"I'm it isn't possible to search like this within the mysql query"

Search like what?
It seems to me that you could do something like:

SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE name LIKE '%ME%';
[download]

But that's just a guess.
Show us a bit more of the code you have, including the current query that you are using.

Of course, to pull elements from an array that match a certain criteria is quite simple. Something like:

for (@array) {
    print "$_ matches\n" if $_ =~ /ME/;
}
[download]

But you'll probably find that you don't need to do that, if you construct your SQL carefully.

Cheers,
Darren :)