SOUL SURMISE

MANCHESTER CITY BANNED FROM EUROPE - A PERSONAL SURMISE!

A few texts tipped me off. People were concerned about me. I wasn’t up to speed but I picked up enough to figure out that Manchester City had been banned from Europe!

I was delighted. I hate Europe. Liverpool have won the Champions League a time or two in the last 15 years and yet they haven’t been Champions of England for thirty. They even won it one year when they finished outside the qualifying places for the following year’s Champion’s League!

A few years ago Leicester City won the Premiership and, though I loved the fact, it had to be said that one of their biggest advantages that season was that they were not playing all those European games.

The Premier League on the other hand is the best league in the world and no one argues who the best team in England is this season - Liverpool. Who wins the Champions League, luck of the draw and a couple or three good games. Spurs were runners up last season after almost not qualifying for the knock out stages. Oh I love City winning Cups but it is the Premier League that I want.

So, I was delighted with the ban. Jurgen might not be so pleased.

Of course that was the initial joy. The fear came next. What if Pep now leaves? Will the players take a two year gap from European football? Will two Premiership titles, that it would be unforgivable if City didn’t win without the European distraction, be enough to keep KDB, Sergio and Laporte? 

Aguero’s contract will be up during that two year ban. So is Leroy Sane’s but he is likely to leave whatever. The other two John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi are not top of Pep’s favourites. Still, there is that fear… What might City look like by 2022?

However, City fans can take whatever. It is only 21 years since we were playing league games away to Macclesfield Town, in the third tier. We have enjoyed winning 8 of the last 9 domestic trophies but we are used to harder times. 

Is there shame? Probably. I have blogged before that I hate that football has ended up to be all about money. I grew up in more innocent times with City and Liverpool being challenged by QPR and Burnley in title races. I don’t like that everything has changed but it has. I have often attempted to free myself from my love of Manchester City but 41 years of honing is hard to throw off. Maybe if we are relegated as punishment for our business failings I won’t have to!

Yes, I wish this wasn’t happening. I hope we are proved innocent or the sentence is at least seen as too severe. There are other arguments. Other journalists point the finger back at UEFA. However we are in a messy business world surrounded by all the messiness of business and if you live by the bottom line you can often die by the bottom line. Don’t get me started on unaccountable capitalism!

There are eras in football. I remember Leeds United’s, Everton had a mini one, Liverpool and Manchester United have had long ones, Arsenal, Chelsea and recently City. If ours is up. That is fine by me. I only needed that one Aguero moment even though I have enjoyed the eight years since. 

So, Pep might go. Sergo and KDB. We might have a year or two a little less amazing than we have been in the last two seasons. I don’t think it is over though. This morning’s headlines are a little over hyped. 

The worst news for me is that if I want to continue to enjoy the brilliant football on the pitch, I am going to have to compromise my soul on the business side… and two years out of Europe. It is very tempting!

BRINGING 4 FOOTBALL TEAMS TOGETHER - 4CF2020

We are aware at the 4 Corners Festival (4CF) that we have an Irish Premier League football club in each corner of our city.

Sport in general sadly contributes to some of the tensions in our divided society. On the other side of the story there are many within sport working away at using sport to bring our communities together. The 4 Corners Festival event Game Of Three Halves attempts to do just that - bringing young people from across the divide, together to play each other’s sports!

At 4CF2020 we are also bringing together the 4 Chairmen of Belfast’s 4 Irish Premier League teams - Cliftonville, Crusaders, Glentoran and Linfield. 

BBC Sports Presenter Joel Taggart will host the evening and the Chairmen will be, among other things speaking about two things.

Firstly, the negative sectarian headlines of the papers and social media. There are those stories where a few isolated fans have shouted bigoted vitriol in the face of a player or Board member of the opposing team. There are those uncalled for chants or some other form of disrespect. Such things give a cheap cliche to the tabloids. No one reports the many layers of the story that have been conveniently left out of the newspaper piece.

Secondly, there is the stuff that never makes the headlines. There is a lot of hard work that these clubs are doing to eradicate sectarian behaviour. The carefully forged relationships between club directors and staff go unnoticed and seem to live a long distance from the media. There are a lot of good news stories in football that need to get a voice.

