Make Merry!

Tomorrow at half-past one, United start the long road to the Irish cup final when they play championship side, H & W Welders, at their Tillysburn ground in East Belfast. No doubt the United faithful, will be singing one of their favourite songs, about the 'merry month of May' and how Mary, our pin-up girl is rooting for United, we hope to make merry come twenty-past three, but we don't expect an easy ride in the process. No doubt Welders manager, Gary Smyth, a former Sky Blue player, will have his team prepared and they will give us a fight. Our manager, Glenn Ferguson, must surely have learned from his earlier indiscretion against Ballymoney United in the league cup at the start of the season and must give the Welders the respect they deserve and pick his strongest team.

If he sticks with his policy of league games, then he will no doubt make one change from his line-up of last Saturday, Aaron Shan in goals in place of the ineligible Frenchy Lacroix. But he has signed two high profile players since last week, Jim Ervin and Darren Boyce and he may be tempted to include at least one of them in his side to start our quest for the 'holy grail' of Irish football, the Irish cup. We've given up trying to gauge Spike's mind, but we think he'll resist change for change sake and give his tried and tested players a chance to strike the first blow. Then maybe he could introduce his two new signings in the second half, as long as he feels they have something to contribute, namely tackles from Jimer and goals from Darboy.

With JT facing an imminent suspension maybe next week and Tony on the brink of one, no doubt Jimer will  come into to the reckoning sooner rather than later. So who moves to accommodate Darboy, will it be our Captain moving back to midfield or will it be Ally dropping down to the bench and Darboy moving on to the left-wing. The latter would seem like the move that makes the most sense in our opinion, but what do we know. Ex-Glens player Matty Burrows is in the Welders line-up, but Cookie and JT have dealt with him in the past and will hopefully keep him quiet tomorrow. Our débutante goalkeeper  is our no1 worry, as this is his first competitive game in a Sky Blue jersey, but we'll have to rely on big Wes having him versed on our defence and what he can expect from them. So come on Sky Blues, lets unweld them Welders!