An anecdote about how Lou Macari towels himself, and the Irish Cup

An anecdote about how Lou Macari towels himself



It's the fifth round of the Irish Cup tomorrow in the fitba (est 1881; 4th oldest cup comp in the world, cup fans.) It's the equivalent of the third round of the FA Cup, when the small fry play the big boys.

1st Division Bangor have been drawn away to Crusaders, top of the premier league ahead of Glentoran and Linfield. Gulp.


Crusaders are managed by Stephen 'Stanley' Baxter, who I think was part of the cabal of born-again Christian players who used to pray in the dressing room before kick off, then go out and put the fear of God into their opponents with bone-crunching tackles back when the Crues won two titles in the mid-1990s.

So a trip to Seaview it is.

I asked the big ranga team leader out of work if he was going to the match.

'If it goes ahead' he replied

'Why, I thought the Crues had a plastic pitch,' I countered.

'Not that,' he says 'I'm off to a shareholders meeting to see if we can put a team out.'

I didn't know things were that bad.

At least we aren't in the position of Lisburn Distillery, managed by ex-Forest stopper Tommy Wright. They are in £250,000 of debt. They were paying their players a total of £20,000 a month! May not seem much, but that's Utaka-like madness in the cash-strapped local game.

Anyway, back to the game tomorrow.

Thanks to an utterly bizarre game in which half the Crues team decided to act like Vinnie Jones crossed with Cantona crossed with Mad Max they'll have four players suspended tomorrow(all the nutty action in the video comes in the second half). Which is nice.



For some reason it's at 2.30pm.

Carrick are playing at 2.00pm because someone set fire to their club rooms.