So, in this 4CF2020 event we bring the 4 Chairmen together in the National Stadium to listen to the issues that frustrate them and the strategic work they do unseen for the building up of our city. 

This should be an evening for journalists to come and listen with more sympathy to the issues that club chairman face. A listening that might bring some balance to lazy headlines and news stories.

This should be an evening for fans of each club, to hear listen to what their Chairmen go through in order to make the matches take place on a Saturday afternoon. A listening might give some backing to the strategies that go wider than just the game on the pitch.

This should be an evening for our society to listen. The issues that face our football club Directors are the issues of our broken society. We cannot be putting the blame on the Boards of football clubs when we are all complicit in our divisions. What Fr Martin and I often say about Stormont could be said at this event - “Peace will not drip down from Board Rooms, it should flow up from our streets (or stands and terraces) to the Board rooms”.

All this will take place in the Pat Jennings Lounge at Windsor Park. There will be tours of the stadium available beforehand. I have been on a tour and they are well worth giving more time. We are excited!

BOOK IN HERE - IT'S FREE

MY HEART REACHED ACROSS THE YEARS AND MILES AS SOUTH AFRICA WON THE WORLD CUP

For the last ten minutes of the Rugby Union World Cup Final I had two people in my mind and heart. In the first decade of the millennium I spent, cumulatively, over six months in South Africa. As a university Chaplain I took loads of students to build houses on the townships around Cape Town with Habitat For Humanity.

Two men I came to love on those trips were Lucas and Thulani. They were builders from the Masiphumelele township and worked with us year after year. We took their families to Spur for meals and Lucas and Thulani came with us to watch Manchester United play Kaiser Chiefs and Western Province play in the Currie Cup.

When it came to Rugby, Lucas and Thulani were no fans of the Springboks. They supported New Zealand. The reason, even after Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar’ moment in the 1995 World Cup, was that Rugby was still a white sport. Blacks were still not welcome. 

They were not alone. I stood with some black South Africans while the Springboks beat Ireland at Newlands in 2004. They told me that Newlands was one of the few Rugby stadiums in their country that they felt welcome in. 

The words that sent me back across those years and wondering where Lucas and Thulani might be watching today was when Springbok winger Mapimpi ran in South Africa’s first ever try in their three World Cup successes and the commentator said, “the man from the townships runs in…” 

Half an hour later and another black man from the townships, Siya Kolisi, lifted the Webb Ellis trophy. Oh my!

These were not just sporting moments. These were the iconic moments in the development of a nation. South Africa have been through many difficulties since Mandela handed Pienaar that same trophy 24 years ago. Mandela started something through that 1995 campaign, as highlighted in the Invictus movie, but today another huge step was taken in the transformative of a rainbow nation.

I was not all that gripped by this year’s World Cup. Maybe it was the early starts. I find the groups stages dull. Ireland were knocked out early. I wanted to watch the final fearing what Eddie Jones might sound like when England lifted the Cup. I had no other expectations.

Yet, I suddenly found myself back in a country my family grew to love so much in that decade of travelling there. I suddenly glimpsed the hope of that great nation. I was suddenly captivated by Siya Kolisi, knowing exactly what kind of background he was from. My heart found Lucas and Thulani. I hope they are well and that their families are doing well. 

With a minute or two go in the match, I sent a text to my good friend Brent Van Der Linde, a South African who lives here in Belfast. I texted, “Brother… beautiful” He answered, “Absolutely beautiful”. Indeed it is!

VAR RUINING EVERYTHING

My beloved City won their first game of the season 5-0 away to a very good West Ham United team. Raheem Sterling scored a hat trick. AND… I hated it!

VAR! Oh we have dabbled with it before. I remember those two glorious moments where City were in the semi-finals of the Champions League before VAR, silenced the Etihad. This season, however, it is every game. If it is like today’s game, it will be hard to get used to.

Now, do not get me wrong. I was a fan before they brought it in. All those bad decisions, the very obvious ones. Thierry Henry’s hand ball in that World Cup Play Off against Republic Of Ireland. Corrie Evans’s not hand ball in Northern Ireland’s World Cup Play off against Switzerland We would rid the game of the injustice! Others might mention Maradonna! Rugby has done it. Surely there is a way for Soccer to do it too!

