Living Legends!

Last night in the Des Allen suite at the Showgrounds, it was the turn of Ballymena to host the 'Carling living legends'. With compère Jacky Fullerton introducing, former United stalwarts Eddie Russell, Norman Clark and Arthur Stewart, alongside present United Captain Gary Haveron. It was nice to hear the old-timers waxing lyrically about former managers Alex McCrea and Geoff Twentyman, McCrea was acclaimed as possibly United's best ever manager. Jacky used his local knowledge to extract plenty of craic from the locals and one antidote does bear re-telling.

In a match at Lurgan Jacky was receiving some 'stick' from a few United supporters (Jacky never seemed to give his all when playing for United) and Eddie Russell thought he'd ask the fans to lay off our Jacky. He was firmly put in his place with the retort that he had no room to talk as he was even worse than Jacky. Jacky forgot to mention the history surrounding Ballymena trips to Lurgan over the years. The fact is they rarely lost down there in them days as the 'bookies' didn't communicate with each other very much and loads of money was bet on themselves to win at various towns on the way and they all reaped a tidy bonus.

Various questions came from the floor one of which was to name United's best striker and in my mind there were two omissions, one of them from the 'glory years' and one who 'set the ball rolling' so to speak. The man from the glory years was Paul Malone, who scored loads of goals for United and more or less single-handedly got them to the final for their first Irish cup win in 1981, with his scoring feats epitomised by a hat-trick against Cliftonville at Solitude in the 2nd round. The one who set the ball rolling was 'Hoody' McCambridge who scored the priceless goal when Ballymena won their first ever Irish cup way back in 1929. I was told a story about this man's feat many years ago by my wife's uncle. Hoody was travelling to work in the same bus as Elijah Scott, who kept goals for Belfast Celtic, Ballymena's opponents in the '29 final. Scott said to Hoody, 'sure you didn't know where that ball was going when you hit it' and Hoody replied, 'no and neither did you till you were picking it out of the net'.

Every body was asked who was the best player they ever played with, Russell opted for McCrea, Clarke was torn between McCrea and Russell, but never in no circumstances would it be Brian Clough who was at Sunderland in his time. Arthur mentioned Twentyman, but in the end plumped for Geordie Best and who could argue with that. Gary Haveron alas committed a major gaffe by going for Coleraine 'hatchet-man' Pat McAllister, which brought a few murmurs from the United faithful. I almost got up and walked out at this stage myself, this man was an animal who delighted in kicking 'lumps' out of people and to hold him up as some sort of example, was at best ill-guided and at worst foolhardy, not your best moment Gary.


As the evening broke up I managed a word in Norman's ear reminding him about the kick-a-bouts down in Smithfield playing fields, which was just waste ground then and he remembered all the names of the youngsters. That's one thing about the 'Ballymena boy', he doesn't forget his roots or his friends. A good night, a free pint of Carlings and a chance to catch up with some good memories but we need more than memories, we believe Roy, but it's high time for you to deliver! Gary, we'll give the benefit of the doubt on this occasion!

Long Overdue!

In his 'Captains blog' in Tuesday night's programme our Gazza (Gary Haveron to the uninitiated), was holding forth about the disgraceful display of refereeing by our dear friend Alan Black at Coleraine. What Gazza had to say was very interesting, re- the decisions, but the point I'd like to pick up on was Gazza's query about the referee's accountability, or should I say the lack of it. When an English premier league referee makes a 'horlicks', which they do as they're only human, they are usually dropped from the premier league list for several weeks. In Norn Iron they are seemingly infallible, as they are not accountable and I've yet to hear of a referee being punished for getting decisions wrong.

We have a referee's assessor at every game, but as he is usually a retired referee, he just agrees with every decision the referee makes. This of course results in a 'whitewash' and in my book is a complete waste of time. Why bother having an assessor at all if he's just going to sanction everything the referee does, rightly or wrongly. We have had more than our fair share of poor decisions this season, with at least three men sent off, when they were in fact the victim of fouls. Not only is the referee not brought to book over his performances, the players have no avenue of appeal when they are suspended.

