Ballymena's Jim Ervin excited after summer of ‘serious changes’

A relegation play-off success over second-tier Institute left Ervin with senior status secure at the end of his debut campaign in the dug-out and now, having managed the great escape, the boss is searching for forward momentum.​

"With where we finished up last year and the way we survived it we knew we had to make changes, serious changes about the football club,” said Ervin. "Thankfully, we've been able to get the players in that we've wanted to...with the signings it's exciting, it helps to get the juices flowing.

"There's healthy competition for us, which is what we needed."

Astute business resulted in Ballymena turning a few miles down the road to derby rivals Coleraine for no fewer than four players, with the high-profile capture of Ben Kennedy from Crusaders one Ervin considers “probably the biggest signing Ballymena have made in a long, long time, if not ever”.

"There's no bones about it, with our recruitment of Jack (Jack O'Mahony), Stevie O (Stephen O'Donnell), Jarvy (Aaron Jarvis) and Josh (Josh Carson) we've bounced on the back of Coleraine going full-time,” he said. "Those guys are in a time in their lives, their careers when they can't go full-time because it doesn't benefit them with the jobs they're in etc.

"I'm not saying forever the league's going to be that way, yes, we would all love the league to go full-time but until the structures are in place and the finances secure to make it feasible for clubs to do it then we'll always remain part-time until things change.

"So we've been able to offer those guys who can't do it the opportunity to stay part-time, stay in their jobs and, hopefully, we can see the benefit of that too.

"We'd seen the announcement that he (Kennedy) was on the transfer list and I made an inquiry to the Board would it be something that we could go for?

"I'd a short conversation with them, they then spoke to Crusaders to see if we could get something worked out and permission to speak to Ben.

"Ultimately we wanted to speak to Ben to see if he was interested, if he wasn't interested in us then there was no point in us pursuing it.

"After getting the go-ahead from the Crues we had a conversation with Ben if he'd be interested in speaking to us and it snowballed from there.

"That was, I think, on the Thursday and things progressed really quickly Thursday evening into Friday morning and we then got the phone call in or around 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock to say that Ben was quite happy with what we put towards him and he was excited about what we had spoken about.

"And 8 o'clock Friday I found myself at The Showgrounds announcing Ben...so it was dramatic and all very quick.

“It goes to show where we're looking to take the football club...the Board have been brilliant.

"I hope it adds to the excitement but I'm not daft enough to not realise with the signings we've made there's also an expectation and we have to manage that expectation and we have to reach that expectation also because if you don't then you've failed.”