “That six minute match was strange in the sense that we held the lead going into it, we knew that if we saw out the six minutes we would be good to go on and win the league, as it turned out we scored another goal within sixty seconds or so, I can’t really describe it, it was hard to prepare for it, we warmed up fully as if we were preparing for a full game knowing the whistle was going to go in six minutes, there was two halves so it was a bit crazy,” he recalled.
Looking ahead to Saturday, David surmised, “The Cup final will take care of itself, I haven’t looked as far ahead as the League game yet. I’m really looking forward to the Cup final, since I’ve been here, I haven’t had a season where we didn’t get to the final so it’s to be expected and we demand it from ourselves as players, we want to continue this run for the club as long as we can, the number is special in that it is double digits this year if we go and get a ten in a row, it’s an amazing achievement, I know I’m part of it but when you look at it, some of the great Avenue sides have only done three in a row and same for Newmarket teams before that, for us to have nine in a row and looking to complete ten is surreal”.
Such a feat is unlikely to be replicated in Clare soccer, he acknowledged. “The longevity of needing to go and consistently win every season without having one off day in a Cup match is highly unlikely, you can never say never but it is really unlikely, it’s been a difficult spell for us this season, we’ve had our own setbacks but I’ve never questioned the commitment of the players, management or the club in general, we’ve really strong togetherness which was needed at the start of the season given that we had a poor enough start and we lost to Avenue in the League and we went out of the FAI to Abbeyfeale and we went out of the Munster Junior to Avenue, while we would never say we’re expected to go and win those competitions but we do like to see can we progress in them. The Clare Cup and the League are the bread and butter, that’s where you set out your stall at the start of the season to go and try win, anything else is a bonus”.
While Avenue have had the upperhand in their encounters this season, the big-day experience is a powerful tool in Newmarket’s armoury, McCarthy argued. “We had the Hugh Kelly final, we were off the back of a few poor results, they were on the crest of a wave and we turned them over that night, we have senior players, experienced players who have been there and done that, they may not have that, we have serial winners in the squad, experience does count for something. They are seen to be the up and coming team and they are, they are a really good side with lots of energy and pace but you can’t take away from the quality we have, I wouldn’t be going into the game fearing them or anything like that, I’d expect us to go if we apply ourselves fully to go and win the game”.
Preparation for Cup finals changes in comparison for your typical Sunday morning league fixture, he admitted. “It’s a little bit different, you’ve got to go and take into consideration you might have more of a crowd, it might be a Saturday evening fixture which it is, food preparation the timing needs to be right, for a Sunday morning with an 11am kickoff you’ll just have breakfast before the game but for this one, you have to time your meals to optimise your performance. It’s different in that sense but in terms of going and playing the game, we take every game as it comes, I’m sure the management will have a tactical plan for us to carry out and then it’s up for us as players to go and perform”.
As a player, McCarthy has won eight Clare Cups, a handful of Premier Division titles and two Oscar Traynor medals, he has no intentions of slowing down just yet but certainly has his eye fixed on management and coaching. “It’s my number one sport, it’s the sport I love, I love playing the game, I would imagine myself going into a coaching role or management at some point, not yet I know what you’re thinking, there’s still a few more years left in me. As soon as my time comes up I will probably go into management, I love live soccer, I watch TV but I prefer local live soccer, when a game is on locally I will try make my way to it, especially if it’s in Frank Healy Park because then it’s usually a Cup final or league play off decider, there is always something on it, it’s not just a needless game”.
