'Nother Friendly!!!

Yes we are to have another friendly tomorrow night, but unlike last Saturday's friendly against Oxford United Stars, this ones been advertised. We tried to get a statement from the club today, as to why they didn't inform United  fans about the game against Oxford United Stars, but our pleas were met by a deafening silence. Not a good press for the new board management, chairman and vice-chairman, but they put the blame firmly on the playing management team, e.g. Fergie and the three baldies. A man on the fringe of our management team, better known as Red, made the excuse that the team were a victim of circumstances beyond their control, due to opposing teams withdrawing at the last minute.

But we digress, we have a match tomorrow night at Tillysburn Park, Belfast, against the Welders, kick-off 19-30, we think. Welders are managed by  former Sky Blue central defender and free-kick specialists, Gary Smith and include in the their line-up ex-United man Michael McClellan, but we know him as MM. We don't have the foggiest notion if our manager, Spike, is going to treat this game seriously or are we going to go through the motions like we did against Bangor, where we turned up with only 12 fit players and not surprisingly lost. That the Welders so very nearly beat us in the 1st round of the Irish cup, surely Spike would know better than to go there half prepared'

We, the fans, expect nothing but a hard and committed performance from our team, not that insipid thing that those us that made the journey, witnessed at Clandeboye Park on the 10th July. According to the grapevine (three men overheard talking in a pub), Neal Lowry has severed his ties with the club and Jamie Davidson (remember him), has been seriously injured, again. Brian McCaul, that we had high hopes of signing, is considering a job offer to be Gary Twigg's assistant groundsman at Shamrock Park, Portadown.  If only Neal Lowry had gone sooner, we could have been in a positon to sign Brian on amateur forms, oh well, back to reality. The game tomorrow night will test us no doubt, but if we mean to consolidate our place in the league this season ,we need to start showing we mean business, COSB!

Six Days!

Yes its only six days to our first friendly game against Bangor at Clandeboye Park, we're sure everybody of a Sky Blue tradition is as excited as we are as this event approaches. Our manager says he is scouring the country to try and find the right blend of players, but so far as we know, he's only signed one, Matthew Tipton and supposedly our 'budget' is exhausted. Ironically we have another match on Thursday next at the same time as the Bangor fixture, v Desertmartin, but we have been assured that we have no difficulty in fulfilling both fixtures and the strongest team (note we didn't say the best team), will be at Bangor.

As Bangor is practically on the Sky Blue Sport's team doorstep (across Belfast lough), we will be taking in  the game. Sammy Patterson maybe be missing, as he prefers to watch the world cup instead of seeing United in their first friendly of the season, there's no pleasing some people. What are our hopes for the season, or better still what are our management teams hopes for the season? Omar was away in England for his Birthday, we'll not say his age, but suffice to say the swinging sixties is nearly over for him and was not able to attend the AGM, where some shareholder (we are told), congratulated the manager for getting to the Irish cup final and finishing 7th in the league.

Less said about that last comment the better, if we had won the Irish cup and/or finished in the top six in the league, we definitely would echo that congratulations, but we all agree with Omar's comments in his review of the season, that we are indeed marking time. As we didn't have a presence at the AGM, we aren't privy to what our manager said about the forthcoming season, but reading between the lines the shareholders seemed to be happy with progress so far and who are we to argue. Maybe the season ticket sales for this season will be up as the rank file fans flock to the Showgrounds for the coming season, we will be surprised, but you never know with our fickle fans.

We read with interest of how our dear neighbours, the Coleraine scum, have been saved by a group of fans (allegedly 120), investing in the club to the tune of £250,000 to date, that's right a quarter of a million pounds. We are sceptical of this report, mathematics has never been a scum tradition and they went into administration some years ago and two seasons ago they had to go cap in hand to the IFA to ask for a bail-out. Could a similar scheme, if true, work for United we ask? The people of the high country are not so free with their hard earned money and would need convincing, it'll be a hard sell we think, but worth looking into. Well its all go for the Bangor match, COSB, good luck in Desertmartin too, we can hardly wait,lol!