| Bodes well for the season ahead |
|
|
|
| Monday, 10 March 2008 | |
|
Regular columnist Conall Collier gives us a lesson in Sainthood and cynical marketing tricks as he look s forward with optimism to the remainder of the season.
by Conall Collier BODES well for the season ahead – controversy before a ball was kicked. Blame the Saints – religion has always had a lofty perch in Irish society! Can we now look forward to, maybe, a novena before kick-off, maybe a mobile podium for a selection of statues so that there might be some divine intervention the next time similar problems arise? St. Nicholas - could be the mainstay on behalf of the sponsors? St. Paul The Traveller – might help to keep our manager cool on the sideline. St. Jude – definitely for the referee’s room with a few candles burning brightly in front of a mirror where the ‘man in black’ can ask – “Mirror mirror on the wall – who is the best whistler of them all?” St. Patrick - for the month that’s in it, it wouldn’t be proper to omit St. Patrick Now is that for the Inchicore brigade or our new custodian of the tabernacle and keeper of the six-yard box? Deserves more thought and comment. Remember the time when there used to be two versions of the one song in the charts? This would be before ipods and downloads and all that sort of thing. Example: Back in the ‘70s there was chart hit – Una Paloma Blanca – (translation means something about ‘one white bird’ or similar) the best version was by The George Baker Selection and then we had Jonathan King’s version. For the purpose of this rather laboured explanation I shall cast the Inchicore brigade as the Jonathan King version. Surely enough said there for those of you old enough to know? And in addition, the Inchicore version: we should always be wary of Dubs offering us anything, but when Paddy Power is involved we should even be more cautious. Have to hand it to the marketing people who managed to pull off the coup. Paddy Power logos on both teams in the week leading up to Cheltenham – great publicity. They completely out-gunned the Ladbrokes’ logo on our shorts. Back to being ‘wary’ – You know if the game had actually kicked-off on time, we would have won, because by the time St. Pat’s scored, the game would actually have been over. So there was method in their plot. And what about our St. Patrick. Well, he is a bit removed from Saint status at the moment. More like ‘Blessed’ a state in which St. Oliver Plunkett found himself for years as the locals and non-locals in Drogheda queued to see the famous ‘head’ of a dead man. Could we say we are ‘Blessed’ with our St. Patrick? Nightmares and horror shows are more likely – Dracula sprang to mind at one stage – when the crosses were flying into the six-yard box and St Patrick wouldn’t go near them. I bet the Brush man would have come out and not only caught the ball, but he would have done a somersault and landed perfectly on his feet, fixed his hair, pulled up his socks and cleared the ball. Still, there was plenty to admire, apart from the three howlers which cost us the game. We can definitely sort that out. Again with Cheltenham in mind, the formbook for next Saturday night’s visit of the men from St. Oliver Plunkett’s home town, would read. Sligo Rovers: A bit off colour eight days ago following the long journey to Dublin, made the early running, failed to recover from three mistakes approaching the home straight, but showed enough to suggest they should be good value to make a point next time. Finally, about the colours. In junior soccer the onus is on the home team to change in the event of a colour clash. However, it might be prudent to throw the black kit in a bag as a contingency plan for all future away games just to be sure to be sure. |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
