Merry Christmas!

“Christmas comes but once a year, Boxing Day the same, United ‘kick’ the Coleraine butt, we put the ‘scum’ to shame!” United manager Tommy Wright was true to his word and made quite a few changes to his starting line-up. Craig McClean returned after injury, with Boydie being dropped, not even claiming a place on the bench, this could’ve been a fatal mistake, but it worked out alright in the end. With Rosbotham relegated to a place on the bench, Stuarty King was switched to the left side of midfield, with Scatesy switching to the right. This allowed Charnock and Aiden Watson to form a central midfield partnership, but one that failed miserably. Rory Hamill returned to partner Vinny Sweeney up front, which meant Kevin Kelbie, who had scored on his last two appearances, was dropped to the bench as was Gary Haveron, yet two more harsh decisions. The Coleraine pitch was as usual looking more like a rough grazing meadow and obviously hadn’t seen a roller all season, but then the roller was probably seized as part of the asset recovery plan. A Sky Blue fan commented that they could use goalkeeper Davey O’Hare instead, as he was the right shape and definitely heavy enough. United almost took the lead with two minutes on the clock, when after Hamill had cleverly shielded the ball, before playing it into Sweeney’s path, the big man unfortunately missed the target with a rising shot. The United defence looked a bit ‘jittery’ early on and were somewhat lucky in the fact that the home team were devoid of ideas in front of goal. The Scum weren’t helped by the fact that they lost central defender Paul Gaston after 20 minutes after a midfield collision with Charnock. United then began to take the game to their opponents and Rory Hamill was unlucky to see his deflected shot just clear the crossbar. Then from the resultant corner, the ball fell to Rory once more, but this time his feeble shot trickled past the post. Referee McFadden allowed the home team to get away with one or two heavy tackles, when surely a yellow card was the least that was expected. The linesman at the end where the United fans were bunched, flagged Rory offside on one occasion, which was a ridiculous decision and then when he was clearly fouled in the box, added insult to injury by penalising Rory instead. Charnock got a head injury ten minutes before halftime and was off the field for about five minutes. United, despite forcing several corners, failed to break the deadline and despite several stoppages, referee McFadden added on just one minute of stoppage time.

Charnock didn’t reappear for the second half and Gary Haveron took his place in central midfield. The United manager had obviously told his players to give more effort and the visitors began to put the home team under a bit of pressure. Despite winning three or four corners, they were unable to apply the final touch in front of goal and it looked like the first league draw of the season for both teams, was on the cards. Little was seen of the home team except for rare breakaways, which the United defence dealt comfortably with. The deadlock was finally broken after 70 minutes, when captain Gary Smyth rose majestically to head a Scatesy corner against the Coleraine crossbar and United’s top scorer Vinny Sweeney headed the rebound into the net, to give United all three points, notching his tenth goal of the season in the process. This was virtually the big strikers last act as he had to leave the field shortly afterwards as he had injured himself while scoring the goal. But before that Kevin Kelbie came on for Aiden Watson with Sweeney switching to the right wing and Scatesy taking over in central midfield. In the 80th minute Sweeney went off with Rosbotham taking his place in the team and King Switching to the right wing, but by then United were facing a bit of a Coleraine onslaught. After a bit of fairly intense pressure Craig McClean was the victim of a horrendous tackle by Coleraine player McCallum, as he attempted to clear the ball. The referee, after consulting his linesman, showed the Coleraine man the red card, which was totally justified. Coleraine to their credit kept pressing the United rearguard and there was a bit of a scramble when McFrederick spilled a cross, but the cool headed Kieran Donaghy cleared the danger. Then McFrederick became the hero, when he pushed a shot round the post, which looked like giving the scum an undeserved equaliser. Referee McFadden, found 7 minutes of stoppage time from somewhere, which was in complete contrast to the first period. But United held out to get back to winning ways and to send the scum fans back to their ‘caravans’ in a depressed mood. “Hark now hear United sing, the Coleraine rule no more, and we will reign for evermore, because of Boxing Day!”

McFrederick 7 Hamill 8 MoM: Hamill

Donaghy 8 Sweeney 8

McClean 7 Charnock 5

Aiden Watson 6 King 6 Referee: N. McFadden 4

Albert Watson 8 1st Sub: Haveron 7

Smyth 8 2nd Sub: Kelbie 6

Scatesy 7 3rd: Sub: Rosbotham 6