New Era!

With the breaking news that Glenn 'Spike' Ferguson has been named as the new manager, we wonder is this the start of a new era or just one more dot in our history books? Spike was a great player and a great competitor and if he can instil these traits into our team, he might just be the messiah we've been looking for. It's not known who his back-room staff might be but one name that's been mentioned is Lee Docherty. So let's recap, we've appointed a manager who had a record second to none as a striker in our league, his first appointment is man who was a midfield genius and is held in awe in our league circles, all he needs now is to appoint Noel Baile and maybe he can get our slip shod defence sorted out.

In an ironic twist of fate his first official match in charge will be against his former masters, Linfield (the I.F.A.) and the next game is away to his last employers, Lisburn Distillery, in the Irish cup. It doesn't get any easier after that, if United or Glens don't have to replay their Irish cup games, then there's a match on Tuesday January 17 at the Showgrounds followed by a visit to the hatchet men on the Saturday, then maybe he'll have time to catch his breath. We fervently hope he has seen us play recently and if he is the stand tomorrow, he'll maybe get an idea of our strengths (we haven't seen too many this year) and our weaknesses (too countless to mention). We're not hoping for a quick fix but maybe some fresh ideas and basic defending would be good.

Tomorrow's match is Joe's last game in charge and no doubt the D.C. boys will be up for that as a win will take them 8 points clear of us and practically free from the threat of relegation (35 pts to be mathematically safe), a rare win for us would delay that for a week or two. When we were travelling to Coleraine last Monday we heard the news of Gavin Taggart being in the team and not Ally Teggert, our spirits went down we can tell you. It seems Ally picked a bit of a knee injury and we wish well and a speedy recovery. We just hope that he is fit enough to start tomorrow and if Baker isn't fit, we start with Lowry up front along with Cutch.

Our defence which didn't exactly cover themselves in glory last Monday, will probably be the same but we only hope Joe has told them to get the ball out of there, don't start playing any 'namby pamby' football, for it's the road to no town. The referee tomorrow is Hugh Carville and we think he'll play the match as per rule book, not like Andy 'make the rules as you go along' Hunter, well we live in hope anyway. In an ironic way Sparky's sending off could give the three stoogies, Carson, Jenks and Downey a chance to impress the new boss, but he knows Downey's form from when they were team-mates at Windsor Park. On paper it's a match we can win, but our confidence is shot to rags, let's hope we pull out all the stops, come on Sky Blues, let's shag those Suffolk lambs!