Manx Football Blog 2: Who’d have thunk it?
A TRUE SPANIARD: A Rushen fan at Croit Lowey last week does his best to avoid the mumps
St George’s and the hot topic of mumps get the blog treatment this week
NOT even the combined powers of Mystic Meg and Russell Grant could have foreseen ‘mumpsgate’ and the demise of St George’s unbeaten epoch in the Canada Life Premier League at Rushen last weekend.
It was always going to take something pretty special to derail last season’s Grand Slam winners as they homed in on Peel’s 55-game record sequence of the 1970s - little did we know that it would appear in a viral disease form, mumps striking down several of the clubs key players. If the blog was then Tottenham boss Martin Jol it would be crying conspiracy and blaming another club for a crude form of biological warfare, but sadly the reality is nowhere near as exciting - it was just one of those cruel twists of fate.
Let’s not to take anything away from Mark Heywood and Ben Qualtrough’s Spaniards who, according to Disco Dave’s readily available match musings, produced a sterling defensive performance on their way to becoming the first side since they did it in April 2010 to beat Geordies in the league.
You have to feel a little for Chris Bass Sr’s Glencrutchery Road outfit, coming to within a couple of games of bettering the westerners’ remarkable long-held benchmark, a record that looks unlikely now to be bettered.
Should the Isle of Man FA have postponed the match? No. If there was no medical reasons to call the match off why should they have. Geordies squad depth, or lack of it, has been kicked about as a potential banana skin for the best part of a season and it some point it was going to come back to bite them. In the end Geordies were missing Sean Quaye, James McStay, Lian Cowin and the injured Chris Bass Jr, although questions marks will remain over the fitness over the previously ‘inflected’ Frank Jones and Calum Morrissey who both played.
What next for St George’s? The club are far from at crisis stage, but they will need to bounce back relatively quickly if they are to avoid giving further ground to early pace-setters Laxey in the title race even at this embryonic stage of the term. Wednesday evening’s draw with promoted Union Mills showed there is a mumps ‘hangover’ of sorts and means a strong showing and result against near neighbours DHSOB is needed this weekend.
Old Boys, who themselves have endured a mixed start to the season, won’t be lining up to do their rivals any favours and Geordies can expect another tough match.
The blog will be pitchside at Blackberry Lane on Saturday so keep an eye on our Twitter feed @manxfootyblog to see if Geordies remain immersed in the doldrums or produce a backlash to put their campaign back on track. They’ll also be Tweets from Ballafletcher as Corinthians take on 100 per centers Laxey.
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Weather for Isle of Man
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 8 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 24 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 6 C to 12 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: North west
