Omars moving finger writes....

I was intrigued tonight by the TV pictures of Pascal Vadequin, the Institute manager, who made an obscene gesture to referee Davey Malcolm. Pascal explained that he was ‘incensed’ by the failure of the referee to penalise a Linfield player for a ‘two footed’ tackle and in fact allowed play to continue, even though most of the home players stopped and as if to add insult to injury allowed the Linfield goal that followed to stand. A couple of ‘blue-men’, whom I talked to over the last few days, have said that in their honest opinion, it was a two footed tackle. Pascal of course is a relative stranger to the Irish league, having played most of his football across the border, so he therefore doesn’t understand that when lesser teams are playing Linfield, Glentoran and Portadown, at least 90% of all decisions are in the so called big three's favour. As big Davey had allowed this foul to go unpunished, he could hardly penalise a Linfield goal, now could he? No, no, that would never do, next thing you know Pascal will want the referee to give a penalty when Noel Baillie or some other ‘love child’, handles in the box. The status quo must be maintained, I mean what would happen if the referee turned up for his Christmas lunch at the Stormont hotel and found his name had been removed from the guest list? Total anarchy would ensue, it would be impossible for teams to get their Christmas bets/bonuses to come up, as they wouldn’t know which teams to back. There was of course was no excuse for Pascal to display his schoolyard gestures, are we really interested in what size a Frenchman assumes a referee’s ‘family jewels’ to be. In fact with my experience of match officials I very much doubt that they have any ‘b---s’ at all and am of the opinion that they should dress in women’s attire which would be much more in keeping with their personalities. Pascal of course can expect the ‘full wrath’ of the Irish league for his misdemeanour. Judging by the punishment meted out to Messers (I use this title in its very loosest form), Quinn and McCreadie for the ‘battle of the Marshes’, he can expect a three match ban on his personal use of chewing gum during actual playing time. He will of course be allowed to masticate (for the benefit of any morons reading this journal, masticate simply means chew, what you were thinking is completely and utterly different and may cause hair to grow in the palm of your hand), during added time and at the interval, well we are civilised after all. Pascal must learn to accept these refereeing shortcomings, if not I’m afraid he wont stick the pace, you’ve got be thick skinned to be an Irish league manager and wasn’t his team runners-up in the prestigious North West cup, no matter what happens for the rest of this season his job’s safe for at least a year anyway!

Omar's moving finger writes....

Here we are barely five weeks into the new season and nothing’s changed has it? The old problems are still there. Players playing for clubs, when they’ve already played in the same competition for another club. Now a manager stands accused of ‘jostling’ a referee, but from what I saw on TV tonight it seemed like minimal conduct was made. Having watched some of the totally ‘inconsistent’ decisions made in games already this season, I must say I have a wee bit of sympathy with any manager who berates a referee. But I must draw the line at violence towards the officials, once we go down that road we have lost the plot, big time. When I heard on Monday that Roy ‘Motormouth’ McCreadie had parted company with Newry, I was somewhat surprised and immediately began to ‘speculate’ as to the reason behind his mutual resignation. Was it his impending court case, where popular opinion is that he’ll get a custodial sentence. Then when I heard that a manager had ‘jostled’ a referee, I immediately thought it was Roy. But I have to admit that Roy is too crafty to fight with officials, opposing players or managers, now that’s a totally different matter. No we may never know why Roy and Newry parted company, but one thing we do know is that there was probably some controversial reason behind it. With our limited knowledge of Roy and his underhand methods, it’s obvious there’s some dirt somewhere. But Roy after all is a product of the Irish league and where did he learn his methods? I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that it was in the Irish league of course. As the old saying goes, ‘there’s a bad apple in every barrel’, but our wee league has more than one bad apple and it’s high time we rooted them out!

Omar

Omar’s Moving Finger writes…
It was interesting to read an article in the ‘local’, papers the other day, concerning the thoughts of Glentoran and Linfield on the formation of a ten or twelve team league. Two other teams mentioned as wanting this smaller league, were Portadown and ourselves. Memories, as they say are short, it’s not really that long since we had a ten team Premier league and we know how exciting that was to watch (just for the benefit of any morons who may tune in to my dissertation, I am using irony here). No it was not a ‘rip roaring’ success story. But let’s take an objective look at what Belfast’s big two are suggesting here. Their ‘main’ point is that some visiting teams bring little or no supporters to away games. This I acknowledge is a valid point, but that doesn’t mean that these teams aren’t contributing to the success of the league. Institute from the North West are a good example, they bring practically no ‘paying’ supporters to away games. I have emphasised the word ‘paying’ purposely, ‘Stute’s great ploy, is to bring the majority of their supporters, usually about ten, in on the team bus and therefore they get in for ‘free’. Limavady United are yet another example, they bring only a handful of supporters to away league games. The ‘Roesiders’ had a good run last season under current Ballymena manager Tommy Wright, but it will be interesting to see if they can repeat their success under new manager, Paul Kee. Glenavon did have a ‘decent’ travelling support when they were last in the Premiership, while Coleraine do carry a few when the successes are coming and Dungannon Swifts bring a forty plus as well. But as for Larne, Lisburn Distillery, Loughgall, Newry (City), Cliftonville, Armagh City and Ards, they bring on average ten to twenty fans each. But do they make the league more or less interesting to watch? I personally believe they do and although it would be nice to ‘rake’ in another couple of big ‘gates’ from the Blues and the Glens, I think the league would very quickly become stale. No the league is not perfect, but at least it is a ‘league’, any smaller and it would just be a money making ‘bore’, variety as they say, ‘is the spice of life’!