Organised Confusion!

Usually about this time of year the glut of unplayed fixtures tend to come to the fore with matches called off because of waterlogged pitches and to a lesser extent wintry conditions, e.g. frost and fog. This season though it's slightly different as most teams lost the first two games of the season, one because of the referee's strike and the next because of heavy rain. A few teams have attempted to get these games played, while others have 'dragged their heels' and we now have the situation where teams are still 2 games behind and with extra games over the festive period and the Irish cup coming up it's hard to see how these games can be fitted in. The disastrous (well in my opinion disastrous), decision to play the C.I.S. cup games over two legs has not helped and in a complete fluke we have the unfortunate situation where four teams must play each other three times inside a week. No-one could have envisaged that Glentoran and Coleraine would be drawn against each other just days before meeting in a league encounter and likewise for Glenavon and Distillery. But surely it doesn't take a mastermind to realise that when you have a 12 team league the likelihood of something similar happening is about 50/50. The authorities have no control over the weather I realise, but surely they have to get their collective heads together and make sure these sort of incidents don't happen again. If the spectators attending these games are an indication of the viewing public's interest, then it's high time we went back to a one-leg competition. Not only would it be possibly more enjoyable to watch, it would also leave some free dates for teams to make up their back-log of games!