Sky Blue Sport News

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Marching On!

The Sky Blues continued their 'friendly' games, with a trip to Newforge Lane and a game against the P.S.N.I. The second division side had little answer to the 'slick' moving Sky Blues and were let off lightly with a three nil scoreline. New signing Vincent Sweeney nothched two of the goals and the other one came from the boot of Gary Haveron, who hit a sweet free kick from thirty yards. Manger Tommy Wright gave a first game to dimunitive United striker Eddie Hill in place of Rory Hamill and played McFrederick in goal for the entire ninety minutes. United's next game is away to Coagh United tomorrow (Friday), kick-off 7-15, followed by a match at home against Raceview Rangers the next day during the club's 'open day', kick-off 3pm. This is in fact United's only home game of the entire round of pre-season friendlies. The United management have been alerted by the news that Larne striker Mark Dickson, has now had a change of heart and won't be joining newly promoted Glenavon, following the sacking of their manager Tommy Kincaid. Dickson had been a target for former United manager Kenny Shiels last season, but decided to stay at Larne in that instance. Now it seems he is open to offers, but the snag is that United having completed the signing of Glentoran 'fringe' player Paul McDowell, now find their 'purse strings' stretched to the limit. But and we stress the word 'but', as the old saying goes 'it's not over to the fat lady sings', we at 'Sport will endeavour to keep you posted!

Monday, July 25, 2005

We're Off!

Yes we've made a few changes and hopefully they're for the best, but only time will tell. The four of us just got together and decided that enough was enough. We had written a new piece for publication last week, but even with a six week lay off, our I.S.P. decided to go off line at that point. Iit could've gone off at anytime during that six weeks and we wouldn't have given a 'monkeys', but no it only went off line, when we wanted to publish our update. So now we're off and running with a new I.S.P. and yes we know they'll be teething problems, but hopefully we'll be able to provide a much better service, but still keep all the 'good' Sky Blue Sport stuff. Our beloved United are off and running as well and yes they've made a few changes too. As with Sky Blue Sport, only time will tell if they're changes for the better or not, but there was, dare we say it, a feeling of optimism during United's 'friendly' game with Letterkenny Rovers on Saturday. Although we emphasised that it was a 'friendly' game, the home side we're decidedly unfriendly and gave our boys a good kicking, but it was also nice to see that one or two of the United lads were willing to fight fire with fire. The ploy of playing proposed 'signing' Vincent Sweeney, up front, was fairly successful, but only time will tell if he and Rory Hamill can make an impact or not. Gary Haveron was impressive in central midfield and gives us a bit of much needed height in that department. Ex-Linfield player Stuart King looked good on the left and he and Boydie seemed to have developed a bit of an understanding already. Judgement on new keeper Greg Shannon will have to wait as he had little to do, except pick the ball out of the net, when a deflected shot left him stranded. All in all it was good day out for all concerned and as the Sky Blue faithful were quick to point out in one of their 'songs', we kept our unbeaten away record in Europe intact. We do realise it's only two games but all records have to start somewhere, don't they!