Havin' a Ball

TOMORROW brings a game City fans have been eyeing for some time - a trip to Goodison for the battle to break the Big Four's stranglehold.
If any Premier League side is going to beat one of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Stretford United to the Champions League places, it looks like being City or Everton.
And I have to admit, as a City fan I'm much more nervous about tomorrow's game than I was about the Blues facing crisis club Liverpool at Eastlands before Christmas.
Luckily Everton's astonishing run of form has come to an end in the last week with cup defeats to Chelski and the mighty Oldham - although Sven Goran-Eriksson has rightly warned his players to expect a backlash from the Blue half of Merseyside.
Tomorrow, two of City's starting line-up will be former Everton players - and Richard Dunne and Michael Ball are both good reasons why we can feel optimistic about getting the result we need against a side just one victory behind us in the race for fourth place.
We all know how great a player the Dunney Monster has become since he left Goodison for Maine Road as a chubby youngster all those years ago.
But I for one am really glad to see Bally back in the first XI after playing second fiddle to Javier Garrido for the best part of five months this season.
And not just because of Garrido's dodgy defending. Sir Sven has declared his new first-choice left-back good enough to play for England again, and while Cashley Cole might have something to say about that, I've been a huge fan of Ball's (so to speak) ever since the derby at Eastlands last May.
Dirty Devils winger Cristiano Ronaldo had torn teams apart all season leading up to that game, but Ball had the Portuguese pilferer in his pocket for most of the game.
I know I shouldn't condone violence, but I managed a titter when the referee failed to spot Ball's stamp on Ronaldoin the first half. It's not as if Ron hasn't got away with a few decisions himself, is it now?
Ball made just one mistake after that when he fouled the winger in the area - unfortunately Ronaldo usually only needs one chance to punish a mistake, which he did by scoring the winner from the spot.
Ever since then, though, I've never seen Ball give anything less than 100% for City. He's waited patiently for his chance under Eriksson - and now he's got it, hopefully the footballing namesake of everyone's mum's favourite singer will be one of the stars of the show tomorrow.