There’s been a change in priorities for Ballymena United during recent years – albeit not necessarily the type supporters would’ve perhaps wanted.
In 2019, the Braidmen were the second best team in the Irish League. Runners-up behind Linfield that year, and just seven points adrift of top spot, the peak years of David Jeffrey’s tenure on Warden Street were quite some to behold, during which they clinched the League Cup in 2017, reached two further Finals in 2018 and 2019, a hat-trick of Irish Cup deciders between 2020 and 2023 and a pair of County Antrim Shield showpieces in 2018 and 2020.
That United only won a single trophy during Jeffrey’s seven years in charge makes this one of those golden eras where the good times aren’t necessarily reflected by the silver linings.
But as specialists in appearing in the big occasion, marrying that to their accounts in the Premiership where they secured three straight top-six finishes in their creme de la creme between 2017 and 2019, they were a team that, in full flow, were never likely to give rivals an easy ride.
That 2019 squad comprised talent in the form of Adam Lecky, Johnny McMurray and Cathair Friel up top, Leroy Millar, Ryan Harpur and Jude Winchester in midfield and Kofi Balmer, Tony Kane, Jonny Addis and Albert Watson in the rearguard.
It also contained a certain Jim Ervin, a steely centre-back and trusted lieutenant of Jeffrey’s in both Linfield’s royal blue and Ballymena’s lighter shade.
It seemed natural that, having held the armband under Jeffrey’s watch at The Showgrounds prior to making what proved his final career switch to Carrick Rangers in 2021, the 37-year-old would enter the managerial sphere – and in a somewhat unexpected twist, Ervin did just that when succeeding his former boss in 2023.
With that, the former Nottingham Forest youth star’s playing days were over and, after a disappointing season for the Co Antrim club that saw them end ninth-placed on 39 points – precisely half their total from four years earlier – it was clear he was stepping into a new challenge.
So, about that change in priorities. From seven points off the summit to nine clear of the drop zone; Ervin hadn’t found Ballymena the way he left it.
From facing Swedish giants Malmo in one European two-legged series and beating NSI Runavik of the Faroe Islands in another to, as it happened, jousting with Institute to retain their very top-flight essence.
The end of season one in management for Ervin saw a younger and inexperienced United side end second from bottom, entering the play-off with the Championship runners-up to save their skin in the Premiership.
Always nerve-wracking, no less than that a 30-yard thunderbolt by ‘Stute’s former Northern Ireland international left-back Daniel Lafferty had Ballymena on the back foot for the return home.
In both literal and figurative terms, they had to leave the past consigned to history and just focus on the future – not that relics of old didn’t still exist.
Step forth, then, one of Ervin’s old sparring partners to produce the goods.
Making his 250th appearance for the club on the night and captaining the troops from left wing-back, a free-kick was presented 25 yards from goal for Steven McCullough to draw United level.
First having joined from Carrick in 2017, the 29-year-old, alongside a former title-winning goalkeeper in Sean O’Neill and the returning McMurray – time with Larne, Crusaders and Warrenpoint Town having elapsed in the four years he’d been away prior to last summer – was an elder statesman, a man who’d seen the highs and lows and had a chance to score one of the biggest goals in the club’s recent history.
Institute, who’d ironically jet-propelled from only being spared a relegation play-off by the ‘Point’s administrative drop-out to the one at the top end in a span of just 12 months, had been put under the cosh and were reduced to 10 men after teen midfielder Oisin Devlin’s expulsion a quarter of an hour from time.
They were still 1-0 up on aggregate, though. They had still shut Ballymena out. They were still bound for a Premiership place.
But, 78 minutes in, McCullough, so renowned for that left peg of his and the set-piece prowess that Jeffrey so coveted, wasn’t having it.
His left-footed take was a beauty, and visiting shot-stopper Fintan Doherty was powerless to deny the defender from plucking out the top left.
The home end of The Showgrounds erupted and Belfast man McCullough soaked it all in. United led on the night, level on aggregate. The wind was in their sails and they rode the crest of a wave.
Calvin McCurry, the winter arrival from Co Antrim neighbours Ballyclare Comrades, was sprung from the bench to add the second on 86 minutes, and that, indeed, was that; Ballymena were safe, 2-0 winners, 2-1 on aggregate, and it was cause for celebration at the end.
All’s well that end’s well for Ervin, a turbulent first season as boss ending on a high note, and McCullough’s status as a modern hero in sky blue is firmly sealed.
It’s a lesser-spotted journey for one to stick through the whole good, bad and ugly, but McCullough was there in the golden hour and he was there in the hour of need – and he delivered in both.
The scene seemed set for him of all people to make his mark, and didn’t he just. Didn’t he in style.
Maybe for a club of Ballymena’s stature, you’d be reticent to call survival a success even if, as outside investment and full-time football have grown throughout the last half a decade with Larne, Linfield, Glentoran and Crusaders taking up fully professional strategies, the goalposts have changed.
But whatever the job in front of you is, you’ve still got to do it. Even though a lot of talent – Millar, Lecky, McMurray, Balmer, Winchester, Watson, Josh Kelly, Craig Farquhar and others – have passed through their doors and took strides into full-time structures at home and abroad, United can’t lie down and sulk; that’s a recipe for relegation.
McCullough stood tall when he had to and provided a flurry of inspiration that keeps Ballymena in the top-flight where, their supporters will rightly argue, they belong.
Having staved off the drop, Ervin and Co will make sure it’s onwards and upwards from next term and that they’re not in this position again.
It’s hard to dispute, though, that having escaped the drop, former Glentoran and Ards ace McCullough has cemented his spot in United folklore for years to come.
A modern great of the club who, the faithful would hope to think, has made 250 appearances and counting. That’s without a doubt.
Featured image from Pacemaker.
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