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!