Time Wasters!

I just thought that seeing as we have no match this week I’d have a look at how we were doing compared to the same time last season. I’m sure no ‘dyed in the wool’ United fan needs to be reminded that we were eagerly looking forward to playing Larne in the cup semi-final at this time last season and looking to extend our unbeaten run to ten league and cup games. What a difference a year makes, we are now in the middle of a severe slump, just holding onto fifth place by the skin of our teeth. We could in theory still finish in fourth, but we could also quite easily finish in tenth and after witnessing the attitude of United players over the last few games, the ‘latter’ looks the more likely. The two narrow defeats by the unbeaten, or should I say unbeatable, Linfield, have really knocked us for six. Even after taking the lead against Lisburn Distillery last week, we never looked like a team with the conviction to go on and win the tie. Our record in the league speaks for itself, played 25, won 11, drawn 5 and lost 9, total points 38. At the same stage last year our record was, played 25, won 9, drawn 10 and lost 6, total points 37. Not a big difference, but we have given our new manager a fairly free rein and he has promised much but so far delivered precious little. Although our defence has remained virtually unchanged, Craig McClean has held the left back slot for most matches, preferred by the United manager to Boydie, while as has been well documented before, goalkeeper ‘Goosey’ Robinson was foolishly released before another established keeper was in place. As a result of this ‘rash’ decision, we have had to make do with the average keeping of Willie McFrederick, who in my opinion costs us at least one goal every two games, mainly due to his reluctance to accept back passes or to leave his goal-line. It’s hardly surprising then that we have conceded 39 goals in the league already compared with 36 for the same period last season. Not a big amount really I suppose, but for me that isn’t the biggest let down this season. For about the past three seasons we have been minus a ‘target man’ up front, some one to lead the line by example. Finally we thought this season we had unearthed not one but two, namely Vinny Sweeney and Kevin Kelbie. These two men have plundered 25 goals between them this season, our two strikers last season I think barely managed 13 between them, although in all fairness Matthew Nolan only joined us before the close of the January transfer window, playing 11 games in total and scoring 6 goals. Still even with these two strikers in place we have only scored 36 goals in the league so far, last season we had surprise! surprise! scored the same 36, while conceding 34. Again not a big difference, but and I stress the word ‘but’, our forward line and midfield has almost been completely transformed. In fact only Gareth Scates and Rory Hamill remain from United’s forward unit of last season, while Dominic Melly is carrying a long term injury. But we have had a major shake up in the midfield engine room and in attack. The manager wisely sought to boost our attack even further at the transfer window, by signing ex-Limavady striker Paul Brown, but he is clearly not match fit and in fact is out with a hamstring injury at present. From 6 appearances two of them as sub, he has scored just two goals, but I believe he contributes to the team effort and is one for the future if we can get him fully fit. This situation is bad enough, but what ‘rankles’ me and many other Sky Blue fans is that we are ‘boring’ to watch. If we were boring and successful that would be okay, but I’m afraid being boring and fairly ordinary to boot, means United fans are giving the team the ‘cold shoulder’ and our support is dwindling. Plus we still have what our manager (no doubt taking a line form Sky Blue Sport), likes to call 5 cup finals remaining and it’s hard to see any easy points being gleaned as we entertain Portadown and Glentoran, who are fighting it out for second place behind Linfield, while our other home match against our derby rivals the Coleraine ‘scum’, will be no pushover either. Our remaining two fixtures, both away, are at Lurgan against Glenavon (Easter Tuesday) who will want to finish as high up the league as possible and our final fixture at Drumahoe against Institute, who may still be battling to avoid the play-off slot, so no easy points there then is there,? The United players, manager and coaches are going to have to dig in and eke out at least eight points in these remaining 5 games, in my opinion, otherwise our season will have been a complete waste of time!

Fruitless Appeal!

