A double strike inside 120 seconds, right at the end of the first half, set United on their way to a much-needed three points – particularly as news filtered through of wins for both Newry and Institute, the sides directly below the Sky Blues in the Carling Premiership table.

There were shades of last season when an identical scoreline in October gave United their first win of the league campaign, snapping a run of 10 games without a win. On this occasion, it was Ballymena's first win in nine games, a run which had seen them slide down the table.

Last year's effort saw Kevin Kelbie score two wonderful goals and the Scottish striker pulled out another memorable strike in first half stoppage time, just a matter of seconds after Darren Lockhart's glancing header had put United in front.

Linfield created plenty of openings but were hugely wasteful in front of goal, rarely troubling United keeper Sean O'Neill.

Pleasingly, Ballymena appeared to have learned a valuable lesson from their cruel defeat by Glentoran earlier in the season, where they spurned a 2-0 lead. This time they didn't sit back and invite pressure and indeed, the Sky Blues could have added a third when David Cushley's second half free kick came back off the post.

"I'm just delighted that we sent our fans into Christmas in good cheer," said Walker afterwards.

"It took us 20 minutes to get started. We probably rode our luck a little bit from a couple of back post crosses.

"But I thought the last 15 minutes of the first half we got the ball and played a wee bit and scored two very good goals.

"Our delivery for the first goal and Lockhart's run was excellent.

"The second was some nice, crisp passing and a great take and good finish by Kev.

"The goals came at a good time, just before half-time, which was important and then we had to make sure we didn't lose the second half.

"If we had been a little bit more circumspect, I think we could have added to our tally.

"Linfield were looking more for knock-downs and crumbs – they didn't get round the back of us but they were dangerous from corners.

"We didn't defend as deep (as against Glentoran) and if we had looked after the football a bit better in the last third on the break, we could have scored more.

"Keeping a clean sheet against Linfield is good.