What Now!

Here we are once again on the brink of a New Year and what has the future in store for us? There seems to be little light at the end of the tunnel, in the last week we've heard that Lisburn Distillery are facing a 'winding up' order and Institute have told their players they must take a 50% wage cut (rumour has it that that'll only reduce their outgoings by £2,000 a week). Who's next I wonder? There's nobody safe (well Linfield are safe, propped up by the I.F.A. as they are), but as I look around the grounds all I see are dwindling attendances, poor spectating facilities and sub-standard toilet facilities. Will somebody at the top please sit up and take notice?

Gone are the days when we fans would go through 'thick and thin' and endure antiquated toilet facilities in order to support our team. We expect, nay demand proper viewing facilities and the most hygienic toilet facilities it's possible to have. My colleague Sammy Patterson decided this year to do a survey on the away venues of our opponents. Admittedly he has been somewhat lax in this department but he tells me when he reviews the conditions we are subjected to in our travels he feels utter despair. I myself am loath to visit the toilets at away grounds unless I can do no better and faced with a long journey home I usually have to give-in and brave the conditions.

Then there is the standard of refereeing we have to endure week in and week out. If the referees were consistent it would be a start. How many times have we witnessed one team getting away with physical contact, while once the other team put a foot wrong, out comes the yellow cards. As for the offside rule, I confess I don't understand it anymore and neither do most of the linesmen (referees assistants), who officiate at Irish league games. I think it's time we went back to the basics with this rule, if you're in an offside position, then it's a free kick to the other side, that way its easy to enforce and easy to understand.

We are now facing a fixture pile-up after losing two games to the adverse weather conditions. So what does the Premier league do about it? Sweet F.A. as usual. In fact their spokesman (somebody called Craig Stanfield, who the hell he is I'm sure I don't know), says we've nothing to worry about. Well for a start there's the loss of revenue, 2 holiday fixtures were wiped out and if the league's normal fixture planning is anything to go by, they'll be played while competing against Champions league matches. Who in their right mind wants to endure the archaic conditions prevalent at most Irish league grounds when they can sit at home in comfort instead.

The big question at the moment seems to be are we entering two thousand and ten, or twenty ten? As far as football here is concerned we're still back in the 1970's. We would just love to be embracing the future with little to concern us but what to call the year. Instead we have to worry about the incompetents who are running our game and seem to have lost touch with reality. In the words of our American friends, 'it's time to wake up and smell the coffee', please do so before it's too late, Happy New Year!

Christmas Wish!

My Christmas wish apart from the obvious that is (3 points away to the Scum), is for the I.F.A. to get it's act together and sack Raymond Kennedy. I actually thought that nobody could be worse in the job than Jimmy Boyce. Now I have to admit I was wrong and it was a case of 'better the devil you know, than the devil you don't know. Yeah Boycey was one of those misguided fools (Richard heads), that signed us up to the 100 year lease of Windsor Park for International games, but compared to Kennedy, he was actually a nice, if misguided fool.

Not only did Kennedy allegedly go against legal advice and sack our Chief executive, he then settled out of court and allegedly cost us £400,000 in compensation, £400,000 we don't have I hasten to add. Now he's saying he can't divulge the details behind his 'balls up' because of a confidentiality agreement. What a load of claptrap, the reason he can't divulge the details is because he made a major cock-up. Sack him I say and let him sue us (taking and heeding legal advice first), if he thinks he's been badly done by.

Added to this horlicks he's now involved, allegedly, in protracted negotiations with International team manager Nigel Worthington. Why oh why are we having such negotiations I ask myself? Here we are a football association, who are locked in a profit sapping deal with one of our clubs, not Raymond's fault I admit and we're talking about giving our manager £450,000 a year and at best he's done sweet F.A. during his time in the job. All we can afford is a basic pay of £250,000 a year, not a vast amount by today's standards, but until we can get out of the finance eating deal with Linfield, that's all we can afford. If Nigel's not happy with that sort of money, then we'll have to look elsewhere, you know it makes sense. A happy Christmas to all my readers/reader and remember, 'Coleraine are scum' Nathan rules!

Backward Step!

Just what is going on at I.F.A. headquarters? I know it's generally pandemonium there as the men in charge (probably women too), just don't have a clue. But now we're really plumbing the depths. Norn Iron manager Nigel Worthington (a dyed in the wool Sky Blue), has failed, according to press reports, to reach an agreement with the chief clown and has stated an interest in the vacant Sheffield Wednesday job. What's the reason behind the present stalemate, we are left to wonder. Surely even the incompetents at the I.F.A. haven't waited until the eleventh hour in order to start negotiations with our Nigel. We, the fans, thought it was only a matter of crossing the T's and dotting the I's and Nigel would be in charge for the next two years at least. Now it's all up in the air again and to make matters worse our president let it slip that there were plenty of people interested in the job. Of course there's plenty of interest in the position, it's not a bad job, you only work about ten days a year and you're expected to fail, if there's a better job going I don't know what it is. Hopefully Raymond and the boys will get their act together and sign the Ballymena man up to another contract for at least the next two years. I just heard on the news today that his predecessor, Laurie Sanchez, would be interested in the job, well that's no big surprise, as his success with Norn Iron is the only real plus in his CV. Going with Laurie, if Nigel steps down, would I think be a backward step, yes he did have a wee bit of success with us last time, but then we had sunk as low as possible and as the old saying goes, 'whenever you're down and out, the only way is up' and we did move up. His spell also coincided with a certain David Healy starting to knock in goals for fun and in the process blowing the Norn Iron scoring record to smithereens, could he pull another rabbit like that from his hat? The present International squad has possibly one campaign left in them and then it's going to have to be built almost from scratch once again and I don't think Laurie is the man to do that and could we trust him to stay on and see the job through to the finish anyway? The solution's simple, give Nigel a four year contract and tell him to get on with the job, it's the only thing that makes sense!

Decisions! Decisions!

Just back from my wee winter break, which I took as we had no scheduled league game last Saturday and what do I find, United did have a game, not on the Saturday but on the Thursday. Bad enough that the entire Sky Blue Sport team missed it, but even worse, United lost and had Andy Smith sent off as well. Apparently Andy 'feinted' to head-butt an opponent, which according to the 4th official is as bad as actually carrying out the offence. I normally wouldn't argue with that but have witnessed countless players this season, actually head-butting our players and not even getting a caution. These are the decisions that turn games on their heads, if they go for you it's great, if they go against you it's anything but. Then there's that other decision eagerly awaited by the much maligned United fans, the alleged racist remarks 'chanted' at Dungannon Swifts goalkeeper, Alvin Rouse, which I know to be a load of hogwash. Hopefully this matter will be resolved in the next couple of weeks and then United fans can 'decide' if they want to attend the game at Dungannon on Christmas Tuesday (December 29). I am pondering over the dilemma of whether to buy shares in United to help tide them over their current sticky patch. This decision (being considered by scores of United fans), will have far reaching consequences as it's vital for the club to raise enough funds in order to see them through this season. Then there's the decision of 'will I or won't I' make the trip to the home of the 'scum' on Boxing day (I'm joking of course, that's already set in stone). Maybe we'll get the right decision that day, all three points, now couldn't I just live with that!