Linfield 3-1 Dungannon Swifts: Post Match Show

Mo Brown is joined by Haydn Milligan and Dean Watson for the Post Match Show as Linfield secure European qualification with a 3-1 win over Dungannon Swifts at Windsor Park. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Good evening and welcome to the Winter Way podcast where Lymphy have just secured European football by winning the Ulster Cup 3-0 against Ungannon. McFit 29 Ramon Level's done. Dean Watson's through the game. A result that actually put a smile on the face of Philip Hamilton, the chairman of the Raymond Lymphy Supporters Club. Dean, as the football man of the group, what do you think of that?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Well, no better way to end the season on a victory.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Amazing what happens whenever somebody hits the byline and puts the ball across a six-yard box, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Well, this is what was saying at the start, you know, um when we started the paw, he doing all the hard work out down the channels and there was no one in the middle. He stayed between the sticks, you know, all three goals were from the central area. Um, first goal, as I said, that the good movement. Second goal for me, good header from Kirk. I'm glad Kirk actually got a bit of plot at her because he was getting a bit of pressure from the guys around where I was sitting. Um, good header on. Um Fitzpatrick, I was screaming, please take it round to keeper. And the way he went round to keeper just was class, hopefully it gives him confidence. Um, and obviously did the third very similar to the first in his movement and again great, great run down the right hand side this time across him, but his first time finish again and shows you what you can do with a bit of a bit of confidence and a striker stand between the sticks. Took us go away. Um for Mason the 4-2-3-1 to start. I thought it looked like we tried to play Bird as a higher at the midfield three, it wasn't working, and the manager changed it right and quick 10-15 minutes in, put him a wee bit back and uh then put McClain further forward, and I thought it did the business. Also, credit to the manager, he switched Kirk and Frazel a couple of times from left to right when it wasn't working at the first half, and I thought Miller had a lot more joy at the left at the end of the first. So, all in all, um a great way to end the season. Um, I mentioned to the back four as well. I thought they were solid. The Gannon had very few chances we won at the end when we switched off, but but for me to end it on a positive note and uh well done Linfield.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Smashing stuff team. Hayden, when was the last time Limfield won the Ulster Cup? And I say that in jest because, in all seriousness, I don't really think this has been fitting off a trophy win, I think it's the bare minimum. In fact, you might just be able to hear forever and blue jeans going on in the background as the trophy is yet to be presented. We at the Winterway firmly don't believe that should be the case with Limfield that European football should be a minimum, and we certainly shouldn't be receiving a trophy for it. But anyway, Hayden, Ulster Cup, last Linfield win. Can you remember?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Last night Linfield win was 1993. Okay. And in actual fact, the holders of the Ulster Cup coming up to this game were Dundan and Swift's.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Which was 2003.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

2001, I think it was, something like it. 2002, something around there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

What's your thoughts on tonight's game? Um, these are any cover that I thought for Miller done well in patches, and again, the evergreen Jimmy Mulgrave at 86 minutes out of the gag tonight. Absolutely phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yeah, well that was fantastic. I thought that um just to reiterate what Dean was saying, I thought Fitpatrick was brilliant tonight, uh, brilliant centre forward performance, uh, two goals right where he needed to be, right in the middle of the goals, and then the first one, the third one, second one rather, taking the opportunity of the three ball and uh poked it through the keeper's legs, I thought, from where I was sitting, and and just then he could have let it roll over the line. In fact, he could have actually got down his knees and headed it over the line, probably if he wanted to. So brilliant performance by him. Uh you know, we struggle to think after one-nil, um, and Dungan has always played great football. I always enjoy watching them, up until they get more or less the last 20 yards or so, and then it all fizzles out with them. And of course the defence isn't great either. But the midfield's brilliant, uh, and that's why they conceded so many goals this season.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

I must you reckon the four games and ten days finally caught up with the Swifts.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Um well, according to Cliffinville fans, uh it caught up after about 55 minutes of the match against them. Um but they were still going pretty strong towards the end, but they haven't got a massive squad. I think they've got about 22 players in the squad. So um that's going to count against them as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah, it's actually disappointing. You know, if you did have a spare fifteen quid for a normal salary, you know, you'd probably go down and watch the swift. So they're they're good watchs. Absolutely, but great big club down there.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

