Caught Cold!

Referee Adrian McCourt, who famously gave Larne a penalty in an Irish cup semi-final against United when there was no contact, today denied us four blatant spot kicks. There were three hand balls, one of which was punched over the dead ball line and the referee, as if to add insult to injury, actually gave us a corner. Then there was the blatant foul on Noel Anderson inside the box again ignored by the referee. That said and done United had enough chances to win this game, but as usual they didn't take them and paid the ultimate price. Andy Smith broke the offside trap on one occasion but was easily caught by the creaking Linfield defence and his cross was easily collected by former United keeper Alan Blayney. David Cushley also missed a glorious chance when he shot straight at Blayney when a shot either side would surely have brought a goal. Little was seen of the home side, but when they did manage an attack they found the United defence, ably led by Albert Watson in tip top form. United manager Roy Walker had made three changes to his starting line-up bringing in Kelbie, Anderson and Ormo and Kelbie should have done better, when after cutting inside, he failed to trouble Blayney with a wide shot. Referee McCourt seemed reluctant to caution home players for heavy tackles and Michael Gault epitomised this, getting away with three heavy foul tackles without punishment. he finally found his way into the referee's book when he cleaned Albert Watson in a carbon copy of an earlier foul on Noel Anderson. Albert was off the field for 4 minutes and during this time the home team almost grabbed an undeserved goal. Linfield forward McHugh was given space to turn in the box and his vicious shot was pushed onto the bar by Nelson in the United goal and the ball luckily dropped into his arms. Albert came back on for the 2 minutes of stoppage time and the match was scoreless at the break.

Linfield manager, David 'the fat controller' Jeffreys, used all his subs at the start of the second half, a sign of desperation I thought. Three minuted into the second period United spurned a great chance to take the lead, when after a corner to the home team Andy Smith sent Ormo free and after he outfoxed his marker he attempted to take the ball round Blayney, but the keeper got a hand to it and the chance was lost, a bad, bad, miss. Soon after this Albert Watson was blatantly elbowed in front of the referee and had to be helped from the pitch. Not only was no action taken against the culprit, in fact we didn't even get a foul. This meant Mark Surgenor coming on and the United defensive machine went badly into decline. With an average age of twenty-one, I suppose it was asking a lot of our defence to continue the good work of the first half, but as the old saying goes, 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going', but in our case they didn't. After a couple of close shaves when we inextricably left our keeper to deal with marauding home forwards, the breakthrough finally came. Substitute Miskimmon found himself in acres of space and was given time to pull the ball down before thumping it past the static Nelson to put the home side ahead. Manager Walker took off the disappointing Ormo and bringing on McConnell, with Andy Smith dropping back to wide midfield, but United were a spent force by this stage. In a last throw of the dice Anderson made way for Aiden Watson and despite forcing several corners United couldn't find the key to unlock the home defence. During the added time, allegedly four minutes (although only 3 minutes and 25 seconds were played), United spurned another chance to get a point, when Darren Lockhart of all people completely miscued from 8 yards with the goal at his mercy. Referee McCourt blew for time almost immediately not wanting to incur the wrath of his I.F.A.(Linfield)bosses and United had lost yet again.


Nelson (6), M. Smith (6), Colligan (7), A. Stewart (7), A. Watson (8), (Sub: Surgenor, 5), Ormo (5), (Sub: McConnell, 6), Anderson (7), (Sub: A. Watson, 6), D. Lockhart (8), A. Smith (6), Kelbie (6)

Man of the match: Albert Watson