There was talk of it being used for “clear and obvious” errors. It seems from today however that it will be used for every goal. Some, it won’t take long. Other though and the celebrations have happened and the teams are back at the centre circle waiting to kick off when… no goal! Free kick.

Today frustrate me because City’s third goal was the best move of the match. Ir deserved to be a goal. Technically it was the right decision but it was by a half arm’s width. So close. Too meticulously close.

The next City goal went to VAR too. This time about a finger’s width. One stood, the other didn’t. The difference was negligible. If this is what VAR is for it will be a long season of waiting apprehensively and lots of added time!

By the time Aguero’s awful penalty miss was allowed to be retaken I had had enough. Oh it was to our advantage again but the penalty was so bad Sergio didn’t deserve another go. That Declan Rice had encroached  and was first to the rebound meant that of course the infallible VAR had struck again. Oh my!

There are mental issues at play here. City were 2 up when Jesus’s goal was disallowed. That would have been 3 and at that stage game over. City have had their celebrations and mentally have won the game. Suddenly the mood swing in the stadium changes. West Ham fans get a boost as do the team whereas City are wondering what just happened. It is going to be a test of how to do deal with huge emotional swings. 

For the armchair fan it will take some getting used to. That we won 5-0 and VAR spoiled it for me asks questions about the game as a spectacle. There are lots of money in TV rights. 

It will probably take time. I guess that in Rugby teams are back ready to kick off when decisions are changed. The players and fans have gotten used to it. It will take some getting used to! In the meantime be ready to be frustrated…. And oh that VAR don’t start getting decisions wrong!

BEING IN UGANDA FOR THE PORTRUSH OPEN - A SURMISE!

I waited about 45 years for the British Open to be played at Portrush. I went to my first Open at Muirfield in 1972. Trevino stole it from Tony Jacklin on the 17th. I started playing seriously the very next week. 

I was aware that Royal Portrush was as good a course as any by the age of 16. I had played Carnoustie and St. Andrews, where I had been for the 1975 and 1978 Opens. Portrush should have the Open back. Of course The Troubles were in the way for twenty years but as the millennium turned my dad, now a member at Portrush and my mother dreamed. 

Sadly, my mother never lived to see it, and my dad’s dementia means that he will never know. Me, I was in Uganda! Oh, it is recorded for when I get home, and I will watch it over and over, but this morning I am grabbing a glance at whatever I can find on YouTube!

I was on a school playground in north west Uganda when the Open started and I told the school that, though all the world’s so called VIPs were in our place, these school children were my VIPs. I wouldn’t have been anywhere else, not even Portrush. That probably says something about how my life has changed since my golf obsessed teens.

However, it was painful following it with very sporadic wifi! My friend Pearse had a free roaming app and was keeping me up to date. We were at a sensational African Dance evening as Lowry and Fleetwood hit the back nine on Sunday. During intricate dances I was shouting across the table, “still six shots? How many holes?” 

Though a Tommy Fleetwood fan, Shane Lowry was my man from the moment I heard that Rory’s fragile head had thrown the tournament at the very first hole. Since he won the Irish Open as an amateur in 2009, I have always reckoned on Lowry winning a Major. So close to a US Open in 2016 his form took a dive, until an 8th in this year’s USPGA suggested better things. When Rory succumbed to his psychological fragility I saw Lowry first round score and thought maybe!

On Thursday evening I read a Facebook status that had already closed off the possibility of a local winner. Maybe sectarianism! I am more likely to think a lack of knowledge of Lowry’s decade as a professional. When everyone was touting Koepka because his caddy Ricky Elliott, grew up playing Portrush, they again forgot that Lowry’s caddy was from just sixty miles away. Bo Martin had the local knowledge without being confused by the club he played to the ninth green being so different than the one he’d have to recommend to a serial Major winner!

In the end I was as thrilled at Lowry’s win as I was with all our other Irish Major winners since 2007! There were no Irish Major winners for 60 years after Fred Daly won the Open. Now that is 10 in 12 years! Wow! Let us stop and savour!

I again feel blessed by milking the Venn Diagram Affect of being Northern Irish. Those six little counties, still constitutionally British but geographically on the island of Ireland. If your soul is open and you can stay free of the bigotry such a squeezed space can grow then you can benefit by being a bit of both!