In most leagues a player can appeal against a caution or a sending off if he thinks he has been treated harshly by a referee. In Norn Iron I'm afraid a player has no right to appeal and must suffer the consequences of over-zealous officials. Surely it's time in this the 21st century, that our players had the same rights as most other players in the U.K. I wouldn't be surprised that it's illegal under European community rules, to not have a right of appeal. As for F.I.F.A. they are as single minded as the I.F.A. and appealing to them would only fall on deaf ears. We already have an example of their two-faced legislation re-the Gibson controversy and we know they can't be trusted.

Maybe the players will need to get together and threaten strike action or similar in order to get their point across. The alternative is to do nothing and suffer at the hands of the 'little Hitlers' like Alan Black. Approaching the I.F.A. would be a futile exercise as they believe they are right and everybody else is wrong and that is because they've been 'shafting' everybody for so long they actually believe they're right.I think the time has come for the players to stand up and be counted, otherwise the dictators have won!

Mind Boggling!

Can someone explain the 'new' offside rule to me, I must confess I can't get to grips with it at all, it's just bloody confusing. Oh for the good old days, when if you were offside, a free kick was given to the opposing team. Then some bright spark came up with the idea (allegedly to speed the game up), that if you weren't interfering with play you couldn't be offside. Next up was the ruling that if you were level, you couldn't be offside and if memory serves me correctly at this stage we also got rid of the rule that when the ball was played off a member of the opposing side, you were offside and not 'played on', but if a member of the opposing side played a deliberate back pass you 'were' played on.

Now of course they've come up with the idea that you cannot be offside unless you actually touch the ball and this is where the confusion comes in. Linesmen are sometimes still flagging for offsides and free kicks are being given when a player is in an offside position without him touching the ball. At other times they're not flagging even though players are clearly offside, maybe even in the penalty box, but in their opinion aren't interfering with play. As the late great Danny Blanchflower allegedly said, 'if they're not interfering with play, what are they on the pitch for'? I wholeheartedly agree with our Danny on this occasion.

Surely the old adage rings true once again, 'if it's not broken, then don't fix it'. I can see no benefit for the game in this new offside ruling, players look completely bemused when the flag goes up (forwards) or doesn't (defenders) and speaking as a fan, I just don't have a baldy. I suppose as it is a F.I.F.A. ruling we're stuck with it, but I don't like it just the same and I hanker for the good old days, but this is progress I'm told, progress isn't always a good thing would be my retort, but it'll only fall on deaf ears. I don't like it, so I'll just have to lump it I suppose!

Tunnel Vision!

Let me state categorically here that I in no way condone the action of the 'mindless alleged' United fan or fans, who threw the two bottles onto the pitch at Coleraine Showgrounds after the scum had taken a 3-1 lead, just nine short days ago. But it was not without provocation, as fat Davey O'Hare was plainly seen gesturing to the fans behind his goal when the scum scored their 3rd goal. No doubt our fans had been giving 'fat' some stick, as we always do, but I do know that the visually impaired Alan Black, who saw a 'dive' when a foul had been committed, chose not to see the actions of the fat scum-bag. O'Hare played a vital part in this incident, but Black, only saw what he wanted to, just as Trevor Moutray only heard what he wanted to, in United's other 'fat' incident at Stangmore Park.

Has the word 'fat' taken on a new meaning? Is it more offensive to the ears than the word that usually comes after, 'love child'? One thing's for sure, we cannot fight the establishment, even when we proved our case against the lies perpetrated by Dungannon officials and the 'lying love children' of Moutray and company, we were still found guilty, just as we'll be found guilty at Coleraine Showgrounds. What punishment should we give to the perpetrator/perpetrators of this vile act which brings more shame to our club? At first I thought we should ask them to pay the fine and if they refused then we should banish them from the ground.

But that would in fact give the victory to the 'fat man' and the I.F.A., no there has to be another way to earn absolution. We could make them hand out leaflets about non-violence, sectarian chants and racial discrimination at all games for the remainder of the season. We should also name them and shame them, as we all have a right to know who has besmirched our name, on this occasion. Referee's may have 'tunnel vision' but hopefully we have not. United we stand, divided we fall, all we have to do, is believe!