Heroes All!

Thirteen Sky Blue heroes defied one villain and a very poor football side at the Oval grounds in Belfast tonight. Yes United beat the league leaders (hitherto unbeaten I might add), despite one of the most biased displays of refereeing I've ever witnessed, by avowed Glens fan Davey Malcolm. Malcolm somehow managed to caution 7 United players and with a second yellow for Rory Carson for a missed tackle, which resulted in United playing for 35 minutes with ten men. Of course we have seen worse aka Alan Black at Coleraine last season, when after deciding to rightly caution a scum player for a high tackle on United player Noel Anderson, changed his mind and cautioned the United player for 'diving', despite the stud marks on his own thigh. I suppose at the end of the day they are really all a bit crap.

United manager Roy Walker stuck with his 4,4,2 formation but with two changes to his starting line-up and two positional changes. Sparky and Gazza dropped down to the bench, with Taggart and Gibbo taking their place. Murray reverted to the left-wing and Rory moved to the right, allowing Hanly to partner Taggart in central midfield. Glentoran, like many clubs in the Premier league, have in the absence of skilled players, reverted to long ball tactics, which for the most part was bread and butter for Albert and Denver. The home teams cause wasn't helped by an injury to striker Andy Waterworth, who appeared to twist his knee as he chased a through ball. Although Waterworth continued for a couple of minutes he had to be substituted after ten minutes. United players were blameless as the nearest player was five yards from Andy when he stumbled, but then again being blameless at the Oval counts for nothing when Malcolm is refereeing.

United deservedly took the lead after only 13 minutes, when Murray cut inside his marker (I use the term marker here in its loosest form as this man at no time ever threatened to mark anybody and his only obvious attribute is the ability to take a long throw-in), before beating home keeper Morris with a low shot from 30 yards. Soon after the Glens histrionics started when after Malcolm blew for an offside against the home team their player Callacher collided with Albert (Albert is as solid as a tank after all) and came off 2nd best and had to be stretchered off. The upshot was that Malcolm booked Albert (presumably for being on the pitch), when the United defender had done nothing wrong. Worse followed soon after when Carson put in a great tackle to win the ball and lo and behold Glens player Crawley went down like a 'sack of spuds'. Davey of course fell for it again booking not only Carson but Mike Smith who remonstrated that Carson had won the ball and made no contact with the 'cheating Glen-man'.

Murray was soon back on the offensive and Gibbo just failed to get on one of his many crosses. Gibbo was clearly elbowed by Glens defender Nixon but when he complained to Davey he cautioned him also. United were put under a bit of pressure at this stage but with some good blocks and some decisive tackles managed to weather the storm. During the 3 minutes of added time Carson came speeding down the left wing, nutmegged Glens rightback Mr Easy before delivering a gem of a cross into the six-yard box, which should've been put away, a real chance missed. Despite Davey managing to almost make 3 minutes last for almost 5 minutes United held out for a deserved interval lead.

2nd half
Ten minutes into the 2nd half and referee Malcolm played his trump card sending Carson off for a second booking when Glens player Black made a meal of an innocuous tackle. We worried that we would be under the cosh from then on, but we had forgotten that we were outplaying allegedly the 'best team' in the league and so we continued to do. With 60 minutes on the clock United won a rare free kick and despite a Glens player being allowed to stand a mere six yards away by his fellow player (sorry referee), Malcolm, Nathan Hanly curved it in perfectly for Gibbo to force the ball over the line to put United deservedly 2-0 ahead. That was almost the last action Gibbo saw as he was replaced by Sparky and after that we were content to soak up the pressure and try to hit them on the break.

I have to say at this juncture that everybody played their part, but Gavin Taggart especially revelled in the situation barking out orders and making last ditch tackles. Davey Malcolm was not happy at this turn of events and after Taggart was slow to release the ball after an alleged infringement, a Glens player clearly punched him resulting in a booking for both players, obviously raising your hands now is only worthy of a caution. The United defence was subjected to long ball after long ball and on the rare occasions when the ball got past our back four of Mike (Smith), Archie, Albert and Denver, there was the reliable Dwayne to mop it up. When the chance came to break Mike backed up Sparky, Murray and Cutch. With 20 minutes remaining Murray went off to a standing ovation with Gazza replacing him.

Nelson became the 6th United player to be booked when Malcolm booked him for time wasting, which is fine by me, but then where did he find 4 minutes of stoppage time when only 3 substitutions were made in the 2nd half, I suppose Davey just makes the rules up as he goes along. Dwayne generally makes one 'gaffe' a game and if he gets away with that he's generally unbeatable. His one gaffe tonight came in the 80th minute when a shot from thirty yards straight at him, somehow slipped from his grasp and into the net to reduce the leeway to 2-1. Strangely enough after that United held firm and although there were one or two close shaves, justice was in the end done. During the 4 minutes of added time we witnessed yet another of Davey's strange decisions. Cutch broke into the Glens box only to be clearly fouled, but Davey booked Cutch, obviously if you're fouled in the Glentoran box it's a bookable offence. Thankfully despite Davey forgetting what time it was, United ran out deserved winners by 2-1, all I can say is bring on the 'scum', unfortunately I'll miss it, but hey, that's life!

Nelson (7), M.Smith (8), Archie (8), Albert (9), Denver (9), Carson (8), Taggart (8), Hanly (8), Murray (9)(Sub: Gazza, 8), Gibbo (8)(Sub: Sparky, 8), Cutch (8)

Man of the match: Eamon Murray