It was interesting to hear the debate over the choice of Windsor Park for the Irish cup semi-final, between Larne and Glentoran, instead of bringing it to Ballymena Showgrounds. The I.F.A. in their wisdom or to pass the buck, the senior clubs committee, stated that Ballymena didn’t have enough seats for Glentoran supporters. The old stand I’m told has 1200 seats and the new one 1800 approximately. Now when one compares this with Windsor Park it is just not at the races. But let’s compare it with the choice of venue for the other semi-final between Linfield and Bangor, Seaview. To say that seating there is limited is to put it mildly, probably about a third of the capacity of the Showgrounds. So that argument is tossed right out the window immediately, but that allows us to get to the real ‘crux’ of the matter. Semi-finals are seldom taken out of Belfast and Linfield are guaranteed at least two semi-finals and one final during each and every season. How else are Linfield going to fund their huge wage bill, except at the expense of the other 16 Irish league clubs? They’re already getting £200.000 plus from the I.F.A. for the use of Windsor Park for Internationals, but their greed knows no limits and they demand at least two semi-finals and at least one final each and every season. Having said that one can’t argue with the facilities at Windsor as they are top class, but if the I.F. A. were to take over the ground extensions and repairs at any other club, as they do at Windsor, they too could have a top class stadium also. The Ballymena board and the two clubs made an unsuccessful appeal against this decision, which I personally thought was to be commended although in essence it was a complete waste of time. The United board even read out a message from Ballymena Borough council saying that as the I.F. A. (senior clubs committee), allowed that the Showgrounds wasn’t fit to hold an Irish cup semi-final, perhaps they could find another venue for schoolboy Internationals and other representative games. The council allowed that the committee’s decision was in complete contrast to Sky television, who praised the Showgrounds as the best ground for their requirements. This all fell on deaf ears, as at the end of the day the status quo must remain. One cannot go around upsetting the powers at Windsor Park, can one? The next thing you know clubs will be demanding that a neutral referee is selected when playing Linfield. This sort of thing can only lead to anarchy, we make the decision and you must abide with it, if not David Jeffrey will go and huff in the corner and Linfield will refuse to allow Norn Iron to play at Windsor Park. I know I’m being facetious here, but I think you get my drift. At the end of the day we’re just banging our heads against a brick wall, we either accept that we can’t change a thing or we keep our frustrations in check. Either way nothing changes and we just have to make the most of it!    

Ironic Blues!

Did anyone read the article in tonight’s Belfast Telegraph about Linfield complaining about a small section of their supporters using racial abuse and sectarian chants? If you did I’m sure like me you must have found this, quite funny, or at least quite ironic. This is the same Linfield who still play in red, white and blue (red socks, white shorts and blue jerseys). Dyed in the wool ‘bluemen’ would no doubt argue that these are the club colours and have been for a considerable time. But surely if Linfield are intent in stamping out sectarianism, as they continue to insist, maybe they should consider dropping one of the two primary colours of the Union Jack from their kit. As they have, whether consciously or unconsciously, made their team one of mixed religion, surely it’s time to go one step further. Not for many a year have we heard the old sectarian cry from diehard bluemen, ‘come on the sons!’ For any uninitiated followers, this was a shortened version of ‘Come on the sons of William’ (King William 3rd). Now with players like Pat McShane, Aiden O’Kane and our own dear former player, Oran Kearney, swelling their ranks, even bluemen have had to give up this favoured chant. As for racism, it would be rather a strange chant from Linfield fans, whose team were one of the first to introduce black players to the local game. Just this January, during the transfer window, they signed a black player, who had been on Ards books. Would there be any Linfield fans stupid enough to use racism when they have a black player in their midst? Wait a minute, what am I talking about, it is Linfield fans after all and they have been known to make the odd gaffe before now. Racism is going to be hard to stamp out here in Northern Ireland as it’s a fairly new concept and we must educate people in order to deal with it. Sectarianism on the other hand has been with us for many years and still it’s simmering away beneath the surface. I even notice that an Ulster flag has been brought along to our games lately. I know this is a small minority amongst our supporters, but it reflects on us all and our club should advise such people that this flag is not welcome at our games. The Ulster flag has its place at International matches, not club games and the sooner fans realise this, the sooner we’ll give sectarianism the ‘boot’. Come on Linfield, give us all an example, kick out sectarianism for good and then maybe we can start to work on racism!

Impossible Dreams!

