While much of the attention will be focussed on tonight’s North Belfast derby at Solitude, it would be remiss to ignore the intriguing clash on Warden Street in Ballymena as Jim Ervin’s Sky Blues look to recover from back-to-back defeats and, temporarily at least, return to the top of the Sports Direct Premiership table.
After falling out of the gates with four consecutive losses, the Ballymena manager’s seat must have been getting ever warmer but they roared back with an incredible eight wins in a row that saw them lead the pack in this already-unpredictable Irish League season. However, consecutive 1-0 reversals to rivals Coleraine and Crusaders have seen Linfield unseat them and has seen them come back to earth with a bump.
The men from the City of Seven Towers were unhappy with a controversial non-penalty call on Saturday at Seaview when Joe Moore and Crues keeper Jonny Tuffey collided. However, ultimately, Kieran Offord’s stunning second half strike was the difference.
Speaking to the Ballymena United media channel post-match, Ervin bemoaned the decision not to penalise Tuffey but admitted: “Sometimes these calls go against you.” He also promised a bounce back from his side which he believed he did get on the Shore Road after a “flat” performance against their North Antrim rivals the week prior.
When the fixtures were released, there would not have been too many predicting that as the calendar flipped to November, that the Sky Blues would go from staving off relegation by the skin of their teeth to early title chasers and even less so that both of these sides would be above champions Larne.
There is the obvious caveat of the Inver Reds’ games in hand but that would be of little comfort for Tiernan Lynch when Niall Currie got the better of him on Sunday to leapfrog them into eighth place in the table.
That win was sealed with an incredible late effort from Shay McCartan as the former Ballymena striker lobbed Rohan Ferguson from all of 55 yards. That means he will be returning to his old stomping ground full of confidence which is not something he has had in abundance since leaving The Showgrounds.
After swapping sky blue for the green of Glentoran in a blockbuster £100,000 move in 2021, things did not got to plan and McCartan was quoted after that victory at Shamrock Park as saying he was playing with a smile on his face again after feeling like a ‘scapegoat’ for much of the negativity at The Oval.
These two have already met this year with an Ethan Devine goal securing a 1-0 win for the visitors at Shamrock Park on September 28th. The Linfield loanee’s strike secured what was his side’s sixth win in a row at that time and put them into second. This time, he and his team-mates will be hoping that they can watch the rest of the weekend’s action unfold perched at the top of the tree again.