David Holdbaby Banks

David Holdbaby Banks is a semi-pro footballer that currently plays for Darlington football club.

Club career

Arsenal

2005–06 season

David Holdbaby Banks caught the eye of arsenal scouts playing for his local team in Barnsley, (The Great Barr Falcons), in March 2005 and was among a host of young players snapped up by Arsene Wenger in the summer of 2005. However David was rarely given the chance to impress as he was unable to break into the U18s ahead of the likes of Vassiriki Diaby, Denílson Pereira Neves and Cesc Fabregas so spent much of his time on the bench.

2006–07 season

For the 2006-07 season David needed to impress as his contract was due to run out in the summer of 2007. However the Arsenal U-18 coaching staff were unimpressed with his attitude and party lifestyle so despite his obvious talent chose not to renew his contract.

Ipswich Town

2007–08 season

David thought this may have meant the end of his footballing career and he may need to move on to his other passion of coreography but was delighted when Ipswich manager Jim Magilton came calling. David went straight into the first team for Ipswich and scored on his debut against his hometown club Barnsley. David quickly established himself as a fan favorite due to his exciting style of play and was referred to by many fans as David 'Ginola' Banks.

2008–09 season

When the 2008-09 came along David had gone back to his old ways and fell out with manager Jim Magilton before the season had even kicked off. Magilton was unhappy with the fitness levels of David when he turned up for the first training session of pre-season. This lead to a bust up where players had to get involved to separate manager and player as they threw punches and kicks at each other. However after putting this behind them in March 2009 when David turned up for training under the influence of alcohol from a party the night before this was the last straw for Magilton and Banks was transfer-listed and placed in the reserves never playing a first team game for Ipswich again.

Darlington

2009–10 Season

In 2009 new Darlington and ex Ireland manager Steve Staunton decided to take the risk on bad boy Banks and made him his first signing for Darlington for the fee of £50,000. David has yet to make much of an impact at Darlington due to injury but welcomed the move as it meant he was able to undertake his two passions of football and coreography as he was now a part-time footballer so was able to attend Sunderland University to get the degree in coreography that he always wanted.