Marking Time!

As a Sky Blue supporter for many long years, I have learned to be patient, but and I emphasis the word 'but', even I have only so much patience. We had almost 5 years of Kenny Shiels and all we had to show for it was, 'zilch', or 'sweet F.A.'. Knocked out in semi-finals do just not cut the mustard in my book, I am not only looking for success, I'm looking for sustained success. Our current manager Tommy Wright has been in the job 3 years now and I don't think we are in any better shape than we were under Kenny Shiels. Some people say we are in fact worse off, as at least under Kenny, we played a bit of football. Tommy would probably claim he is the 'victim' of his own success, as we reached the final of the County Antrim Shield in his first season and finished well up the league table. Since then we have not progressed and are in fact in my opinion, just 'marking time'. We seem unable to beat or get results on a consistent basis over the top 3 clubs in the league, in 8 meetings against them this season, we have won one, against Glentoran a great result, but lost the other seven. To make matters worse we still suffer from the 'old' Kenny Shiels malaise, we struggle against the lesser teams, Larne and Limavady have both beaten us, while our draws against Donegal Celtic and Institute last week were indications of just how poor we are. If we hadn't had our 12 game unbeaten run from mid October07 to mid January 08, when let's face it we rode our 'luck' on many occasions, we would probably now be in the relegation dog fight. The Irish cup has always had a 'magical' appeal to Sky Blue fans, but we were let down once again this season as we failed to beat Newry, despite outplaying them both home and away. Stuarty King missed 3 glorious chances in the first game at Newry and got caught in possession for their equaliser. This in itself was bad enough, but why our manager failed to bring on ace penalty kick taker Davitt Walsh in the replay, with penalty kicks looming, I'll never know! Surely we can gather together enough defenders to give us a reasonable chance in knock-out competitions. I doubt very much that we will ever have the consistency to win a league title and definitely not if we have to play 38 games as is rumoured for the new league next season. The best scenario for us is a good solid defence, a hard uncompromising midfield and two speedy strikers to grab any opportunities that come along. Much more of this level of 'dross' that we have been subjected to lately and our supporters will dwindle away and that, as they say, 'will be that'. Have a good close season and I'll return hopefully suitably refreshed in August and I sincerely hope it won't be too long before we bring home some trophy or other, fcuk, it has been a long wait!

Still Learning!

There's an old saying which supposedly goes, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'. Senior football came to Ballymena 80 years ago, in 1928. The team was originally known purely and simply as Ballymena and for the first ten or so years things went along normally, more or less. We won the Irish cup in our first year, 1929, beating the 'famous' Belfast Celtic in the final. This was a major achievement, but we finished runners-up in 1930 and 1931 also and so our love of the Irish cup was born. Things as I said went along normally, until an 'off the cuff' remark by the then club chairman, relating to the payment of amateurs (even more illegal then, than now), caused the forming of the new club, Ballymena United. By a strange coincidence we have just been fined £1,000 for breaching this rule this season, not that it's illegal to pay amateurs now, it's just illegal to pay them excessively. United were guilty of that, but so are most of the other 15 clubs in the present Premier league set-up. United I was told had the ammunition to fight back against the I.F.A., but chose to 'bite the bullet' on this occasion and pay the levied fine. We were 'rapped over the knuckles' by the authorities, but chose to eat 'humble pie', but for whatever reason I simply cannot Understand. Hopefully though we've learned from our 'gaffe' and if we can now get 'our house in order', it may well prove a small price to pay. On the other hand, if a similar situation comes up again, then surely 'heads' will need to roll in the Showgrounds management committee. We not only need to be 'squeaky clean', we need to proclaim our innocence, indeed shout it from the rooftops and only in that way can we have our good reputation restored once again!

Sore Truth!

When I was growing up i remember all them old adages like, 'The truth will always find you out', 'Honesty is the best policy' and the one as kids we heard a lot, 'tell the truth and you won't get beat'. Well nothing much has changed, well okay a lot has changed, firstly honesty is not the best policy anymore and the truth comes a long way behind 'conniving and cheating'. You don't even have to tell lies yourself, you can get a professional liar (accountant), to do it for you. Ballymena United football club, have always tried to do everything in an honest manner and this year when they applied for their U.E.F.A. licence they saw no reason to deviate from the truth, in short they showed their accounts in an open and frank way. This included the payment of 3 amateurs, who were getting more than that allowed under the rules. Now let's be honest here, United are not the only club practising this so called deception, in fact I'd hazzard a guess that every team in the Irish league are doing it. So why then have United been singled out for this punishment? The answer of course is because they showed their accounts in an honest and straightforward manner. No hiding behind expenses for replacing corner flags, no our club decided that 'honesty was the best policy. Their reward for this 'honest' approach was a £1,000 fine, so where is the incentive for teams to tell the truth now?

Gloom Doom!

A short time ago we were 'reeling' from the accusations of payments to amateurs, now we are awaiting the result of the 'scuffles' at the end of the Distillery match, where, oh where, is it all going to end? As if things weren't bad enough, our 'dear friends' from the bannside have qualified for the Irish cup final and that really sticks in my craw. I had personaaly hoped the I.F.A. would make a quick decision on the Distillery fracas (hereafter known as the 'fracas'), so as we can get on with our 'petty existence' (or should that be existences, no doubt some of the grammar school boys will correct me if I'm wrong). As for the outcome of the cup semi/final, Rory Hamill and to a lesser extent, Kieran Donaghy, shafted us once again, so what else is new? That of course was a rhetorical question (for any members of the United forum who may have accidentally strayed onto our site, just ignore this statement, as it is way! way! above your intelligence). I just read on Teletext that Stuarty King has been placed on the transfer list by United manager Tommy Wright. Has the penny just dropped for Tommy I wonder! On a personal note I knew 3 months after Stuarty came to us that he was as much use as a 'chocolate fireguard'. When we played Distillery in the re-arranged game in December 2007, we used David Cushley wide on the left and he was electric and what does our manager do, he goes back to using Stuarty King. Stuarty, could and should have scored a hat-trick at Newry in the first round of the cup, methinks if Cushley had been on, things would have been a whole lot different. But it's no use crying over spilt milk, is it? We have just got to dust ourselves down and get on with it and as the old song goes, 'we'll be up (I hope), like a rosedud, high on a tree, hey buddy think it over and take a tip from me, whenever you're down and out, the only way is up'!