Fullerton is stunned by Carragher’s vile act but hopes Sky stick with him
including the Glentoran hero Ron Manley, Ray McCoy, who was to return to Lowry’s Glenavon to become a club legend, the goalkeeper Trevor McDowell who remained to become a Minister of the Church, Tony Ferris, brother of Newcastle’s Paul, now back in the news with a best-selling autobiography, and the Larne boys Mervyn Montgomery and Noel Barclay who went on to play for New Zealand.
“We settled quickly,” Duncan relates. “I was playing for Napier City in the stunning Hawkes Bay area. They were very good to us, organising residency and a job.
“The football was a similar standard to the Irish League.”
His contract up, Lowry returned to Northern Ireland knowing his heart remained down under. And he immediately became embroiled in controversy when instead of rejoining Glenavon, as expected, he opted for rivals Glentoran.
“A lot of Glenavon people were annoyed,” he reflects. “I did have an agreement with Terry Nicholson to resign for Glenavon if ever I returned. But the club had sacked Terry so I considered that agreement to have gone with him.
“Plus, it broke my heart to leave in the first place and, knowing I would go back to New Zealand, I didn’t want to go through that all over again.
“Glentoran’s manager Tommy Jackson was very persuasive. When he heard I might be coming back, he was on the phone every day, selling Glentoran to me.
“It wasn’t a hard sell. They had a super side with great players like Alan Paterson, George Neill, Terry Moore, John Devine, Barney Bowers, Billy Caskey, Gary Macartney, Raymond Campbell and Seamus Heath.
“They won the league but I hadn’t played enough games to qualify for a medal.”
He found Glentoran a hospitable club but the lure of the Land of the Long White Cloud proved too strong and in 1993, the family returned for good.
For a while the Lowrys ran a motel. He became involved in football again, as manager of Taurango City, winning them backto-back promotions before a parting of the ways. “A new committee came in and expected myself and my coaches to re-apply for our jobs. We weren’t prepared to do that and left,” he explains.
Now, after a short spell out of the game, he is back managing a side called Papamoa and loving the involvement, citing his old boss Terry Nicholson as his example. “I’ve taken a bit of everything I learned from all the managers I played under but Nicky taught me to be a players’ manager and that has always stood to me,” he says.
Away from football, he runs his own distribution business, delivering fresh orange juice to the bars and restaurants along that beautiful beach. “The climate is so temperate that I can go to work wearing shorts, almost all year round,” he reports.
“It really is idyllic. We have magnificent scenery all around us and going to work every day along the beach is just incredible.
“This is my home now. I still speak to my mum, Eileen, back in Lurgan, on the phone all the time and I keep in touch with the goings-on in the news and sport in Northern Ireland through the internet. But we are full-fledged Kiwis now, naturalised citizens and passport holders.
“I remember well the last time my dad came here to visit. We sat by the beach and he looked all around and said, ‘Son, promise me one thing, that you will never leave this place’.
“And I never will.” BBC NI football commentator Jackie Fullerton says he hopes Jamie Carragher is given another chance by Sky following the unsavoury spitting incident.
The former Liverpool favourite was suspended by Sky for the rest of the football season after he was filmed spitting towards a father and his 14-year-old daughter from his car window.
Carragher has apologised for the incident which occurred during an altercation while he was driving away from Old Trafford following Saturday’s match between Manchester United and Liverpool.
A review will take place prior to the beginning of next season to establish whether Carragher is fit to return.
Ballymena man Fullerton, who says he is “semi-retired” at the age of 74, was shocked by Carragher’s behaviour but he hopes it doesn’t mark the end of his time with Sky.
“I was amazed that Jamie Carragher would do something like that,” admitted Fullerton
(right), widely recognised as the voice of football in Northern Ireland.
“It’s a vile act and it was very surprising to see him react to goading or banter in that way. It seems really out of character for him because as a Liverpool player he would have endured a lot of criticism and not reacted like that.
“As a broadcaster you become used to other people disagreeing with you and letting you know about it but I have never seen anyone spitting at someone else like in this situation.
“In sport, and indeed any walk of life, it’s the lowest of the low. In our little province we enjoy a bit of banter with fans and a bit of humour can diffuse things but I’ve never seen an incident like that.
“I certainly do not in any way condone what Jamie has done but it would be a shame if one the best pundits in football should lose his job because of this. Sky have suspended him until the end of the season and that underlines how seriously they view the matter.
“I think it’s a real shame he allowed himself to fall into that trap but I would like to see him return to Sky in the future.”
Glentoran director of football Roy Coyle was the victim of a spitting incident involving legendary Portuguese striker Eusebio.
The Benfica hero, who scored nine goals at the 1966 World Cup Finals in England, passed away aged 71 in early 2014.
Although recognised as one of the greatest players of all time, he failed miserably to earn the respect of former Linfield and Glentoran manager Coyle in a World Cup qualifier in 1973.
“We were playing against Portugal in a World Cup qualifier in the early 1970s when I made a tackle against Eusebio and as the two of us went to ground, he spat on me,” said Coyle who won 50 trophies in his managerial career.
“When I was Linfield manager we faced Benfica at the Stadium of Light in 1983 and he made a point of apologising to me.
“It was probably the worst moment for me on a pitch because you can take tackles when they are firm but fair, however, spitting is disgusting behaviour, totally unacceptable anywhere and I was disgusted. It’s just despicable and shocking.
“What happens to Jamie Carragher (below) is up to Sky but I’m shocked he reacted in that way as his time in football would have taught him that you cannot react in that manner. You get abuse and criticism from time to time but you cannot react in that way. As a footballer he would have been aware of the pitfalls and you cannot condone that behaviour.
“Sky have made the right decision in suspending him but he may well return to his job when the negative publicity fades. But it’s a despicable thing to see in any walk of life and he should be punished. I’ve never spat on anyone and for a former professional footballer like Jamie Carragher to do that is incredible.”