You know, they're well coached, obviously. Um and and watching um some of the players is is really you know, it's it's nice to watch it. But anyway, we did the business tonight, we put the ball in the back of the net, which is the main thing, and uh the job job's done.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Job's done. European football, which I think should be the bare minimum for the club. But anyway, it is secure. Aidan, want to come back to you there just on um you were present at the club's AGM there two Freddy's ago. Yep. Have you got any briefing points or anything you want to give, obviously, before we do our AGM end of season review once the Sith Lord Jason is back in play?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Um well, I I actually took uh unusual for me, because I I normally do a sort of a treasurer's role in any organization of men, but I was sort of acting as a secretary at the AGM and took quite a lot of notes. Um election of the officers went as was expected. Um I thought four the four people spoke very, very well. Um and the prospective candidate Gary Um Kirk Kilpatrick or Kirkpatrick was, I can't remember it was, um he spoke very well as well. But anyway, the three were re-elected, which is fair enough. Um the team reports was very interesting because there were quite a few um questions from the sc the floor uh to direct it to David Healy, um, and he was very honest and straightforward with it with his answers. But there were a couple of weird answers he gave. I mean there's one question about um Kirk Miller, and and and probably a lot of people thinking, why is he starting left back? Why is he starting on the left wing? Why is he in mid midfield and so on and so on? And according to the manager, he does tell him to play in the right wing, but from time to time he just gets fed up there and he moves across and into the other position.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

What's your thoughts on that thing? Well, I I I find that phenomenal if the manager said that. Uh actually, uh uh do you know what? I I don't want to say anything. I find it hard saying negative stuff about Kirk Miller because I love him as a player and I have done for a long time. But even tonight, when I was watching the game, some of his off-the-ball movement, even even when when we were in possession, he kept going into the centre, and every time he went into the centre, it was pulling some one of our other players to cover him wide, and I just don't think it works. Um off the ball when we don't have it, I thought it's just find him walking about a few times tonight. And I was thinking in myself, I wonder if he's carrying an injury, and he seemed to go off with a hamstring injury. So I don't know, has he been playing the season with a couple of niggles here or there?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

I've got the impression he has been, because he hasn't been his his normal self certainly the second half as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Well he got my sister tonight, and I uh I'll get him a couple of quid into his um pension fund or whatever he's putting his his testimonial money to. Um back you hidden um anything else from the team?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Um yeah, there was you know, there were questions on the floor about Goran. Why did we sell sign Goran? It turns out the injury he had um when he was here was not the same as the injuries he had before. So it was just very unfortunate from my point of view. Um Financial Report, well we've said all online. Um we made a slight profit for the year. Um we at the AGM we get the detail of all the expenditure. Um probably for a lot of people the detail was just too much detail. Um uh as an with me as an accounting background, I could understand it, but probably most there wouldn't. Um but it covered the amount of money that uh we would normally get. The uh 1.2 million for eat from UEFA sponsorship was down, shop sales were up, program sales were up, um and so on.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

That's good to hear about the program getting a couple of quid back in, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Um there was questions about the team committee. Um and rather oddly, uh Jack Grundy actually sort of moved forward onto the front row, took the microphone, and tried to explain to people how the team committee operated. Um and uh they he said they were a communications vehicle between uh the committee and uh David Healy on the board. So uh and they meet once a month.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Do we not use mobile phones for uh twenty-six.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Uh apparently um if you want to speak to a player now, you've got to speak to his agent. Even the kids have got an agent. And Willie McCone deals exclusively with the agents. Uh Willie has a budget and it acts uh it goes along the lines of that if they're gonna play uh pay players between you know X and Y, then there's gonna be sort of five players would get that amount, and then another set of figures, another five players would get that, and so on and so on. And that's the way the budget works.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Uh so was there was there any mention of who scouts the players, how many scouts we'll have, what profiles are we looking at? Is what is the lymph profile?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

No, no questions and nothing, nothing mentioned about that really. Um because it had been previously mentioned on the podcast from with Roy McGivron that we wouldn't be paying any money for transfer fees um this coming summer. Um so we're looking for uh people who are out of contract and we're probably looking to loan players as well. Um update on the financial investment that was very interesting, really. Um the update was there was no update. Well, no, well there definitely was an update. Um Stuart Gilmore got up and spoke very well. Um he he he was prepared to give out some confidential information, but appealed that it wasn't actually then spread outside the meeting. And somebody immediately stood up and said, Well, that's unlikely to happen. Uh that's probably likely to happen. Um so it might be better if you didn't get any confidential information out. So everyone sort of nodded, and and then Stuart went on to explain um what they're they're they're sort of looking at.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

