Third Best!

It may seem a strange headline to anyone who wasn't at Stangmore Park last night, but I thinks it sums up our performance last night. We were outplayed by the hosts and they weren't good by any means, but they wanted it more than we did. Every so often United give one of those abject performances and this was such a performance. They never rose above the depths of mediocrity and it was all summed for me when Maca missed our best chance of the match with a free header, which may have given us a share of the points.

But justice was done in the end and we got what we deserved, nothing. This has to a worrying time for our manager, we were out-thought and outplayed for 75 mins last Saturday against the Welders and if it hadn't been for an incompetent ref, we would have been soundly beaten, as he disallowed a legitimate goal for the Welders. But we came good in the last 15 mins of that match, but there was to be no fairy-tale ending last night and the stats prove it, the hosts had about 8 shots on target and we had only two and one of them was pathetic to say the least.

Our manager made four changes from his starting line-up of last Saturday's game. Cookie came in for the injured JT, Steeky returned from his two week lay-off in place of the youngster, Craig Gardiner, who dropped down to the bench. Maca as expected, replaced the Barber and there was a rare start for Darboy, in place of the suspended Jenks. Cutch didn't make an appearance either but Sammy said he was busy at the cheese, factory, they got an order from a big Cheese, for a big cheese, lol. The rest of our bench was made up with Brian Mack, Ally, the Barber and our forgotten man, Sparky.

United Captain for the night, Jimer, seemed to have won the toss and elected to play down the slope, with a strong wind helping. As the weather forecast stated that the wind would get stronger as the night wore on, as it did, I think this was a wrong decision, but maybe our manager told Jimer which way to choose, anyway we paid for it big time in the 2nd period. United spurned a good chance in the first minute, as a Thommo's shot missed the target, slow starters or what.

The hosts seemed able to cope with playing into the breeze in the first-half better than us in the second-half and their keeper, ex-Glenavon stopper, Coleman, kicking against the wind was good. Our keeper fell down in this matter, as his kicking in the first half was too long and in the second was atrocious to say the least. United managed to get one shot on target in the first half and it was that  man Cush, who managed to pull a decent save from Coleman, at the expense of a corner. Paddy Mac, up for the corner, could only head the ball over the bar.

Glackin, looking miles offside, was waved on by the Lino at the dressing-room end. Did the linesman think he was playing him on, stranger things have happened.  Steeky got back to steer him wide but he let him cross and United struggled to clear the lines. First it was cleared for a throw-in and then another throw-in and finally a corner. When this corner came over, Tall Tim, seemed to be impeded, but Heth took no notice and Fitzpatrick, unmarked headed it goalwards.

Steeky cleared the ball, but the Lino, signalled it had crossed the goal-line and we have to take his word for it, for once he was in the right place. United were shell-shocked at this turn of events and lacked the guile to get into the game. But approaching halftime Maca went on a run and was tripped by Glackin and Heth, incredulously did not give the clear-cut penalty and he added insult to injury by booking Maca. Cameras then confirmed that Heth had got it wrong and it looked like a cast iron penalty, as it had done in  real time.

Later on in the second-half, a home player took a dive in the box, but Heth ignored his indiscretion, biased or what? Halftime was reached with the score 1-0 to the home side and United had a mountain to climb in the second period facing that strong breeze and it was getting stronger. The talk at halftime centred around United's sub, Brian Mack and his lack-lustre attitude to getting  loosened up, in case he should get a call. Our Sammy said that's Glenn's first sub would be Mack for anybody and he was proved right.


2nd half
Little was seen of United as attacking force in the early stages of the second-half, they were under the cosh and Tall was called into action on at least three occasions, one save from Hazley had goal written all over it, but Tall managed to claw it away at the expense of a corner. United for their part struggled to get things going as an attacking force and they weren't helped by Tall's erratic kicking against the breeze which was even stronger now.

When they tried to work the ball out of defence, it invariably broke down, with misplaced passes, the culprit nearly every time. We did manage to fashion one chance when Darboy received a pass and burst into the box and his cross was missed by Maca, with the goal at his mercy. It was a bread and butter header, but Maca didn't even get his head to it. Two mins later Maca was replaced by Brian Mack and his first real contribution was to get booked for a  needless foul.

Cush had a shot from distance, about 30 yards out and as they say, it wouldn't have beat your Granny, it was that feeble. Fergie waited until there was only 9 minutes to go before the end, to make his last two substitutions. Replacing Cookie and Thommo, who was our best outfield player, with Ally and Sparky, too little, too late. Cookie and Thommo were unlucky to be replaced, Jimer was a virtual passenger, as was Steeky but to Steeky's credit, he kept trying. Tony, must have been saving himself for the cup semi-final, he was that disinterested and that goes for Tippers and Cush as well.

With time ticking away and the home team anxious to get the insurance goal, a home player took a dive in the box but the referee ignored his cheating and waved play on. I had looked at my watch as the second-half was starting and it said 20-48hrs of 12 mins to 9 o'clock. In the absence of a board you had to guess what time the ref added on, but there were six subs made at 30 seconds each and there were at least three stoppages for injuries. But ref Heth only played 2 minutes as the game was over at 21-35 hrs or at 25 mins to 10 o'clock. But if they had played ten mins of added time, we wouldn't have scored.

I've listened to our manager's comments after the game and he was scathing to our players thinking, that the game didn't matter. He reiterated that league points were vital to our team and that he wanted to finish as high up the table as humanely possible. On this showing we'll be very lucky to escape 11th place, we definitely don't want to be involved in a play-off with a team from the Championship, whoever that could be. I want to see us stay up and hopefully I'll have one 'home' game at least next season!

Tall (6), Jimer (5), Steeky (6), Cookie (5) (Sub: Ally 5,), Paddy Mac (6), Maca (5) (Sub: Mack 5,), Tony (5), Thommo (6) (Sub: Sparky 6,), Cush (5), Darboy (6), Tippers (5)

Man of the match: Thommo