Ground Rules!

The 'irony' that is the Irish league never fails to amaze me, here we are with a so called 'new' set-up for senior football in our wee province. First we had the 'farcical situation of the referee's strike which wiped out (totally unnecessarily I might add), the entire programme and meant the start of the new league was delayed by a whole seven days. Then it was Glentoran, who, thought they might bring forward their Count Antrim Shield game by 5 days in order that their striker Gary Hamilton would be available for selection having served his one match suspension. This was originally 'okayed' by the County Antrim F.A., but then the I.F.A. said 'no'. The reason for their refusal apparently, was because they hadn't been asked first. This created yet another farcical situation which could have been easily avoided, but then as the I.F.A. likes to remind us, rules are rules. Then there is the 'case' of Donegal Celtic, remember them, they are one of the teams who didn't make the new set-up because their 'ground' was not of the accepted standard. I find this somewhat peculiar as Cliftonville are using Donegal Celtic's pitch as their home ground while theirs is not quite ready yet. Is this not a 'double standard', Celtic are kicked out of the league, but it's okay for another Irish premier side to have their ground as their 'home' pitch. Does this in fact mean that Donegal Celtic could've approached Linfield and asked to pay rent for the use of Windsor Park while their ground was being developed in order to comply with what can only be described as 'bizarre' rules and regulations. Hopefully the fact that one of Cliftonville's directors was the former President of the I.F.A., has had no bearing on their being able to use Celtic's ground on a short term basis. The next thing you know they'll be telling us that the Showgrounds, the ground with the best facilities by far, isn't suitable for European games, now that would be just ludicrous, but stranger things have happened!