Weekend goal a reward for Surgenor’s patience

The homegrown midfielder thumped home a close-range shot in the third minute of Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Portadown – a swing of his less-favoured left foot sent a shot into the roof of the net and with it an outpouring of several months’ worth of frustration as he struggled to cement a place in manager Glenn Ferguson’s starting line-up.

“If I had been another yard out, I might have missed it!” a relieved Surgenor told Times Sport.

“I don’t score all that many goals but Shamrock Park seems to be a happy hunting ground for me – I scored there a couple of seasons ago under Roy Walker.

“Last week’s match against Glentoran was the first match I’ve started since the Irish Cup game against Derriaghy last season.

“I’ve been on the bench a lot but there’s no point in me going and knocking on Glenn’s door and saying ‘why am I not playing?’

“I missed some of pre-season because of my wedding and because of injury so it was about being patient because there has been good players in front of me.

“Gavin Taggart has been a revelation since Glenn came and Gary Thompson and Allan Jenkins have both been playing well so it’s been a waiting game.

“It’s unfortunate that Allan’s got injured but any player will tell you that when you get a wee opportunity, in whatever circumstances, you have to take it.

“I’ll admit I was a bit nervous last week and felt a wee bit of pressure but Glenn, Doc and Norman just told me to go out and play and that they wouldn’t put me in the team if they didn’t trust me so they have shown a lot of faith in me and hopefully I’ve rewarded them a bit with that goal, although I would much rather have had three points.

“We’ll play worse than that this season and win games but I thought we were absolutely brilliant in the second half.

“There’s a lot of players fighting for midfield positions and although Jenks is out, Alan Davidson is coming back in so we will need as big a squad as possible because the games come thick and fast, especially this month with League Cup and County Antrim Shield games as well as the league matches,” added Surgenor, who paid his own tribute to United treasurer Noel Millar, who died last week.

“I was stunned when my wife Pamela told me that Noel had passed away - it doesn’t seem like that long ago that we were seeing him around the club and no-one ever had a bad word to say about him.

“A couple of people were in the dressing room on Saturday who had been at the funeral in the morning and I think Noel was certainly in the minds of the players, particularly those of us who have been at the club for a few seasons,” added Mark.