Blue War!

They'll be a war of the Blues tomorrow at the Warden Street Showgrounds, when the Sky Blues of United take on the dark Blues of Linfield. This war will start when Referee Andy Hunter blows his whistle after we have all observed a minute's silence for the untimely death of Lesley Scates (as the result of a car accident last week), Lesley is the wife of a former player of both clubs and now the manager of Bangor, Gareth Scates. We expect the fans of both clubs to observe this silent tribute and spare a thought for Scatesy and his family at this time of tragedy.

Then we expect a game of football, a good clean game of football, with no quarter asked or given and definitely no diving and trying to con the ref. The pitch will no doubt be somewhat heavy, considering all the rain we have had over the past few days, but we'd expect it not to cut up too much, as long there's been no stock cars over it since our last match on it, against the Coleraine scum. With the breaking news of Johnny Taylor signing a 2 year extension to his contract, United should be up for this one and lets hope we get a good game. Johnny and Mario missed our victory at Stangmore Park last Saturday through suspension and although Mario could have to be content with a place on the bench, we expect JT to take his usual place in the centre of our defence.

Its not known if Mike Ruddy has shaken off his injury and we would expect Steely to continue at leftback in his place, but our manager could have other ideas. If Spike continues with his new found policy,4,4,2, we'd expect a midfield of Thommo, Jenks, Ally and Cush or maybe Robbo if Cush fails to make it. That leaves MM and Liggie to continue in trying to form a striking partnership and boy do we need them to succeed in that. Its too soon to claim that we have stopped conceding stupid goals, but we need to concentrate on scoring them at the other end, for we have an abysmal goals for record. Only two teams in the Dankse Premier league, have scored fewer goals than us, the 'Point and the Ducks and that makes for depressing reading.

Linfield, as league leaders, should bring a large crowd with them, but such is the malaise in local football now, we may have as many fans as them tomorrow, that is if our fickle fans can drag themselves away from their armchairs or shopping with the wife/partner. We can't guarantee them a victory, nobody can, but we certainly need their backing if we want to get anything out this game and a victory would set us up nicely for the County Antrim Shield semi-final at Seaview against the Crues on Wednesday next. Tomorrow starts a round of matches which will make or break our season, Linfield (H), Crues (A), Glens (H), Chickenville (A) and Ports (H). Nobody is going to do us any favours, we got to dig in and when better to start than tomorrow, come on Sky Blues, lets shag those Townies!