April Showers!

After suffering in March, United started April in fine fettle winning our first 3 games and then the showers came on last Saturday when we lost for the 3rd time this season to fellow strugglers Glenavon. Tomorrow, we have a chance to halt this doom and gloom, temporarily at least, when we entertain Dungannon Swifts in our last game of the season. It would be true to say that we haven't got a particularly good record against the Swifts, but we hope that's all in the past. Swifts manager, Darren Murphy, needs no introduction to Sky Blue fans and we can be sure he'll have the Swifts playing football, not nancy, prancy football, but football with steel and we need to be prepared to battle. Unfortunately we, the Sky Blue Sport team, didn't get to last Saturday's match, but 'Rusty Ray' told us it was dire stuff, so we hope for a positive reaction from the boys tomorrow.

Spike sprang a surprise, bringing Peter Duffin on as a sub last Saturday, but Rusty Ray says even he couldn't raise the tempo of a sluggish Sky Blue team. What will our manager do with his playing panel tomorrow? Will he pick his best side leaving us in no doubt of what we can expect next season? Or will he start with the boys like Cookie Munster who seems to in line to play his last match in a Sky Blue shirt, or are we getting the wrong vibes. It'd be fair to say that Cookie has had an up and down season, he scored our goal in the Shield final, but he also played in some of our biggest hidings this season. We're not saying he was alone in playing crap in these matches, but he's an experienced defender and must shoulder a big percentage of the blame. Everybody in our playing panel has had an up and down season as well, none more so than our leading goal-scorer and talisman, David Cushley.

Some of Cushley's play this season has been a delight to watch, but on the other side of the coin, some of it was painful to watch, but he's never dull. The brightest spark in our team this year has been our goalkeeper, Dwayne Nelson, who was sensationally dropped after we shipped 8 goals at home against the eventual league Champions, Chickenville, which culminated in him missing the biggest match we have played in recent seasons, the County Antrim Shield final. But Dwayne came back from this reverse to win our 'man of the match' on numerous occasions, with some sterling performances when he was the only thing standing between us and certain defeat. But he couldn't do it all on his own and I'm sure he would want to end this season on a positive note, especially against his former club, the Swifts. We are not going to try and guess what tricks Glenn has got up his sleeves, we only hope he has some, so for the last time this season, come on Sky Blues, let's shag those Tyrone bunnies!