Disappearing act for Irish Cup is far from magic or romantic
THE Fifth Round of the Irish Cup, the one for all the romantics, as we all gather round the all-the-cliches you can eat buffet to salivate at the prospect of a simply magical start to 2021. Not so fast.
The only magical thing about the Irish Cup, sorry, the Sadler’s Peaky Blinder Irish Cup, is that it could well disappear without a trace with Paul Daniels and David Copperfield of the Great Soprendo blameless.
I know things had been put in place by the IFA, the event was going live on Facebook, nice new shiny baubles had been bought for the occasion and there were probably a couple of socially-distanced traybakes doing the rounds, but did any of us really think that these matches could be played on January 9?
And I’m not even talking about the latest Covid disruption to the local sporting calendar with games off this week as we look at another six-week lockdown.
To their credit, the IFA had taken the decision to reduce the competition to the last 32 because football below elite level has been kicked into touch so far.
For the uninitiated, elite football, for men, in this part of the world applies only to the 12 teams in the Danske Bank Premiership, the rest of football being kept waiting in a holding pattern somewhere behind a big lad in a red coat.
So, to expect teams from the Championship, Premier Intermediate League and the others making up the numbers, to possibly play senior opposition a week after their proposed start date was ludicrous.
I appreciate that the IFA’S hands are tied too. They have contractual obligations to their sponsors and want to keep them sweet, after all money isn’t going to be readily available for football over the next while, but there was still the argument to be had with the powers-that-be that the Irish Cup itself qualified as an Elite event.
As it turned out there were three all-premiership ties, the pick of the bunch Coleraine taking on Crusaders, but the game of the round was holders Glentoran taking on near neighbours Dundela.
And not just Dundela but Colin Nixon’s Dundela, manager now at Wilgar Park but a legend at the Oval and a man who was no stranger to glory in what should be local football’s big day out.
The best he can hope for now is to lead his side out with next to no football behind them in front of an empty Oval – ah, the romance of the cup.
With an already congested fixture list the culling of the games on Boxing Day and December 29 means another two matches have to be shoe-horned in and surely the easiest way of getting one of those in would be to have them on January 9 instead of the cup?
With football expected to be wrapped up in June for the Euros it doesn’t leave a lot of wriggle-room and could any of us with any confidence predict that there won’t be another curtailment of action in the coming months.
The traditionalists will argue that the Irish Cup should take its natural course, but these aren’t normal times.
The precedent was set last season when the cup continued after the league was called off far too quickly and if it’s a fear of breaking from tradition then let’s have a look at Gaelic Games.
Cavan reached the semi-final of the All-ireland Senior Football Championship, starting their campaign with a Preliminary Round clash with Monaghan on October 31.
This was the first of five matches for them over successive weekends before they ultimately fell to Dublin, or to transpose it to the Irish Cup, they went from the last 32 to the final
in the same space of time.
It’s not perfect, but while driving up to Ballymena to cov
er their game against the Glens as I always do I tune in to Radio Ulster’s Sportsound and it was refreshing to hear two men steeped in the game here not just thinking about their own problems.
Stephen Baxter has his fair share of things to think about, Crusaders‘ scheduled game with Carrick Rangers biting the dust because four members of the Seaview team had come down with Covid.
“I do worry for the Championship clubs, trying to start their season in the middle of February, especially with the Euros coming in June,” Baxter said
“And even our own season, it will be difficult to get 38 games fitted in. We have a big programme in January coming up so it is really important we don’t lose games. If we lose two sets of fixtures this month on Boxing Day and December 29, then we have a lot of games ahead of us.”
Also in the studio was Carrick boss Niall Currie, whose own side have been playing catch-up after being caught up in Portadown’s outbreak earlier in the season, and having managed for a fair few seasons in the Championship was at a loss.
“I have worries for the Irish Cup and for Championship and PIL clubs. I worry because I don’t know where this is going to end,” he said,
“It is a situation where I don’t know if there will be a ball kicked in the Championship this season. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel at this moment, especially with the new regulations set to kick in over the next four to six weeks.
“I worry, because all of a sudden you will be into February time and I don’t know if you can start a season in February.”
It’s not easy to try and grasp a positive out of all this, but Linfield boss David Healy, while missing the Yuletide games, is happy that his side can get a bit of a break.
“We’ve been on the go for a long time and have had to prepare twice in terms of pre-season, the first for the Champions League and the Europa League games, then we had to wait for over a month for the start of the League campaign,” he said at the weekend.
“Although I love the Festive fixtures, particularly Boxing Day, I think we now have a window for a little break to refresh things. “Who knows how many games we’ll have to play in the league campaign this year?”
Gareth Clements, chairman of leaders, Larne, is also understandably concerned that what could be the greatest season in the history of the Invermen could come crashing down around them.
“If the lockdown is extended and with domestic football not being allowed to run into June, you do start to ask the question, will a curtailment plan come into play?” he wondered.
Glenavon boss Gary Hamilton shares the frustrations of many that this week’s games bit the dust, especially as so much work has been done by all the clubs to get the league under way at all.
“I get it, that the health of people in this country is the most important thing, but we’ve come back and played football during this pandemic and everything has been going okay in terms of our situation,” he said on Saturday.
And Ballymena boss David Jeffrey admitted that no game on Boxing Day would be ‘strange’.
“But the reality is if that’s what is deemed to be the best and correct thing, we are 110 per cent behind it,” he added.
“All we need to do now is be sensible, keep safe and get through this and please God it won’t be too long before we’re back playing again.”
Perhaps the only man who knows that for sure is wearing a big red coat, munching mince pies with Rudolph and his mates and wondering when and if he’ll get to deliver that big shiny Irish Cup this side of next Christmas.