Spain Again!

Here we are again in Spain, where it doesn't rain, well hardly ever, not like good old Norn Iron where it rains almost constantly. I must say it was nice yesterday, playing golf in the sunshine, although it threatened to rain at one stage, but it never came to anything. My playing partner,no names and no pack drill (whatever that means), told me it mainly rains at night in this region of Spain and this was confirmed to me last night when I watched a match on the TV and it was raining 'cats and dogs' throughout the game.  But I digress, I took a wee duke on the United forum and it seems that Cush is not on the 5 yellow cards mark after all, you can't believe anything you read in United's programmer it seems.

I was going over the squads for the Linfield game and it seems we have two Aaron Shanahan (Shan) with two different squad numbers, the mind boggles. Our rearranged match with Chickenville, on Tues 04 February will take care of Jenks one game ban or will it? Stephen Alexander explained the format that the IFA use to determine when suspensions are to take place, but with all things to do with the IFA, it's as clear as mud to me, or am I just suspicious of the IFA? I well remember all those years ago (was it 1974 ?), when the supremo of the IFA at that time, Harry Cavan, brought the disciplinarian meeting forward and suspended Paul Kirk to make sure he missed the final of the Irish cup against Ards, who Cavan was the supremo of also, he claimed I think that was all done because he had to go to a meeting of FIFA the next week, a likely story if I ever heard one.

United managed to scrape through their replay with the Welders on Tues of last week, but we were not impressive it has to said, but its all about getting through in this competition and we are through. Alfie Stewart, Archie's father, who was one of the men doing the draw, could've been kinder to us, but he drew Linfield first out of the hat and ensured United got another away draw and a tough one at that. But they're all tough in the cup and the Welders nearly proved our undoing in the previous round, but surely the players will be up for this encounter, if not, we better batten down the hatches as Linfield and the fat controller will want to chastise Fergie and the three baldies for being so bold.

I foolish thought referee Richard Crangle could not be so bad as he turned out to be in our league game with Linfield, but I think he was not going to book Tony, until he saw the reaction of the Linfield bench and then he produced a yellow card. Admittedly he was not helped by Quinn of Linfield going down holding  his head as if he had been decapitated, when in fact I think Tony made no contact with Linfield love child. But they were ducking and diving throughout the match, feigning injury and conning the officials. So much so in fact, when one of them (A. Burns I think), got badly injured in a tackle and was carried off, the normally Sporting United crowd were skeptical and didn't applaud as he was carried down the tunnel.

I and the Sky Blue Sport's crew will miss this Saturday's match at Shamrock Park, against Portadown, a tricky fixture no doubt, but one that could bring rich rewards for United if they get something out of it. Its not an impossible task, as United proved in their last visit to Shamrock Park, in spite of playing with ten men for 70 mins we were by far the best team and if we could have showed a wee bit more composure in front of goal, we surely could've got a positive result. We have  a prolific striker on board now in Darboy, but its no use playing him up front on his own. He needs Captain Jenks to break the ground for him and I think he'll deliver the goods. Although we're not there, we will be with United in spirit, so come Sky Blues, lets shag those apple pickers!