Never On!

A long, long time ago there was a popular song called, 'Never on a Sunday' (the song I believe concerned a working girl, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, if you know what I mean). This song had a lot of relevance here in Norn Iron as the Lord's day, or the Sabbath to give it it's proper title, was sacred and practically nothing moved that wasn't religious. Now of course we're in the 21 st century and almost anything goes and in fact it's becoming increasingly hard to tell Sunday from any other day. Okay we still have limited opening times for pubs and supermarkets, but that will surely change with the influx of foreign workers, who have no qualms about working at all times and probably in the next ten years most places will be open 24/7. The one bastion to hold out against this ignoring of the traditional Sunday was in fact the I.F.A. with their 'no football on a Sunday' rule. But we have apparently been told by F.I.F.A. that this rule is illegal and if we want to compete at the highest level, e.g. the World Cup, then we have to abolish the rule and allow football to be played on a Sunday. The I.F.A. after a couple of false starts managed to get this rule rescinded by a large majority last night and it will be law from June 1 next year. Unsurprisingly (well I wasn't surprised anyway), Donegal Celtic and Newry City are proposing to play a Sunday game in January but for what reason I cannot fathom. As it will be the first game of it's kind played here, there may well be a sizable crowd (well by the tiny number of fans these two clubs have, 200 fans would be double their normal crowd), but it's what happens in the long term that's important. If one wants to gauge the impact of Sunday football you only have to look at Derry City. Derry have a fan base which is predominantly Nationalist and to whom sport on a Sunday is a way of life, yet they hardly ever play a home fixture on a Sunday. I don't honestly know why that is so, but I believe they have discovered that playing on a Sunday doesn't make economic sense. This major rule change will have little or no effect on local football and only a very few clubs will ever dip their feet in the water I think. Football is a traditional game, it's traditionally played on a Saturday and for that I believe we should be truly thankful. Now that I've cleared that up, what's all this talk about reducing the executive committee from 18 to 10 ...

Pathetically Apologetic!

When David Jeffrey falsely accused United fans of chanting sectarian abuse at his players during a C.I.S. cup game at Windsor Park on Saturday August 11, the I.F.A promised us a full and frank apology if the accusations proved groundless. After much dillying and dallying the governing body found no evidence of wrongdoing by our supporters, because of course there was nothing to find. The full and frank apology from Linfield manager David Jeffrey or indeed Linfield football club, has not to the best of my knowledge materialised. The I.F.A. statement read that Linfield and their manager were being 'warned' for not following correct procedure, that I am led to believe is the end of the matter. It will be interesting to see what sanctions, if any, are taken if their is a repeat of these incidents of not following procedure, I won't hold my breath. The Belfast Newsletter, who carried Jeffrey's original rantings, did print an apology exonerating United fans of all blame, but as the old saying goes, 'mud sticks' and I'm sure United fans will be closely monitored in future games especially at contentious venues. I'm sure most United fans recall the incident a few years ago when Roy McCreadie accused them of calling him by a sectarian name, a F----n Bastard I believe. It has since been proved that the Sky Blue choir were in fact calling Roy a 'thieving Bastard' in reference to the disappearance of money supposedly destined for the Omagh bombing appeal and not a F----n Bastard as he thought. Hopefully our fans will still be allowed to compose some catchy if not too tasteful lyrics, but with our governing body you never can tell. But let's be careful, is all I would caution, if David Jeffrey's wife wants to leave him, that has nothing to do with football and lets face it, we can get better songs to deride him as he's an easy target. Oh sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, 4 and 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie and when the pie was opened the birds began to sing, 'Oh we hate Coleraine, we hate Coleraine, we are the Coleraine, haters' and David Jeffrey too!

Both Feet!

It's usually the I.F.A. that 'shoot themselves in the foot', but on this occasion they are guiltless, or at least I hope they're guiltless. I'm talking of course about the ruling given by F.I.F.A. the world governing body of football concerning players born in Ireland. It seems, according to F.I.F.A. that if you're born in Ireland, you have the choice of who you want to play for, e.g. the Republic of Ireland, hereafter known as the 'pub' or Northern Ireland, known colloquially (in slang to the uneducated), as Norn Iron. Is this then just the 'thin edge' of the wedge and could it maybe lead to players born in say North Korea, electing to play for South Korea. This is just one example that springs to mind, I'm sure if one studied a map of the world there are many, many, divided countries where players could claim allegiance to one side or the other. Why I ask myself have the so called 'godfathers' of our beloved game made such a ruling. Were they all under the influence of alcohol, or even worse, drugs? If one analysis it logically there is no other conclusion that you can come to. To think that a group of people of sound mind and body could come up with such a conclusion, beggars belief. I'd hate to ask any of these individuals to explain the off-side law to me, somehow I don't think they'd make a go of it. On a personal basis I think that if a player doesn't want to play for the country of his birth, then you're better off without him. Give me 11 players playing for the shirt any day of the week, after all we have succeeded with this ethic so far and I see no need to change it, I definitely wouldn't want anybody donning the Norn Iron jersey who didn't believe it was their first choice. If that is the ruling of F.I.F.A. we'll just have to live with it, but I think they have just opened a 'can of worms' that may come back to haunt them, in other words they have gone in with both feet!

Good Deal!

When Sky TV were given the exclusive rights to local football, the I.F.A. were at pains to assure rank and file members that this was all to benefit the clubs. I of course, being the doubting Thomas that I am, took this all with a 'huge' pinch of salt. Here we are not quite three months into the 'new' deal and only one game has so far been televised. Surprisingly one of the teams featured in that game, was last year's champions, Linfield and the next match scheduled for transmission is the Boxing Day derby game featuring Linfield and Glentoran. The very next game scheduled is the return fixture on the first Saturday of the New Year, where Linfield entertain Cliftonville. Am I being paranoid here? Is this not saturation coverage of Linfield? What's the old saying? The poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Would it not be better, well maybe not better, but fairer anyway, for the producers at Sky TV to select a couple of games that didn't feature Belfast's three Premier teams? I know that quite a lot of our games are to say the least, boring, but many of the encounters between Cliftonville/Linfield/ Glentoran are quite boring too, the fact that they are three of the top teams doesn't guarantee good football. Another downside to this deal has been the loss of local coverage from out two local TV stations. Just this week U.T.V. and B.B.C. failed to cover the County Antrim Shield final, surely this is not good for local football. The ball, if you'll forgive my pun, is in Howard Wells's court, you made the deal, now get us a deal more to our liking!