Golf has always, like Rugby, been an island wide sport. Amateur golfers play under the Golfing Union of Ireland. It seemed right, in every sense, that as Lowry marched to victory, and particularly when he walked up the 72nd hole with about seven putts for it, that the Portrush crowd played the Venn Diagram Affect raucously! 

“Ole Ole Ole” ringing out across North Antrim’s coastline is not only the sound of a “home” winner, for the first British Open in Northern Ireland since 1951, but maybe also a sig of how far we have come as a people in these last twenty years!

I cannot wait to get home and watch it all. There will be tears!

CITY TIL I DIE (50 YEARS OF SUPPORTING MANCHESTER CITY)

50 years ago

In the school playground

In the blink of an eye

Without much thought

Or was there

Had it been frog-spawning

In the pond of Uncle Jimmy’s constant naming

Of Bell and Lee and Summerbee

Becoming tadpoles in the peer pressure 

Of Derek Cunningham wearing the kit

Sky blue and white, claret trim on the socks

To the jumping frog 

Of changing sides in the lunchtime game

From United to City

To even up the teams

Stephen Martin, I see your sneaky face

 

There was no turning back

I became City 'til I die

And soon we were dying

It wasn’t fun for a while

If a while can be 35 years

Excruciatingly painful actually

For decades I wanted to find Derek Cunnigham

And tell him that I resented him

That he ruined my life!

 

But today Derek Cunningham

I could kiss you

Thank you

Today we won the FA Cup

To clinch The Double

That was a holy grail

But not just The Double

The Domestic Treble

That no one ever thought about

Dreamed about

Or have ever won before

For my 50 year anniversary

We won everything!

 

There will be begrudgers

They will talk about the money

And I wish this could be done without the money

But it’s not 50 years ago

So if you want to play 

Like that

Fast 

Furious 

Freewheeling

Perfect footballing poetry

Then this is the way.

 

So, 50 years

Of low lights

And even darker

(Macclesfield away in the League!)

There have at last been highlights

But the years and years of deepest gloom

Have made these bright days brighter

All the more joyous

Like the Promised Land after wandering in the wilderness.

 

It would all have been worth it 

For just that one moment

“Agueroooooooo…”

As The Sawdoctors songs goes

“To win just once

That would be enough”

The rest is showing off

Constant laps of honour

Still, I will always remind myself

Where I was for that Sergio injury time winner

That snatched the title from Sir Alex’s pesky grasp

I had lost faith, given up and left

To face my hurt 

In the garden

Missing the very greatest moment of the 50 years.

 

That moment about sums up these 50 years

But here I am

In my City shirt and tracksuit bottoms

And there is the Premiership trophy

With The FA Cup

And the League Cup

All in City’s trophy cabinet.

Blue Moon

Wonderwall

Na na na, City!

THAT CITY- SPURS MATCH - MY HEARTACHE... AND SPIRITUAL SURMISE

That match. That footballing classic. Five goals in the opening 20 minutes. Seven goals all in. Two massive VAR decisions. The last had my team in the Champions League semi-finals for about two minutes. Then having just walked through the gate into heaven we were brutally dragged back through the hedge. City 4 Spurs 3. Spurs win on away goals! That match!

Utter heartache. In the short term I was fortunate. My friend Doug was staying. We talked about other things. However, when everyone went to bed, I just sat there. Going over it in my head. Aguero’s penalty miss in the first leg. Conceding 3 at home against a team without key players including Harry Kane. City’s goalkeeper, Edersen’s poor swipe at a corner that led to the corner that gave Spurs their goal. VAR. VAR!

This was the worst heartache. Oh Spurs inflicted another one, just as dramatic, in the 1981 FA Cup Final and there have been other times but none like this. City had this chance of winning the Quadruple. I believed it to be once in a lifetime. We had an easy draw in the FA Cup, even Ajax would have been the easiest semi-final in the Champions League. The dice will never roll for us in those ways again. There will never be another chance… and inches… tight margins… heartache!

I got up this morning hoping it would be a nightmare but the pain was real. It was like the one you get from being ditched romantically. There’s a hole in your stomach. Heartache! 

