Northern Exposure!

Ballymena made a dream start, in today's inaugural Premier league game, a goal to the good after 2 minutes, courtesy of a glancing header by Neal Teggart from Stuart King's corner. But I'm afraid that's as good as it got for the Sky Blues and in the end Cliftonville ran out easy winners by a somewhat flattering 5-1 scoreline. United's defending especially from set- pieces, was to say the least, benevolent and former player Davey McAlinden enjoyed the freedom of the penalty box and set the reds on their way with a 'free' header for the unmarked Murphy to fire into the net. This strike bought the scores level, but a moment earlier, after Joe McDonnell had allowed a McGinley cross to by-pass him only Neil Teggart knows why he drove his shot straight at visiting keeper John Connelly. Five minutes later Teggart repeated the dose, this time screwing his shot wide when 'one-on- one' with the keeper, after a good pass from Kelbie. That was it as far as the home team was concerned, as another former Sky Blue, the one ball wonder, that is Rory Hamill, scored from the edge of the box in the 41st minute and 3 minutes later, keeper Blaney, inexorably dropped the ball and Chris Scannell hammered home the first goal of what was to be his hat-trick.
Two minutes into the second half Blaney 'boobed' once again falling to claim the ball when it was a few feet from his grasp and Scannell duly increased his teams lead. Then we witnessed one of those bizarre incidents, when the linesman allowed play to continue when Scannell was clearly in an off-side position and then the hit-man popped up to apply the finishing touch to make the score 5-1 to the visitors. The United manager rang the changes, replacing Haveron with Gavin McDonnell before taking off Teggart and McGinley, with Walsh and Picking taking their place. Five minutes from time, United captain Albert Watson 'capped' an afternoon he'll want to forget with a 'free' header from 10 yards, which missed the target completely! This was definitely not the start Roy walker had envisaged and now it's over to him to perform the miracle which gets us a result next Tuesday at Newry!

(1) Blaney 4 (12) J. McDonnell 4 MoM: Stuarty King

(2) Wray 5 (9) Teggart 6

(26) McClean 5 (10) Kelbie 5

(4) Haveron 5 (11) King 6 Referee: D. Malcolm 4

(5) Alb. Watson 5 1st Sub: (6) G. McDonnell 6

(25) Kennedy 5 2nd Sub: (7) Picking 6

(17) McGinley 4 3rd Sub: (14) Walsh 6