Red Mist!

I was worried when I saw the referee that had been appointed to officiate at this game, Colin 'the Blind man' Burns, or should that be Colin 'tunnel vision' Burns, because he only sees one team and its not definitely Ballymena United. I thought last night it was going to different, but when he completely ignored a linesman flag when Chickenville scored their equaliser, I realised he was reverting to form. Then when JT and Gormley were tussling for the ball in the United box and Gormely went down, he sent off JT and gave a penalty for what can best be described as an innocuous challenge and was more obstruction, if indeed anything. But we know from painful experience just how incompetent Burns is and how ready he is to give a penalty against us, but not for us.

United manager Spike made four changes from his starting line-up of last Saturday out went, Marky and Archie and in came JT and McBride in defence. Tony Kane and Alan D replaced the suspended duo of Cush and Captain Jenks. The Showgrounds pitch was looking remarkably well considering all the rain that fell on Monday (or so I'm told, I was flying home form my hols on Monday) and it remained in good condition throughout this match, a credit to the groundsman or men, as the case may be. The Reds were first to threaten, when Liam Boyce's header was tipped over for a corner by Shan in the United goal and then he  saved from the same player in the resulting corner. Then it was Gormely's turn, looking suspiciously offside, but the flag stayed down, Shan saved his goal-bound shot.

United were trying to get things going but struggling with 4,3,1,2 formation, but Alan D went on a run and beat several players only to be hauled down in the box and the ball ran loose to Sparky and his effort was blocked. But I thought surely it was penalty for the foul on Alan D, but Burns thought otherwise, tunnel vision I've no doubts. At the other end Boyce and Gormely seemed to get in each others way and Boyce had to go off injured after this collision and was replaced by O'Carroll. O'Carroll was straight into to the action and should been booked for a blatant dive, but Burns took no action. The Reds goalie, Devlin, sporting a false beard (according to Jim O'Halloran of Glentoran), was in jittery form and gave United a corner when he made a hash of a routine save. United took this short and it came to nothing, but they got another corner luckily, when will we ever learn about taking short-corners, never it seems.

Ally should have given us the lead when he cut in from the right and got the ball onto his favourite left-foot but his shot was powder puff and easy-peasy for Devlin or as like to call him FB (false beard). In a spell of United pressure Jimer picked up the ball near the halfway line and waltzed through the Reds defence and tested FB from 25 yards, which FB diverted for a corner on the left. Tony delivered this in-swinger with his right-foot and FB appeared to punch it into his own net to give United the lead. That goal came in the 41 mins and three mins later the Reds won a free-kick on the right and from this delivery from Donnelly the linesman raised his flag and the United players stopped expecting  the ref to blow his whistle, which he didn't and the ball seemed to take a deflection of Sparky's head and found the corner of the net and the ref ignored the linesman flag and awarded the Reds a goal.

The United players were incensed, surely the linesman had flagged for something and they thought that the referee had disallowed the goal and this seemed to be echoed from the Reds bench and supporters as they took a few seconds to celebrate what indeed was a fortuitous equaliser. The United faithful were left shell-shocked, but I was expecting Burns to do something controversial, he really is useless. I was surprised he only added one minute of time on at halftime and we had at least 2 mins of stoppage time when Liam Boyce was injured, but that is Burns for you, he seems to court controversy, in fact it is his middle name, I think I will call him Cont for short. Luckily there were no further incidents in this half and the teams went in at halftime locked at 1-1, a fair score I thought, but the Reds equaliser left a bad taste in the mouth, little did I know, that was only the appetiser.

2nd half
United were defending the Fisherwick end in the second-half and the wind and rain was getting up and I thought they be some freak goals or bad bounces on the wet surfaces, but I was subsequently proved wrong, Cont took a hand in proceedings when Gormely was left one-on-one with JT and as they tussled for possession, the crafty Gormely went down and Cont prom ply awarded the penalty and sent JT off. I thought in my unbiased opinion, that it was no more than obstruction and Gormely should got a yellow card for conning the ref, but as we know from painful experience, he's too easily conned, but to send JT off it just adds insult to injury. Gormely calmly struck the penalty home to give the Reds the lead and United were forced to make a change with Ally coming off to be replaced by Marky.

I fully understand we had lost a defender, but in my opinion Spike should have taken off Alan D instead of Ally or switched Sparky to defence, to see how it panned out. But I'm not the manager and Alan D seems to be a favoured one in Spike's eyes. In spite of us playing with ten men for a great portion of at least three matches, Jenks sending-off at Windsor, Addis sending-off at Portadown and Tony's controversial sending-off at home to Linfield, our management seems not to grasp the organisation needed to survive these crises. In my humble opinion you have to switch to 3 at the back, 4 in midfield and keep two men up front. We seemed to go for a 4,4,1, formation which meant our midfielders running all over the pitch and left Darboy isolated up front. The Reds enjoyed almost total possession, but didn't threaten Shan's goal due to to some last minute tackles by the United defence.

Its a well known saying, 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' and that man last night was Stephen McBride, he was everywhere, tackling, breaking up play and at times leading the attack. United did create one glorious chance when Tony found space on the right and found Darboy unmarked, but with the goal at his mercy the former scum striker headed past the post. With 10 mins left Spike brought on MM for Thommo and I thought it should be Darboy coming off for he seemed to holding his groin and stretching his legs constantly and Thommo was having a good game. Shan made another great stop when from an O'Carroll shot at the expense of a corner. Had Fergie had given up on this game and was thinking about Saturday's cup game with his former employers, Linfield/IFA. Two mins later the Reds wrapped up the points when Donnelly found space and his shot took a cruel deflection off Cookie on its way into the net to leave the score 3-1 in the Reds favour.

O'Carroll was finally booked for another dive and Fergie made his final substitution, taking off of all people Cookie and bringing on Lowry. I could make no sense out of this substitution, there was less than ten mins to go and Davey was playing well and we weren't going to snatch this game out of the fire, so then what was it for, the mind boggles. Despite there being 5 subs used, referee Cont only added on 2 mins of stoppage time, but it made no difference to us, we never looked like getting back in the match when Darboy missed that free header. So has Spike given up on his chase for a top six position and now all his energies are geared to dumping Linfield out of the cup. It'll be a tall order, Linfield are struggling at the moment, but they'll want to give a good account of themselves and I fear they'll have more firepower than us and we'll miss JT, it's going take a titanic struggle and a load of luck!

Shan (8), Jimer (7), McBride (8), Cookie (7) (Lowry 7,), JT (7), Sparky (7), Tony (7), Thommo (7) (Sub: MM 7,), Alan D (6), Ally (7) ( Sub: Marky 7,), Darboy (7)

Man of the match: Shan