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!