Kearney delighted to have finally got his man

The Bannsiders boss broke the news on Friday night that Carson was coming back to the club after two years at Glentoran.

“It has been a long couple of weeks but we had to be respectful to Stephen and his wishes and the big picture of his life,” Kearney told Times Sport.

“And now that it has all been sorted out it was great to be able to break the news on Friday night that he was signing.

“We all know what he is about and it’s was nice to see him out there in the blue and white stripes again. He had a couple of runs down the line today which brought back memories of Stephen from when I was playing.

“Stephen will help create so much for us and he will be great for our strikers. We wanted to get as much into his legs today as possible but the big thing for me was that he must be able to train on Monday night. So he’ll train hard this week and we might look at giving him a bit of both games on Friday and Saturday.

“We were fishing at another striker through the week there and we were disappointed that he decided against it. We move on to the next one but there’s not much about and I won’t just fill a shirt for the sake of it. I’m more than happy where we are at, but if something comes up then great.”

Carson featured in Saturday’s 2-0 win over H&W Welders on Saturday which saw Howard Beverland usued in an unconventional role of centre midfield.

“Howard is developing into a great footballer,” said Kearney. “I look at tremendous defenders like Noel Baillie, who I hold Howard in the same esteem as. He played left midfield until he was 28, then went to left back before eventually slotting in as centre half.”

“I’m not saying it’s an easy position but there’s less running to be done at the back. At times you can nearly see a wee bit of frustration in Howard as he wants to be let loose. With him missing last week because of the stitches in his head I just wanted him to get more in his legs today.

“It also gives us options for down the line, I look at the Portadown game last year when we were physically bossed and it might be that we have to play Howard, David Ogilby and Stephen Douglas in those sort of games.