Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MAXIE SWAIN Half a centu on Denis fin gets his rew for loyalty to beloved Que
GOOD things come to those who wait.
So they tell us anyway, but to wait more than 50 years for the kind of sporting deliverance witnessed at the National Stadium last week requires a very special kind of patience.
When Denis Clarke joined Queen’s, England were still basking in the glory of that summer’s World Cup, the newfangled miniskirt was all the rage on the high street and, somewhat appropriately, I’m A Believer by The Monkees was one of the biggest tunes of the year.
Closer to home, Dundela were the holders of the Intermediate Cup while a Sammy Pavis-inspired Linfield had just dethroned Derry City to become champions of the Irish League.
In the interim there have been seismic changes, both in sport and much further afield, but the one constant across it all for Queen’s has been the loyalty and dedication of their long-serving chairman.
Throughout the decades, he has stood by his team through thick and thin, feeding off scraps with just the odd Irish Cup run or Collingwood Cup success to sustain him.
Until now, that is, after Peter Thompson’s class of 2018 demolished the Duns in the Match Intermediate Cup to land a first ever major trophy for the university’s football team.
And for Clarke, coming through all those barren years only sharpens and sweetens his appreciation of what unfolded last Tuesday night.
“It was hard to believe it was happening at the time,” said the Queen’s stalwart.
“It was like a dream because not only were we winning against Dundela, a team we have found it very difficult to play against over the years, but we were winning 4-1 and deservedly winning, it was incredible really.
“It means an awful lot to me. I’ve been happy working away with the club and my main aim was always to provide an opportunity for students to play at as good a level as possible.
“And over the years we did that without really having any chance of winning.
“The team were playing in the B Division from the early ‘20s and the standard of that league was very high.
“We were playing against teams like Carrick and Newry and Ballyclare so it was very hard for us to compete.
“So in a way we were working away knowing that the league was just too strong for us to win it. So to finally win something, I was well-pleased.”
Last Tuesday was not uncharted waters for Queen’s, however.
Their first foray all the way to the Intermediate Cup final came back in 1980, but on that occasion they came up short against the RUC.
Back then, Clarke reckons it was harder to win, and with some justification.
In those days, Queen’s played their football in the old B Division, a level of football which to this day remains hugely respected by anyone who played the game at that time.
Of course it’s nigh on impossible to compare standards with its current incarnation, the Championship, but many of an older vintage would contend that the quality of footballer in the country’s top two leagues in those days has never been bettered.
It was the era of those great RUC teams, the glory days for east Antrim trio Larne, Carrick Rangers and Ballyclare Comrades, Dungannon Swifts were on the rise too, while Dundela under Mervyn Bell and spearheaded by legendary goal machine Stephen Hanvey were doing their thing.
Clarke bore witness to it all and admits Queen’s, with their self-imposed restrictions that only current students qualified to play, were the poor relation (the rules have since been widened to include graduates). “It is difficult to compare teams over the years,” said Clarke, who worked as a computer analyst in the IT department of the university for more than 40 years.
“What you have to remember is the Queen’s team that got to the cup final in 1980, that team was playing in the Irish League B Division, which would be more equivalent today to the Championship, and in that sense possibly the 1980