I know all Irish league fans will be surprised to hear that Ards’s plans for a new ground have fallen through once more. I am joking here of course, as everybody and their Aunt knew that the possibility of Ards getting a new ground were as remote as Linfield sharing their £250,000 yearly handout from the I.F.A. for the use of Windsor Park, amongst the other 15 Premier league clubs. The ‘Ards saga’ has been running for quite a few years now and if I’m not mistaken they made a pledge to the I.F.A. two seasons ago, that if their ground wasn’t started by the end of the 2004/05 season, they would pay a fine of £10,000. What a joke that has turned out to be as Ards are now in receivership and can’t afford to pay anybody, never mind paying a fine to the governing body. Ards are I have to say not alone in dealing in a despicable manner with people who have showed absolute faith with them. Take our own dear friends, better known as Coleraine Scum, didn’t they run up an outrageous overdraft and then refuse to pay it and were allowed to continue as a football team, instead of being ‘wound up’. In fact the only people who were ‘wound up’, were the creditors that Coleraine owed money to. This sort of action gives out the wrong impression to aspiring clubs that you can ‘have your cake and eat it’ as the old saying goes. Just imagine the scenario a few years down the line, Wakehurst and Donegal Celtic have run up a bill of half a million each. So what do they do, they follow the example of Coleraine and go into receivership, continuing on as if nothing has happened. Surely it’s time the I.F.A. amended their ‘archaic’ rules and laid down some guidelines to punish teams who allow their debts to spiral out of control. Then maybe we can get back to having a level playing surface, for the future of the game, it is the only logical course. Maybe while they’re at it they could look into their ‘hilarious’ contract with Linfield for the use of Windsor Park. But wait a minute, what am I saying, ‘miracles happen everyday, but the impossible takes a little longer’ and as far as the I.F.A. are concerned, it’ll just never happen!

United Heroes!

After seeing a picture of former United ‘utility’ player, Alec Donald, in last week’s Ballymena Times, it got me to thinking about all the ‘heroes’ and I do mean heroes, who have occupied the number two slot for United over the years. The first one whom I can call to mind is old timer, Eric Trevorrow. Eric played for United’s famous ’58 cup winners and I honestly don’t know how many years he served them faithfully while wearing the number two jersey. He was a good old fashioned full back, a master of the sliding tackle and must have notched up at least 400 games for the Sky Blues. He was unsurprisingly, a Scottish national, which is almost synonymous with United teams over the years. Even though I said he was old fashioned, he was in fact one of the first exponents of the ‘overlapping’ fullback. At some point during each game, or so it seemed to me, Eric would venture upfield. Generally nothing came of it, but in those days players were ‘stereotyped’, defenders defended, halfbacks and inside forwards were the midfield, while wingers played on the wings and centre-forwards ploughed a lone furrow up front. But Eric was after all an individual and in those days they were few and far between, so they tended to stand out. He was I think, the only United recipient of Castlereagh Glentoran supporters club’s footballer of the year, in fact I think he was the first winner, nowadays it tends to be won by someone from the top two or three clubs. But Eric as I said was an exceptional footballer and was appreciated by home and visiting fans alike. The next notable number two, in my humble opinion, was in fact the man I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Alec Donald. Alec had originally come to United as a winger, was then converted to being a midfielder and finally to the fullback position. Alec, of course was a Scotsman also and he was (and I don’t use the word lightly), a gentleman. He had come to Ballymena from Derry City, where he had been a fulltime pro and after getting a job at the local Michelin factory, he signed for United. He was a player who played flat out for the whole ninety minutes, but some people regarded him as being a wee bit reluctant to go for the fifty/fifty tackles. He elaborated on this one day by saying that the then United manager, Arthur Stewart, said to him that he needed to ‘get stuck in’. Alec said that his viewpoint was that he went for the tackles he thought he could win, but saw no point in risking life and limb in a vain attempt to win the ball. Alec, probably unknown to most United fans, carried a serious knee injury, which meant after a match he ‘hobbled’ for a couple of days, so one can see his point of view. However I do remember on one occasion the high flying Linfield, sweeping all before them as usual, came to town for a midweek match. Alec Donald had the ‘game of his life’ that night, when he won not only fifty/fifty tackles, but forty/ sixty and others he had no right to get even close to. I think the match ended in a 2-2 draw, but if every United player had put in half the effort of Alec that night, we would’ve won the match easily. No journal of United fullbacks would be complete without mentioning the stalwart, Mark Carlisle. Marco when he signed for us at first was not my favourite player I must admit, but like a succession of United managers I came to realise just how good the Antrim man was. Like Alec he was a real ‘gentleman’, but he was also a great fullback and a great clubman. I am personally against board intervention when a manager does something silly, but honestly think that when Kenny Shiels told our Marco that Joe Gray was getting the nod for his position, we should’ve shown Kenny the door. Joe Gray wasn’t even fit to lace Marco’s boots and we the fans knew that, but of course Kenny being Kenny, allowed the United hero to drift away to Armagh City. These are just three of United’s great number twos, they are my particular heroes and I make no apology for omitting players like Tommy Gowdy, George Beatty and a former United manager,Gary Erwin. These were good players in their own right but as I say the first three are ‘my heroes’ and I know it was a privilege to watch them play for the Sky Blues. Hopefully they’ll be a few more in the years I have left, but if not, at least I have these three to remember!