Now, it is not quite the same. The football is more of an impact heartache and by the weekend its gone, much quicker than real grief heartache. My wife will never even understand the emotions I was experiencing last night, though with grief she’ll be my empathising, sympathising rock! Thirty years together, 23 of them married and she has no emotional connection a football match! No, no matter what Bill Shankly said it is not a matter of life and death nor is it much more important than that! BUT… it hurts!

What I hate most is the social media “banter”. Some of it is in the spirit of banter but a lot of it comes with the vicious vitriol that is sadly too much in the DNA of my favourite sport. Ugly vindictive things are spewed out. It comes with the same polarised hatred as Northern Irish sectarianism. Again, it is more momentary in its impact but it does have an impact!

I actually think that some of the good natured banter is out of line too. I never remember when football results were not vital for me. Football matches are my earliest memories. Something so embedded does cause some genuine ache. When our friends ache it is harsh to mock the afflicted. You add to someone’s hurt.

As someone who believes my life, in its entirety is affected by my following of Jesus, I try to do football banter with a pastoral tenderness and uprightness. Some might tell me to catch myself on, it’s only football, but in the Kingdom of God nothing is only anything.

I know I am tender of soul, easily bruised. Today the impact pain is disappearing and I am worrying about more pain that might be up ahead in the next week or weeks. Sometimes I wish that City were still half way up a division below where it doesn’t matter one way or another whether we lose or win. That is no longer the case, as the Spurs result proved. 

Maybe there is some joy up ahead too but please God may I never allow that joy to lead to  gloat. That doesn't fit the steps of Jesus very well… 

TIGER WOODS: NOT AS GOOD AS HE WAS BUT BETTER THAN HE WAS!

Tiger Woods wins another Major! For years I was pretty sure we would never hear those words again. I was happy with that. I was never a fan. 

There were two reasons for my dislike. They were linked. First was his utter brilliance. He was literally, when at the top of his game, almost impossible to beat. It is actually difficult to believe how he only one 14 Majors in those glory years between 1997 and 2008. When many believe, and statistics probably prove, that he was the best thing ever to happen to golf, I disagreed. I preferred the days when there were multiple superstars - Nicklaus, Palmer, Trevino, Watson, Miller et al.

My other pet hate of, all things, Tiger was his robotic nature. I believed them to have been linked. I am probably wrong but I sensed that from a very young age Tiger was trained to be a Majors winning golfer, at the cost of the development of personality and emotion. For me, Tiger was a little cold. 

His 15th Major at the 2019 US Masters was a whole lot different. Tiger Woods is not as good as he used to be which makes him better than he used to be. Well I am Irish but bear with me!

Those listening carefully to Tiger’s post Masters interviews heard him speak in ways he never had to, back in his glory days. He spoke of being patient, plotting his way around the course, and watching how the  leaderboard was changing until he found himself at the top of it. 

Young Tiger never needed to be patient or plot or glance at leaderboards. He just hit it. Harder and better than anyone else. Indeed, the most astounding fact about his 5th Masters was that it was the first time he has EVER won a Major when he was not in the lead after 54 holes! 

As the dust settles on Woods’ 5th Green Jacket, I think it will become clearer and clearer that this is the greatest sporting comeback ever. Less than eighteen months ago, Woods had no idea if he would ever play again, never mind win a Major. It is quite something 22 years after your first Major and 11 years after your last one, to win again.

It is even more remarkable for two reasons. Firstly, because Woods is no longer so far ahead of the field that it is not worth watching. There are more world class peers than he had in the decade when he was king. If he wins now it is because he has taken on others and won! He is using golfing skills he never needed and maybe never had. I say it again, he is better now than when he was the very best!

Secondly, and most important of all, is that to win, amongst the strength of such a field and after eleven years when his mental, physical and emotional lives all hit rock bottom, Woods’ comeback was not just sporting but as a human being. His emotional response to his 15th Major was more emotional and I would say human than any of his other victories. This is a man who had to rebuild his entire life. He is a better man for it and for me a more worthy winner. He deserves the hugs and high fives with his children, mother, girlfriend and team.

If he holds his psychological life together I believe that Tiger Woods will most likely pass Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 Majors, in the next few years. I am not sure I want him to but I do believe he is more worthy of it now than when he was a golfing robot, back in the day. 

