Curtis is on the ball

Thanks to his dad Steve, Callan McPeake, is the proud owner of Curtis Allen’s first ever hat-trick ball, from last Saturday’s 4-0 win over Carrick Rangers.

Curtis decided to auction the ball on social networking site Twitter to raise funds for the Help4Heroes charity.

And Stephen made the winning bid with £100 going to the very worthwhile cause, much to Curtis’ delight.

“I was thinking about what to do with the match ball as I still have a ball in my house from years ago when I scored a hat-trick for Northern Ireland,” Curtis told Times Sport.

“It just sits in a cupboard. So I thought I’d rather it went to a fan especially if we could raise a bit of money for it.

“It’s not that it doesn’t mean anything to me, because it does mean a hell of a lot with ity being my first hat-trick for the club, but I’d rather it went to someone would maybe want to display it or something.

“Also the fans have been so good to us this season with the support they have given us home and away I just felt it would be nice to give something back.

“I put the idea out on Twitter. I didn’t know whether to run a raffle or not, then someone suggested I auction it.

“There was a fair wee bit of interest in it. But Stephen placed the winning bid of £100, which was very generous of him.

“He told me his son would be over the moon with it, which is great to hear.”

Steve told Times Sport the ball would now take pride of place in his son’s room.

“We’re looking to get a display case for it,” he said.

“It’s a fantastic memento to have with it being Curtis’ first hat-trick ball for the club.

“When I saw on Twitter that Curtis was auctioning it for charity Callan said he’d like to bid for it.

“He had £50 that he’d saved up but the bids went up to £75 so I helped him out to take it to £80.

“His mum then topped it up to £100 so it was a real family effort.

“It’s going to a really good cause and hopefully this will be the first of many hat-trick balls Curtis will have from his time at Coleraine.”