And that's why we can't have nice things.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Well the only thing that struck me afterwards about it was that bearing in mind the amount of money that Larn have had injected in recent years, and the same with Glenn Torrin, not so much coal rain, because that's only been this last sea this season. Um I'm thinking, why did the only start why did the board only start last year starting to look for investment? Um you know, they're exploring uh the concept that I think outlined on on one of the podcasts of actually um finding perhaps a a team, uh and this is all going through a company in England uh who are very, very experienced in the financial matters of football clubs who work with Liverpool, Manchester City and and and teams like that. Um so the idea is possibly that they would um possibly take a stake in the club, um, they would certainly uh inject some money, they would have get first dibs on on any of our young players coming forward, and possibly then we would be able to take some of their players who weren't quite ready for their first team, uh we take them on alone on here. So as a modeling, that that that's quite a good idea. Um what followed actually was a sort of a straw poll um whereby um they asked people to scan a QR code or or to actually take a form to fill in or whatever. And there were three questions on there. Um, really, would you um prefer to have um a full takeover of the club, in other words, 100% take over by somebody? Or would you prefer to have like somebody getting 49% or would you prefer to leave things as they are? So we all voted for that and so on and so on, but no results were given out. So I think this was just to give them a bit of a stare as regards the colour.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yeah, I believe that's sitting with Paul White and his committee and uh uh from from what I can gather after my own supporters' club ATM at the weekend there, those results will be fair in through through Paul in the coming weeks and days, and then hopefully cascade down into the club for the next multiple.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

But I think they're in the right I think they're in the right model there, because if if we don't have a sugar daddy come along um and and we don't have you know money coming from some dodgy source abroad, yeah, I don't know, pick somewhere, you know, Dubai, for example.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Fire wheels in Iran.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Well, no, Iran, whether they'll be able to have any money out at the moment. But places like that, then uh I think this is probably going to be the safest investment. And probably the position we're in by going late on this is we'll have seen what's happened elsewhere, and we'll probably see where a lot of mistakes have been made. But I mean the the the football over in England, for example, is littered with clubs who've had dodgy investors in and it's all fallen apart and it's gone really, really bad for them and things have gone bad. I mean Sheffield Wednesday, for example, this season is one very good example.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Well Hayden, we'll we'll wrap up the AGM from there. I'm sure we'll cover that more in depth on our end of season shows, yeah, season reviews, etc. But on that, I think it was very crucial tonight that Linfield did get the job done and did secure European football. You know, there's conference league or not, you know, it's still going to be a good couple of hundred thousand pounds coming into the club, which is gonna be absolutely critical if we want to maintain a full-time model. Gentlemen, inclusion thoughts. Um go to you, Dean. How do you feel the seasons? Well, you can probably hear my voice. I'm very deflated by the whole thing. It just it hasn't been really good enough at all, has it? We've we've we'll finish the season well there tonight, but a couple of sentences, season thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Well, again, uh as you say, it it it's nice to finish on the high. But if you think when we started this podcast just before Christmas and my first game we all sort of met up, um it was this destroyed crusaders and we were flying playing football and we were up channels in the top of the league where we're thinking this is gonna be a good we we have a chance, but uh in a couple of words to summon up, it's just not good enough. Um injuries play a big part, okay. We spoke on the pod then who's supporting the players, why are they getting injured so much again? There's Kirk Miller got injured again tonight. We're a full-time professional club. Yes, injuries can happen, but why is it so much to the ask this year in comparison to the other clubs? Maybe it's just unlucky this year. I don't know, but obviously with the we've asked the questions to Roy McGavern and ask him what have we got support by for the players. So hopefully there's lessons learned there. Hopefully the club uh again, a few things I don't like to go back to the ATM, I don't like what I'm saying. You know, it sounds like we're reactive where we used to be a proactive club, everyone followed us, and now it looks like we've just rested on our laurels a little and we've fell behind. Hopefully it's woken us up, we've woken the powers of the bee up, and that's it's just not acceptable to play like that again for for next season. Um I have faith in the manager and hopefully get someone backs him and he gets a couple of players back in.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Thanks, team. Hayden, will you be back next year?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Oh, I will be back, yeah. I will uh apply for my uh members' ticket back again.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

And on that, uh I think we should all wish David Healy, the squad, playing staff coaches. Um a well-earned break. I wouldn't say deserve it, um, well-earned break, but certainly a well-earned break, and I'm sure we'll all be back again June, literally in a couple of weeks, ready for our European campaign. Until then, fortune favors are brave.