News Update!

Just four short weeks have passed since the Sky Blues played their part in that debacle of an Irish cup final and our manager hasn't explained his thinking of what went wrong. He's released some players and re-signed some players, but the only player he's brought in, is a striker. In our humble opinion, we don't need a striker, what we do need is a complete midfielder or better still a complete midfield. So many of our midfielders including the much heralded Alan Jenkins, are one-dimensional players. None more so than Alan D, who only has slick passing skills, when he can be bothered to use them.

The stage was set for him in the Irish cup final, coming on to replace Darboy, with Fergie clutching at straws, but alas Alan was in no mood to grab the headlines and he was a virtual passenger, like a lot of our players on that day. Captain Jenks, in our opinion, runs about like a headless chicken, threatening to close opposing players down, but he never quite gets there. If he was to go out with all guns blazing, he might in fact win the ball, instead of being a nearly man. The less said about Gavin Taggart the better, United fans are blaming him for the first goal against Glenavon, it seems he shied away from the free-kick, but Gavin is only a ball-winner, his first move is back and he's a bit hot-headed.

Thommo is another one-dimensional player, he can make forceful runs, but he has little or no pace and he's a liability with his tackles, giving away free-kicks in dangerous positions. Then we come to the versatile Sparky, who's been tried in many positions, but his best position seems to be centre-midfield, alongside a passer like Jenks, because Sparky couldn't pass water. We will reserve judgement on Neal Gawley, whom Fergie seems to favour, but for the life of us, we cannot see why. The only midfielder we have, worthy of the name, is the fiery Tony Kane, he can tackle, pass and is the complete midfielder and he has a play anywhere sort of attitude and is not afraid to 'mix it' if need be.

So our manager should be scouring the country to try to find more players like Tony. Who's not afraid to lay their body on the line for the team, they'll pick up a few cautions no doubt, but it is in the nature of the 'beast' so to speak. Spike has hinted that he is thinking of changing our formation and playing 4,4,2. We at 'Sport think  he has to be on the look-out for a ball playing wing-man and he's missed one already, when Crues back-up to Paul Heately, one Eamon McAllister, joined Ards this week. But maybe Spike has somebody else in mind to supply the crosses for Darboy and Tipper, they're not going to score by their own play, they need somebody to do the hard graft for them. We'll endeavour to keep fans up to speed in the coming 10 weeks of the close season!

Heroes All!

The current United squad has a chance to write themselves into the history books tomorrow, when they take on Glenavon in the Irish cup final at Windsor Park, Belfast. kick-off 2-30pm. The historic 1989 team were the guests of honour at the Des Allen suite, at the clubs end of season dinner last Saturday night. That they're still heroes in the eyes of Sky Blue fans, bears testament of what the Irish cup means to everybody associated with United. So a win for the current squad would lead to cult status in footballing terms.

The entire Sky Blue Sports team is adamant that they will do it, they saw the writing on the wall early, when Thommo scored our winner against the Welders. Then we were drawn against Linfield at Windsor Park and Thommo again delivered, setting up Darboy and he found our talisman Cush and the rest is history as they say. In a quirk of fate, Thommo may not get selected, as he has been out injured and only returned to play 30 minutes on Easter Tuesday.

But that's the thing about having a good squad of players, when somebody's injured, somebody else steps up to the plate. In our semi-final against QUB, at the Oval, we got an unlikely hero in Alan D, but if Thommo's fit, we at 'Sport think Alan D, will have to settle for a place on the bench. The same fate looks likely to befall Archie, who picked up a groin injury in our semi-final win at the Oval and we think Cookie Munster will get the nod and maybe play his last match in a Sky Blue Jersey.

Our keeper, Shan, 29 years-old, had never played in a semi-final before he signed for us and he will get to play in his first final tomorrow. It's a complete mystery to the 'Sport's team, how his undoubted talent was overlooked for so long, when great keepers are as scarce as hens teeth, we owe a huge debt to former keeper Dermot O'Neill for unearthing Shans talent and pointing us in the right direction, when we were in dire straits, with both our keepers out on long term injuries.

Lets not forget a grudging thanks to big fat DJ who released Jimer and let him join us, he did live to regret that and the diving bird, Oran Kearney, for doing the same with Darboy. These three players, Shan, Jimer and Darboy have contributed to the turnaround in our fortunes and our management team  deserves a lot of credit for sticking their collective necks out at transfer window. Despite all our urgings to the contrary, Fergie has stayed true to his 4,3,3 policy and we expect he'll stick with it tomorrow .

Or he could spring a surprise and deploy Archie playing in front of the back four, but we feel that would be tantamount to handing the advantage to the tramp and his cohorts. No, we expect Spike to sink or swim with his tried and trusted formula, he's a great believer in, 'if its not broke, don't try to fix it'. As if we didn't need  anymore incentives, we have found we have a turncoat in the Glenavon camp, one Nigel Law, who used to coach our under-16 team, but he's the enemy tomorrow.

Our former manager Roy Walker, used to say 'only believe', but we only believed and were let down time and time again. But we have raised this catchphrase again and we believe the cup is ours. We got our name on it when we beat the Welders and we've never looked back since, so come on United, lets shag those Mourneviewers, lets all do the bouncey and put our name on the Irish cup, where we know it belongs. 'She wore, she wore, she wore a Sky Blue ribbon in the merry month of May and when I asked her why she wore that ribbon, she said it's for United and I'm with them all the way, all the , all the way...etc!!!!!!!