Let Down!

Were you at the Showgrounds on Monday 26 August 2013? Just imagine that question being asked of Sky Blue supporters in 20 years time, providing that there is a Ballymena United or indeed a league to play in. The answer to the question is I hope the fans around then (2033), are bit more loyal than the ones we have now and there's 20 or 30 of them still following United through thick and thin, hopefully mainly thick. It wasn't pretty to watch and in theory our players should have more class than Ballymoney, but it was foolhardy of our manager drop 7 players from his squad and leave our bench comprising two first teamers and 3 untried youngsters.

In his first season, former manager Kenny Shiels picked an under-strength team to take on Kilmore Rec. and we got beat and this clanger was almost perpetrated on last Monday night with Glenn's selection, or at least I assume it was Glenn's team, for he didn't appear in the dugout until halfway through the 2nd half, so maybe he hadn't picked the team. In an interview with Stephen Alexander he defended the team selection saying that these were players who had should have been out to make an impression and he couldn't see any of them breaking down his door to get playing for the first team.

Glenn need look back no longer than last season to realise that's foolhardy in the extreme to make wholesale changes to the team. When we played Chickenville, the league leaders and eventually winners of the league in the County Antrim Shield last October, they dropped several of their first-teamers and paid the price and thankfully they did, a salutary lesson which they learned and subsequently never made that mistake again last season. I do hope Glenn and his coaches learn from their mistake and hope there's no lasting repercussions about this result. We have won our last two league matches and it would be nice to win a few more, but I think that Monday night's result did more harm than good, if we get a couple of injuries, teams will realise that we got nothing to fall back on and we will be easy meat.

Ballymoney played out of their skin, but they had nothing to lose, we on the other hand had everything to lose and almost did. How we must thank Tony Kane, for it was his genius with a dead ball, that got back in the match when we looked dead and buried. But Gary Thompson, who had been playing well the last two games had a night he will want to forget. But him and Neal Lowry could get a reprieve on Friday, for Cush, the only obvious replacement is going to be missing another month at least, but they will have to buck-up. It's not all gloom and doom, for we seemed to have laid the curse about penalty shoot-outs to rest and the players did that well at least, but it was nerve-wracking for the fans. A fan who I have known a long time came up and spoke to me at the match and though is very ill himself, his first words to me were 'how are you' I was humbled, its good to see there's still nice people and they are Sky Blue through and through!

Whata Difference!

How does the old song go, 'what a difference a day makes' but in United's case and their long suffering fans, what a difference a week makes. True we rode our luck against the Crues, they hit the crossbar twice, Dwayne made some unbelievable saves and they missed some chances. But if we had, had a strong referee, the Crues would have been to 10 men as early on as the 18th minute and 9 men before halftime, but we had to put up with Andy Hunter, who couldn't even stay on his feet, or was he tripped. With the benefit of hindsight, I think a strong referee might have disallowed the Crues goal, for a high foot on the keeper, no doubt about it, Adamson's foot was high and if Dwayne had been foolhardy, which he isn't it could all ended up rather nasty.

Justice was done in the end, with Dolan's goal-bound shot taking a deflection of Crues defender Robinson and leaving former United keeper Sean O'Neill stranded and then the clincher from Liggie with only a minute of normal time remaining. How on earth referee Andy Hunter got 4 mins of injury time beggars belief, United weren't time-wasting, the Crues were and we could have been punished by their cheating. Surely the only right thing to do when a team is time-wasting (instead of adding on more time at the finish), is to flash the yellow card and that stops time-wasting in its tracks and we punters see more action, I'm all for that.

They were two personal incidents involving the Sky Blue Sports team last Saturday, Sammy Patterson swears blind he had the winning time of 55 mins, but he lost it in the excitement of Liggie's goal and big Tommy Patterson (no relation of Sammy), came up to me with a message from former United legend Norman Clarke, apologising for only getting barely a minute to speak to me at the Glenavon match, needless to say I was right chuffed that a man who's rightly revered by Sky Blue fans as a living legend, had thought me important enough to tell Tommy to convey his apologies. If anybody out there picked up Sammy's winning ticket, he'd deeply appreciate it's return, if not, too bad, maybe he has to curb his celebrations in future. Ah, feck its only money, £30 would hardly give you a good night out, COSB!

Horrible Nightmare!

