Playing Practice!

When a team gets knocked out of the Irish cup, football fans console themselves with the old saying, 'that'll let us concentrate on the league'. This statement has in fact, no basis in' fact' and the opposite is what generally comes to the fore. If a stranger had gone to last week's match at the Showgrounds, between Linfield and Ballymena, he would have assumed , quite wrongly, that Linfield were the team that had, had a 2 week lay-off. United looked jaded from the start and got worse as the game went on and I'm of the belief that this is down to the fact of them having a 'rest' day on the previous Saturday. Of course they did have a friendly with Derry City on the Friday night, but that's poor compensation for a competitive match, in my opinion. Ask any football fan and if he's honest he'll tell you he'd much rather have his team play every Saturday and there's only one way I think to ensure that is the situation. With a new league set-up due to be unveiled next season, would the authorities consider only having two rounds of the Irish cup on Saturdays, the first round involving the senior clubs and the final. All the other Irish cup games could be played in midweek, yes there might be a clash with European games, but all true fans will go along to watch their favourites no matter what, despite what some commentators seem to fear. We could even have one match televised, either on a Wednesday or a Monday night and that would give everybody the chance to be an armchair fan if their team wasn't involved in the televised game. Maybe it would also have the spin-off of ensuring teams are up for it, every Saturday, which in my opinion is much better than the fare served up last Saturday at the Showgrounds!

No Conspiracy!

It's funny, well not funny maybe more peculiar than funny, but every year we go through the pretence of having a draw for each Irish cup round and every year as if by miracle we end up with Linfield and Glentoran escaping each other. I'm not saying it's a fix, but the odds against this happening every season are akin to the chances of a man from Londonderry winning the Euro Lotto and you know that's never going to happen. There are loads of theories as to how this outcome is guaranteed, but I can't agree with any of them, until it has been proven. One theory is that the draw has already been done with retakes of every shot until the proper draw is arrived at. I can't subscribe to this theory myself as it seems too long and too drawn out and would require a tidy number of people to be in on the deed. Another theory is that one of the balls (draw balls I hasten to add) is quite hot and the other (favoured ball), extremely cold, but this would require the cooperation of both parties making the draw and would also require some sort of signal, either audible (a discreet cough) or a hand gesture, like tie straightening to alert the other party to the fact that he had just drawn one of the favoured teams. Yet a third theory is that only one person knows whom each number relates to and he just calls out what team he feels like, but probably knows what the draw is long before it's ever made. As I said I can't subscribe to any of them and I'm left with the conclusion that it's just by pure chance that Linfield and Glentoran escape each other and end up as opponents in the final, provided they both win their games. It has been well documented in Irish football, that Linfield are the 'luckiest' team in our wee province, after all they've always been know as Lucky Linfield and the cup draws just prove that point!