Davy, on the other hand, as a half-back cum centre-forward or winger, and after starting with Distillery, would move to England, also to Merseyside, but at a higher level. In 1920, so aged twenty four, he was signed by Everton and over eight season featured over one hundred times. He then, at thirty-two, returned briefly to Distillery before joining Ballymena with one hundred and twenty-eight starts over a further three seasons, at which point he moved south. In 1931 he joined the Dublin club Drumcondra, as player-manager, it having just finished second-to-bottom in the Irish League. And he would stay three years but without notable success. The club finished ninth of twelve and last and seventh of ten respectively after which there was a move back in north, a few managerial months at Glentoran before in September 1934 footballing retiral and a return to normal life. 

In the meantime that normal life had in 1918 included marriage in Belfast to Rebecca Beattie. They were to have at least one child, a son, also named David, who sadly died in infancy. David Snr himself would die still in the Ulster capital in 1963, to be outlived by his wife for almost thirty years, she dying in 1990. And all three of them, plus Davy's parents are buried together in the city's Dundonald Cemetery.