THE LEAGUE CUP FINAL SUBSTITUTE DEBACLE - STOCKI SURMISES

The refusal of Chelsea’s goalkeeper Kepa to leave the pitch after seemingly being substituted in Sunday’s League Cup Final distracted the talking points away from the relief as well as the joy of Manchester City retaining a trophy for the first time in their history.

Much has been said, over and over again about Kepa’s lack of respect for his manager Sarri and the seemingly public coup d’état of Sarri’s control at Chelsea. It was excruciating to watch Sarri’s loss of control for sure.

Most of the pundits have based their comments on the assumption that Sarri wanted Willie Caballero to take over in goals. Yes, Kepa seemed to be injured but Caballero brought more than sending on a fit goalkeeper. 

Caballero won this very trophy for Manchester City in 2016 by saving penalties in the shoot out against Liverpool. He knows all the City players and no doubt practiced penalties with them. What an advantage! In his post match interview made reference to how it would have added to the mind games.

So the assumption was that as Kompany was thinking this on the pitch, so was Sarri in the dug out. I don’t believe such a scenario existed. If it was a late in the game tactical substitution for the penalties, surely at least the possibility would have been discussed before the game. There seems no evidence from players or back room staff that this was the case. They thought Kepa was injured and he disagreed. 

Sitting watching with another City fan, we were sure Caballero would win it for Chelsea and indeed when we saw the poor penalty of Aguero I reckon we were right. That Kepa did not know that he was coming off if the game got to 119 minutes suggests that Sarri and Zola missed a trick!

Finally, why has no one talked about the match officials. Surely, the decision to substitute a player is made before the board goes up and the player comes on the pitch, it was the referees responsibility to ask Kepa to leave. When is the substitution legally done? Sarri didn’t seem to be changing his decision so if Chelsea has won could City have complained that Kepa shouldn’t have legally been on the pitch.

If, as it seems in this League Cup Final, the final decision for a substitution isn’t after a request is given to the referee then FIFA should be creating such a rule before next weekend. How many players are going to refuse to come off, having been substituted? One can only fear. Across the world this weekend it could be one almighty chaotic mess in the substitution department.

By the way… City won the Cup! Go on Raheem!

The refusal of Chelsea’s goalkeeper Kepa to leave the pitch after seemingly being substituted in Sunday’s League Cup Final distracted the talking points away from the relief as well as the joy of Manchester City retaining a trophy for the first time in their history.

Much has been said, over and over again about Kepa’s lack of respect for his manager Sarri and the seemingly public coup d’état of Sarri’s control at Chelsea. It was excruciating to watch Sarri’s loss of control for sure.

Most of the pundits have based their comments on the assumption that Sarri wanted Willie Caballero to take over in goals. Yes, Kepa seemed to be injured but Caballero brought more than sending on a fit goalkeeper. 

Caballero won this very trophy for Manchester City in 2016 by saving penalties in the shoot out against Liverpool. He knows all the City players and no doubt practiced penalties with them. What an advantage! In his post match interview made reference to how it would have added to the mind games.

So the assumption was that as Kompany was thinking this on the pitch, so was Sarri in the dug out. I don’t believe such a scenario existed. If it was a late in the game tactical substitution for the penalties, surely at least the possibility would have been discussed before the game. There seems no evidence from players or back room staff that this was the case. They thought Kepa was injured and he disagreed. 

Sitting watching with another City fan, we were sure Caballero would win it for Chelsea and indeed when we saw the poor penalty of Aguero I reckon we were right. That Kepa did not know that he was coming off if the game got to 119 minutes suggests that Sarri and Zola missed a trick!

Finally, why has no one talked about the match officials. Surely, the decision to substitute a player is made before the board goes up and the player comes on the pitch, it was the referees responsibility to ask Kepa to leave. When is the substitution legally done? Sarri didn’t seem to be changing his decision so if Chelsea has won could City have complained that Kepa shouldn’t have legally been on the pitch.

If, as it seems in this League Cup Final, the final decision for a substitution isn’t after a request is given to the referee then FIFA should be creating such a rule before next weekend. How many players are going to refuse to come off, having been substituted? One can only fear. Across the world this weekend it could be one almighty chaotic mess in the substitution department.

By the way… City won the Cup! Go on Raheem!