Black Magic!

I see the draw for the C.I.S. cup semi-final has been made and quite by chance Belfast's big two, Glentoran & Linfield, have escaped each other in the draw. If anyone believes the previous statement I would encourage them to stay indoors for the next few days as 'allegedly', the 'bokie' man is on the prowl. Why have the pretense of a draw, when all they have to do is seed them one and two and then they need never meet until the final anyway. The I.F.A. always seem to be able to call up a wee bit of that old 'black magic', when it comes to cup draws in order to keep the big two apart. Speaking of magic, United manager Tommy Wright could be doing with some at the moment as his team face the prospect of a seventh defeat in a row this Saturday. It's hard to pinpoint where our beloved Sky Blues have gone wrong this term, but go wrong they have in a really big way. The C.I.S. cup always seems to take us by surprise and we rarely look like qualifying although we did still have a 'foot in the door' going into the last game this time. The County Antrim Shield looked promising, dismissing Orangefield Old Boys and Donegal Celtic, in the type of games which generally trip us up. For a change we approached these games in a professional manner and were rewarded with a home draw in the semi-final. Unfortunately we didn't approach the semi-final in a professional manner and judging by our naive defending we obviously didn't have the Crues watched as we allowed their forwards far too much space and they duly punished us for it. If that wasn't bad enough we committed suicide three days later when we visited them for a league game and our form has continued to sink downhill ever since. The time has come for this alarming slide to be halted and halt it we must, if not we're going to be in for a very long winter and I'm not talking about the weather here I can assure you. Tommy Wright may have to call up the good witches and get them to cast a spell or two, well he has tried everything else, he might as well bet on a fairy tale, after all he has everything to lose, and plenty to gain!