Given the two teams' respective home and away records going into the game it was, perhaps, understandable that the 7,000 supporters who had come along to see Liam Buckley's side win the championship were brimming with confidence before a ball had even been kicked yesterday.

St Patrick's had won 14 of their league games at Richmond Park since August and Pat Devlin's side wouldn't have been staring down the barrel of a gun at relegation if they'd made a habit of denting those sort of records over the past few months.

The visitors, with Jason Byrne still injured and Kieran O'Brien hopelessly out of form, didn't see fit to include an actual striker in their line up and you could even forgive the hosts for playing We are the champions during the warm up (well, okay technically they were the champions then too but it still seemed a little presumptuous) which they did.

If Bray, though, didn't scare the home side's fans before the game they must certainly have given Buckley and the rest of the bench a few frights after it had got started for Pat Devlin's side caused the locals quite a few problems before Jeff Clarke scored from six yards to effectively kill off their hopes of staying in the top flight for next season.

Devlin's approach was to employ Stephen Fox up front by himself where he was clearly expected to do his best to hold the ball up whenever it came his way until the occupants of a jam packed midfield arrived to give support.

Even against a team whose industry in defence has kept the figure in the goals against to just 21 it was a plan that seemed to come off to a considerable extent with most of the best chances before Clarke's intervention falling to Wanderers, most notably to Barry O'Connor who twice shot straight at Trevor Wood when the whole goal beckoned and Fox whose strike on the turn from 25 years out thundered past the goalkeeper and crashed off the crossbar before flying over.

By now word was working its way back from the Showgrounds that Sligo were well on top in their game with Derry and so, in effect, Bray's goose was already cooked. Clarke, though, made sure that they were left in no doubt whatsoever about their fate eight minutes into the second period, though, with the 21-year-old Canadian international finishing off a neat passing move down the right from which Stephen McGuinness had been given the time and space to get in the perfect low ball towards the six yard box.

Clarke was a somewhat unlikely hero for the home side. He has started just seven competitive games for Buckley this season and is widely expected, on that basis, to move on again now that his contract is up.

Still, if the former Antwerp player wanted to make a case for being persuaded to stay, he could hardly have picked a better way. From the time he got his side in front the match was transformed. Wanderers wilted completely and had it not been for John Walsh's couple of fine stops from Trevor Molloy and, late on, Martin Reilly's failure to release the ball when his fellow striker was completely unmarked on the edge of an undefended area, the scoreline at the end would have been a good deal more lobsided.

It scarcely mattered, though. The single goal was enough to condemn Bray to the drop and enough for St Patrick's to actually clinch the league at Richmond Park for the first time in their history.

With four titles in the 1990s the club's supporters are seasoned veterans of championship celebrations and judging by the pandemonium which broke out when Gerry Perry's whistle provided the signal for another party they show no signs of growing weary of them just yet.

St Patrick's Athletic: Wood; Lynch; McGuinness, Hawkins; Burke, Morgan, Croly, Russell, Clarke; Molloy, Reilly.

Bray Wanderers: Walsh; Lynch, Tresson, Doohan; Tierney, O'Connor, Brien, Smith, Farrell; Fox. Subs: O'Brien for O'Connor (68 mins), Kenny for Lynch (70 mins), Dutton for Smith (73 mins).

Referee: G Perry (Dublin).