The Interview 3!

As promised here is another question answered here  in his own words by the Ballymena Boy, I'm sure he is hurting tonight, just like I am. Sky Blue till we die!

Question 7: What did it mean to you to play for your home town club?

I make no apologies for giving you a long winded answer here, When I was born, I was the youngest of four boys. My elder brothers were James (Jim), Arthur (Artie) and Noel (Nobby). Noel was born on Christmas day and wanted to be a football player above anything else. He was quite strongly built, determined and like me, a left-winger, he practised hard and trained hard. He played for the Ballymena Model school team, when they won the Schools cup in 1951 at Solitude. Like most boys at that time, he left school when he was 14 years-old and went to work at Harpurs garage, based at the Fair Hill. He played mainly BB football, till he reached 16-17 years. By 1954-55 season Ballymena had secured the services of Walter Rickett as player-manager, paying him £14 weekly (the fulltime players in England at that time were probably getting £12 a week). Rickett had been a left-winger with Blackpool and he had given Johnny Carey of Man Utd the run-around in the first-half of the 1948 F.A. cup final, when Blackpool led 2-1 at the interval. Man Utd came back and won 4-2 and the great Stanley Matthews was on the other wing for Blackpool that day.

Rickett was a firm believer in youth policies and he started a third team called Ballymena Strollers and my brother Noel got signed up and played left-wing for the Strollers. I used to go to watch the Strollers, they played on the big pitch and Noel did quite well, he was 17 by then and I was well into my 13th year. He had just got into the Reserves when Rickett was sacked and the Strollers folded then. Noel then signed for the Glens 2nds, but never made the first team. He had one senior for Cliftonville, but was on the wrong end of a 7-0 hiding from Linfield and just  drifted into junior football after that and signed for Harryville Amateurs. Now where is all this leading to you may ask? I was four and half years younger than Noel, tall, quite skinny and very reserved, probably as a result of being the youngest of and being in the shadow of my elder brothers and Noel was quite a dominating character. I was at Ballymena Academy and hating every minute of it, but by my second year I started to play rugby for the under 13s and started to grow in confidence. I was entrusted with the kicking at rugby and I was sending over conversions from the touchline on the pitches at the Waveny and was kicking them with my toe as you have to in rugby.

The only football I was playing between the ages 12-14 years-old was in the BB league in the summer. I think it may have been Arthur Stewart, who was at the Model school at that time and playing well for them, who mentioned me to the teachers that ran the Mid-Antrim schools team and suggested I be given a try at outside-left. Anyway I did a trial and was selected and played for the Mid-Antrim school team but we lost in the semi-final to East Antrim. I accompanied Arthur Stewart to several trials for the Northern Ireland schools team, Arthur was selected, but I wasn't, Jimmy McAlindens son, a pupil of Holy Cross got the nod instead. Anyway Noel was playing for the Amateurs and running the BB team. I played for the BB team by 1957 and was scoring some great goals at the Peoples Park and elsewhere, but still had no pretensions to being a footballer.

Noel it was I think mentioned my name to the Amateur's officials and several Saturday's I turned up to Coronation Park and then when I wasn't selected, rode my bike back down again to Albert Place. Then one Saturday, I think it was February 1958, I was picked to play against Broughshane and we won 4-0 and the next Saturday, we beat Moyola Park 5-3, I scored a hat-trick and Noel got the other two, but I missed a penalty. On the night before the Irish cup final, we played Gallahers at Ahoghill and not long after that game had started, Alex McCrae and United trainer Billy McCreadie entered the ground. I scored two goals in a 6-2 win. In one of the cups we played Old Bleach and the first match ended in a draw and for the replay at the Phoenix ground I volunteered to play at centre-forward. Before the game Kyle Lennox, one of the Amateurs officials told me that Coleraine were coming to have a look at me. The score at 90 minutes was draw but in extra-time we won 4-1 and I scored another hat-trick. As I was walking back to the dressing room Alex McCrae stepped out of the crowd (there were probably 400-500 at the game) and he simply
asked me if I would sign for Ballymena United? He produced a form and a pen and I duly signed for Ballymena United, on the bonnet of a car, according to big Tommy Patterson that was the start of it.

I played a couple of reserve games first and made my Irish league debut against Cliftonville on August 23 in a 3-1 defeat, Alex  rested me a couple of weeks later, but he brought me back  at outside-right about a month later, we won 5-1 and I scored the 5th, but for the life me I can't remember that goal, fancy that, not remembering your first goal in the Irish league for your home town team. In answer to your question of course meant a tremendous lot to me to play for my home town team. I was a Ballymena supporter first and
foremost and it was really a bit of a dream, a bit unreal. As that season progressed I was scoring quite regularly, often playing rugby in the morning before turning out for United in the afternoon. By Christmas that year all the popular papers, Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express were reporting that a host of English clubs were following my progress, Middleboro, Newcastle, Wolves and Arsenal, all a bit unreal with me still at school and studying for my advanced senior exam. We won a lot more matches than we lost in that season, got to the Irish cup final and came within an ace of winning it, Glenavon equalising in 83 minutes. Big Tommy Lowry, our captain and ace penalty kick taker, missed from the spot in the 2nd minute of the replay, a sad ending to that season.

I played for the Northern Ireland amateur team in the following season and also played for Great Britain team against a Caribbean X1 at Ipswich. Had trouble with groin and verrucas  that season and McRae left to go and manage Stirling Albion. In March 1960 Geoff Twentyman came from Liverpool and in the following season we won the Ulster cup and, were runners-up in the City cup, but lost to Ballyclare Comrades in the Irish cup. We beat Linfield every time we played them that season, (3 meetings) and beat Glenavon 6-0 a
week after they had beaten Linfield 5-1 in the Irish cup. The following season I was transferred to Sunderland for £6,000 and my one regret is that United didn't win more trophies in 60-61, when we were easily the best team in the league. But I was very pleased to be a home-town club man and couldn't really have brought myself to play for anybody else in the league.

The last instalment of the Norman Clarke interview will be aired on Christmas eve!