James McKenna had his mind made up long before the end of last season. Injuries were frustrating him and he felt it was time to call it a day. And after nine years with the club he owed nobody anything at Ferney Park.
New manager Gavin Dykes though had other ideas. He saw McKenna as a key man and he eventually persuaded him to stick around. 
“Gavin had spoke to me when he got the job as he had heard that I was planning on retiring. He made a big push to convince me that I would be making a mistake and that I would enjoy working with him for the year. There is the possibility that I will get into coaching when I do hang up the boots and in that regards there was the temptation that I would maybe learn something on that front from Gavin. Whenever I thought about everything it was just too hard to walk away from it.
“I don’t enjoy being injured and that was part of the thinking about retiring as it was my body telling me to stop but he wants me to manage that. I had a bit of a setback with my toe in pre-season but I’m over that now and I just want to now get up to match fitness and try to stay injury free,” said McKenna.
For McKenna, the personal goal for the season was to get back playing and make a positive impact on the side. Dykes though had another role in mind for him as well as he named him as his captain for the campaign.
“Gavin spoke to me about the captaincy and I told him that my biggest aim was just to be fit and get in the team but he was very firm that he seen me as being his captain. He said that what he looks for in a captain is somebody who has strong ties with the club and the area and I’ve been at the club for nine years now so he felt that I was the best person for the job. Obviously, as captain you try and help the young lads who are coming to the club and who aren’t from the area to understand what the club’s about but at the same time my focus is on getting out on the pitch and playing. It’s certainly a big honour though to be captain,” added McKenna.
It’s all new at Ferney Park this season. For the first time in nine years McKenna has a new manager and he is enjoying things so far.
“I enjoyed working under Whitey but when a new manager comes in you are going to enjoy that because it’s fresh and it’s an opportunity to learn from him. Gavin is very positive, the trainings good and he wants us to play football. It has been really good apart from the three defeats,” he said.
As McKenna eluded to, it’s not the start to the season that the Mallards had been hoping for but he says that they have to remain positive.
“At the end of the day all that really matters is results and they haven’t been what we hoped for. I think there was plenty of positives from the first two games but the Ballymena game was really disappointing. I think we always knew it was probably going to take three or four games to get us to where we want to be in terms of fitness and implementing what Gavin wants us to do on the pitch because that is not going to happen overnight. We also have a number of young players who have come in and they are all talented lads. They have a lot of potential and the more experience they get in the first team the better they will get,” he said.
He knows though that a run of defeats will not help confidence and he acknowledges that they need to get their first win on the board sooner rather than later with a key clash against Carrick Rangers coming up this Saturday.
“It’s not easy for anybody to stay confident if you are not winning games. It dates back further than the three games we played this year, confidence was low at the end of last year and it is easier said than done to remain confident. We have to just put the last week out of our heads, those games are gone and we have to just look at Saturday and go there and believe we are going to get the three points. I think if we can get the three points we will kick on but we don’t want to go on a run for too long without winning a game because with all the goodwill in the world confidence does get lower if your not winning games.”
Carrick proved a tough nut for Ballinamallard to crack last season but McKenna is aware that games against those sides that are likely to be around you in the table are those that you have to take points from.
“We didn’t get enough points against the teams around us last season and that was a killer. Carrick picked up ten points out of 12 against us and even if we had split that six each we would have been nowhere near a play-off. In any league, whether it’s the top or the bottom, the teams that could potentially be around you are the teams you need to be taking points off. Saturday is a game we need to go with a positive mindset, get the points and make sure that we are starting to climb well clear. We certainly don’t want to be where we are at the minute for too long,” he said.