I had a dream, correction I had a nightmare, I dreamt that we got relegated on goal difference and after last Saturday's capitulation it all seems so real. With Johnny Taylor back I was hoping against hope about my assessment of Archie as a pretend central defender was all a myth. But alas I was proved right and even the bold Johnny couldn't atone for his shortcomings and they were mighty. But maybe what Glenn said when we conceded 14 goals in two games against Linfield and Chickenville at home, 'that was just a bad day at the office' he claimed he was was right, but I don't think so.

We need a vast improvement this Saturday against the Crues, who will be smarting from their own reversal at Ballinmallard last Saturday and eager to avenge that loss. With Gavin Taggart restored to the United team, will Glenn be tempted to use his combative skills against the 'hatchet men' or will he keep him in reserve to be in contention for next week against the Dungannon men.If he continues with his policy, he will undoubtedly let Gavin prove his fitness in the reserves, before recalling him to first team duty.

It's going to be tough, it always is at Seaview and United have that astro-turf to deal with and they have a pitch to test it on in training, but they need to practice, not going through the motions. We only had one match, there's 37 to go, but the start-up is vitally important and we got off to a horror show. but the damage can be repaired, we have the techknowledge. We need to take a leaf out of Norn Iron team's philosophy, it's entirely possible, you only have to ask them!

First Light!

I was reading on the United official website that it 106 days since football finished for us Sky Blue supporters, is it really that long? I'm not doubting the veracity of this statement, but merely my own memories about time passing so slowly when I was young, nowadays it passes in a flash. Last season I attended the majority of United's pre-season friendlies, but this year, I couldn't be arsed. I was intending to go to Larne, but then went to Bangor and had lunch instead, how pathetic is that? When I heard the match on Monday night against the PSNI was a tribute to my good friend, Noel 'Stroker' Millar, I decided to take that in. There were very few Sky Blue supporters in attendance, the PSNI had out a fringe team, but United didn't turn up, at least that's what I felt. We lost the match 3-2, but truth to tell it wasn't that close, 6-2 would have been a more realistic scoreline.

Admittedly we had only two recognised first-teamers in the squad, Sparky and Gavin, but they were easily the weakest links in our team. A fellow supporter, who attended the majority of the pre-season games, said that this was the dross he had come to expect and the form United had shown all along in pre-season. I Had attended the United shareholders AGM in June and made an observation to our manager that United in my opinion, were vulnerable to a team playing football. He poohed, poohed, this idea and said that the only team who had played football against us was Chickenville. He obviously was not at the matches against, Glenavon, Crusaders and Coleraine, not to mention Dungannon, DC and Warrenpoint Town, he might have been guesting for a Linfield select on these occasions, when these teams gave us a virtual football lesson. I was the only shareholder that asked the manager a question, so everybody else was happy with our season methinks.

That night I couldn't wait to get my point across on the United forum, I know what you're thinking, I've condemned the anoraks on this forum many times, but I felt forced to join them to find out what was happening in our club. When I logged in that night, I was informed that I had been banned for a month, for nothing. I'm left to conclude that I was getting too close to the truth. I appealed to the web-master, but he ignored my pleas, it was like pissing into the wind. What disappointed more than being banned was I spoke to at least three people who I know they're quite active on the site and I bet have influence on the site, but they kept their silence. When I couldn't log-in, I immediately thought Glenn Ferguson must have some influence, I only raised the point 2 hours ago and I've been banned already, but I had been banned at 11am that morning.

If I was like the rest of these anoraks that are on-line morning, noon and night, I would have known and would have been able to tackle these people at the AGM as to why I was banned. Although my month ban has elapsed I still have not signed in, it has left a bad taste in my mouth. I foolish thought it was a site where supporters could thrash out ideas and maybe make some sense of why we are the great underachievers. But the number times I was put down for stating the obvious and the number times people called me a 'cock', are too numerous to mention. When somebody blamed all our defensive troubles on the injuries to Archie and Johnny Taylor, I pointed out that they were both playing when DC scored 3 against us and the Coleraine scum scored 4 against us. I was called a 'cock' for pointing this out.

When we signed Stephen McBride, I disagreed with the signing of a reserve player that was displaced in the Crues team by Craig McClean, we had already signed another a Crues reserve player in Ruddy. I was lambasted for that and for pointing out that we had already being stung by players in the twilight of their career coming to Ballymena carrying injuries. McBride has been getting glowing reports from these anoraks and I went along to Newforge Lane on Monday to run my eye over him. He didn't start but when we made a substitution at halftime i thought he had come on and I was suitably impressed. It was only when the match was over and was checking my 'tweets' that I realised I was enthusing over local junior player Ryan Stewart, McBride will have to wait for another day!