A game of four halves
The papers have been full of "friendship" soccer matches between Christians and Muslims recently. One in Germany was decisively won by the Christians. One in Norway was suspended in a row over women players.
Next month sees an encounter of a different kind with a Stormont Assembly team setting off to London to take on the might of Westminster, Holyrood and Cardiff. The fixture kept going throughout the period of suspension.
Last year Scotland beat Northern Ireland in the final amidst accusations of "ringers" taking to the pitch.
Scotland's manager is Kenny Dalglish. Northern Ireland's is Pat Jennings. The provisional line up is David McClarty, Danny Kennedy, John McCallister, David Hilditch, Peter Weir, Alex Easton, Roy Beggs Jr., Tommy Burns and Tommy Gallagher, plus a couple of Stormont officials. Sinn Fein appear conspicuous by their absence - maybe they have another fixture on in Dublin.
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Play it like a proper cup tournament. If 90 minutes of play produces no winner, have a shootout. Sinn Fein would be keen to take part in one of those.
Mark
Sinn Fein has no time for such frivolity. Following Gerry’s embarrassing ignorance of economic matters vis a vis the South’s election campaign, his MLAs have been ordered to spend any free time studying economics. Listening to Mitchell McLaughlin talking about the Private Finance Initiative (Good Morning Ulster, earlier this week) shows that there is a long way to go.
Susie
Carryduff
Come on SF why not get on board - this sounds like a great idea and besides you've been making more positive noises about the Norn' Ireland football team of late.
Think it would be great to get everyone on the same time - McGuinness chasin' down the left flank, shimmies effortlessly past Rhodri Morgan, crosses it in, glances off the head of David McClarty, falls at the feet of Peter Robinson who thumps it past Gordon Brown into the back of the net - that'll be an extra £5bn of Treasury investment please Gordon!
Wouldn't exactly take a poet to divine the significance in this one now... - mebbe the Dail in Dublin should get into the East-West thing and field it's own team?
Is the Sinn Fein reluctance to take part anything to do with the Deputy First Minister breaking his leg playing in a match a couple of years back ?
Maybe there just not interested in the "garison sport". Come on lets play something other than tippy tap, bit of hurling it was afterall Edward Carsons prefered sport at trinnity, but i suppose all the unionists already know that?
Yes, that's right, Alan - it's just a "garrison sport" that happens to be the most played/viewed sport in the world. They even have a national team in the Republic of Ireland, would you believe it.
A little time at Trinity might have helped you as well, Alan. I have never seen so many spelling and grammatical errors in such a short paragraph.