Confusion Rains!

Why was the Boxing day game against the Coleraine scum, called off so early I keep asking myself. Couldn't we have done what Dungannon, Portadown and Cliftonville did and waited until Monday morning? I not only think we could, I am totally convinced we should and if the pitch was still not playable, could the match not have been put back 24 hours until Tuesday, which was still officially a holiday. By all means give the fans warnings about the possibilities of games not taking place, but give yourselves every chance of actually playing the game. The 'thaw' probably wasn't expected, as the original forecast was for more snow on Sunday and not heavy rain as it transpired, but the decision to postpone had already been taken and even if we'd had balmy sunshine, it was too late to reverse the decision.

Or was it I wonder, as I said it was still officially a 'public holiday' as Christmas day and Boxing day fell on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, their official public holidays were Monday and Tuesday. Surely it would have been possible to rearrange the four postponed games for Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday night at the very worst. Of course we are dealing with the I.F.A. here and their collective brains tend to work very slowly. In fact if you listen closely you can almost here the 'cogs' turning over when they are trying to come up with a plausible answer. Not that they have ever come up with any plausible answer or any solution in the last 50 years. They usually just let things potter on until they find their own solution, no taxing of their brains required.

Just have to mention the ludicrous suggestion by Ballymena council to lay a 'Plastic pitch' at the Showgrounds. Having witnessed the two sub-standard pitches on offer in our league at present, Seaview and Solitude, I personally think this is the road to no-town, it will in my opinion be the end of football in our wee country. Games on these surfaces are devoid of 'pure' football skills and players spend the majority of their time trying to 'keep' their feet. As a spectacle it is 'bloody boring' and the sooner it's disallowed (surely clubs can agree to ban teams with such surfaces from the Premier league), the better it'll be for Irish football. As for our council allegedly saying we are merely 'tenants' and will have to abide by their decisions, maybe they should cast their minds back to the huge amounts of grant money which their tenants have steered in their direction and without which the Showgrounds would never have been developed.

On another note I've been thinking lately about the 'water' crisis that is affecting our wee country. Burst pipes all over the show, no fresh water and at the head of it all a bunch of nincompoops. There is an analogy here believe it or not, they could in fact be talking about the I.F.A. Just think about it their management skills are a total farce, their equipment is outdated, no adequate investment in the last 20 years. They stand up and keep saying we're doing our best and at the end of the day they're not accountable. Politicians have promised heads will roll, but even if they do they'll be laughing all the way to the bank with their 'golden handshakes'. Yes it's just the I.F.A. in disguise and worse yet, it's still going on. Happy new year to all my readers or reader as the case may be and come on Sky Blues!

Half Empty!

I suppose I'm posing a philosophical question here, we're exactly half way through the league season, 19 games played, 19 games to play, but is the glass half empty or half full? That is the big question, I personally believe it's half empty. Here we are with a record of played 19 games, won 7, drawn 7 and lost 5, it's only really about average and 28 points is a poor return. In another 14 games the 'split' will occur and I think we'll need 50 points to be sure of being in the top half, so a vast improvement will be needed between now and mid-March. Not good news when you've just lost two of your best players, Gibbo with a broken foot, minimum 6 week lay-off and play-maker Nathan Hanly , for 2 games courtesy of miscarriage of justice, when he was wrongly sent off against Lisburn Distillery. Some people are going to have to step up and be counted over the next few weeks, but who it's hard to say.

Ryan Berry came off the bench last week and scored an equaliser for us and looks to be the obvious replacement for Hanly, but who partners him is another matter as Taggart was the man he replaced at halftime and he came off injured. Mo, who we at 'Sport foolishly wrote off a few weeks ago, played a major part in United's equaliser last Saturday and he may get his chance, as Rory Carson is still a couple of weeks away from full fitness. United's squad will be tested fully over the next few weeks, with 3 big league games coming up, away to Dungannon Swifts on December 11 and then home to the Glens on Christmas Saturday, before entertaining the 'scum' on Boxing Day. These of course are the times that define exactly what type of players we have in our side, are the quitters, or will they roll their sleeves up and get on with it, hopefully the latter will prevail.

Just thought in passing I must allude to the big event today when England lost it's bid for the 2018 World cup finals. The reason, they refused to 'grease' enough palms, believing that right was on their side. We in Norn Iron aren't quite as naive, take for example the meeting between the local Government and the I.F.A. today, as we seek to get some much needed funds from our Politicians while surreptitiously feeding cash to Linfield like it's going out of fashion. The I.F.A. claims to have struck a new deal with Linfield, which is allegedly better than the previous one. I'm not going to go into the perplexities of the deal, but here it is as simply as I can put it. At the minute Linfield get about £500,000 from the I.F.A. each season and they are responsible for small running repairs to the ground. In the new deal they'll get £250,000 each year, sole use of Windsor park where most finals are played and no responsibility for the upkeep of the Stadium, if that's not a good deal for Linfield, then Sepp Blatter's a saint!