THE TIME HAS flown by for David Cawley, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t felt every second of it.
“This is my ninth season in the league and it feels like my 90th,” the Sligo Rovers captain jokes.
“Especially coming through pre-season, the main thing is you come back. As long as you can come back again you’re doing alright.”
Cawley turned 28 in September so, entering what should be the prime of his career in the centre of midfield, it is telling that he has already started to plan for a life without football.
It remains his priority but he feels as if he can no longer ignore the inevitable. He still lives in his hometown, Ballina, and makes the 45-minute trip from Mayo to Sligo from for training every day.
Liam Buckley has trusted him with the captain’s armband and they are duties he takes pride. “Work hard and set a good example,” he states.
But he is not avoiding the elephant in the room. “I’m at a stage in my career now where this is it for me, the League of Ireland is my livelihood and it’s my working life.
I’m not going to be getting a move to England, I’m not going anywhere like that, that’s not going to happen for me now so you need to prepare for what’s to come when this is all finished.”
So, ahead of Christmas a couple of years ago, he began working in local department store Shaw’s. “Some mad days in that job, definitely,” Cawley sighs.
“I wanted to work away from football and do something totally away from it. Just to get that feel of it and know what else is out there. Lots of lads don’t do that, they don’t think about the future and then it hits you hard.
“I’ve heard from other lads that when you stop playing and are outside football going into a new workplace it hits you really hard.
“So I’ve started to ease myself into that, a sort of outside life. It’s not something I’m going to be jumping into right now but I really enjoyed it because it took me out of my comfort zone.
“When I first stated, I didn’t have a clue what was going on, I didn’t know what I was doing or anything that was happening around me. It was a blur and the people around me were probably thinking ‘who is this fella coming in, he’s meant to be a full-time footballer?’ But I hadn’t a scooby,” Cawley continues.
“There were some mad days and I loved it because I needed to get that feel of something else because I knew going out there, it’s scary but you have to have a go at it and I ended up really enjoying it.
“I could totally switch off from football, which is another reason why I like it. And I got to know the people there and they’re great.”
As is the way, Cawley has had to say goodbye to several colleagues from Sligo ahead of this season with a handul of new arrivals freshening things up at the Showgrounds.
It is something he is well used to, having returned to the west of Ireland for his first spell with Sligo eight years ago after spending his formative years in the professional game at Ipswich Town.
Cawley was part of the league-winning side in 2012 and then spent two seasons with St Patrick’s Athletic (2016) and Galway United (2017) before finding his way back to the Bit O’Red.
Three new midfielders have joined the ranks for 2020 – Darragh Noone from Shelbourne American Will Seymore and former Cork City stalwart Garry Buckley – and while Cawley has been buoyed by their impact so far he knows by now that Friday’s Finn Harps examination will be a telling one.
It won’t define their season, of course, but a positive result away in Donegal might just indicate that Sligo have the stell required to improve on seventh place in 2019 and the 15-point gap to the European places.
“We can build on last year but with all due respect, playing friendlies against Ballinamallard away won’t set you up for the league games to come,” Cawley admits.
“Liam [Buckley] hasn’t had to make too many changes, the new lads who have come in have gelled well so far and it will be important for us to build on last year and really kick on.”
No matter how quickly time has gone, Cawley knows that a slow start is always hard to recover from.
