Messages

FFS, 1-1.

It's f**king kerbsie ye weirdos

*kerbsies

[it will not happen because of its location]

Sam it's probably too far for you to travel and I am not proposing putting anyone out of football, but it would take a few south down guys willing to travel to training in much the same way we in east down have done for decades, Ballykinlar should be upgraded , expanded and used to develope our teams, but it will not happen because of its location.

And rightly so, Ballykinlar is in a shocking location to get to from South Down. If a centre of excellence or something similar was ever to be built, it should be more or less equidistant for the majority of players. Castlewellan is probably the best bet in this regards, as Speculative says.

[but the preparatory work has not been done and thr politicians capable of it do not exist.]

Brexit is 2 fingers to the status quo. Most voters know nothing about economics.  Eg saving money on EU funds . It is around 1% of GDP.

The net EU contribution is about the same as the oft quoted payout to the 6 counties, except it is much better value.
Either way GDP will be less now.

it is very alarming though, in this age when information is readily available, that people are not interested in the facts or finding out about them.

Fair play to (Sir) Bob Geldof for his nautical information broadcast that the UK actually has the largest fish quota. No doubt if there is a Brexit the fish, who have been hiding in recent years, will flock back to British waters. 

Brexit has the potential to be the beginning of the end for Northern Ireland. If the Scots leave the Union all bets are off.

Nobody would like to see Northern Ireland abolished than me, but the preparatory work has not been done and thr politicians capable of it do not exist. The £8 billion being a case in point. There is a real problem about NI having this debate while the Scots are, as NI would deserve (and need) a generous dowry while the London government would not wish to give Scotland one.

I'd tend to agree with this but it begs the question, what the hell are Sinn Fein (the only all Ireland party) actually doing? No vision put forward for what re-unification would actually look like. They seriously need to get their house in order economically.

Last week they had a mini press conference I believe on their version of a united Ireland. The north will get to keep Stormont for a number of  years to let unionists integrate into an all Ireland state. Matt Carthy is chief strategist of this all Ireland vision group I believe.

The term "Ulsterman" has usually been used as an exclusivist  term to imply Protestant Unionist.
You never hear it used to describe anyone from Donegal/Cavan/Monaghan or Nationalists from the 6 Cos.

But they still play in the Ulster Championship and they are from Ulster, so one would assume that if they are men and from Ulster they would in fact be Ulster men? again a lot of people getting their knickers in a twist over something that isn't a problem for logic thinking people ...

Wouldn't be uncommon for you to be named as a Connacht  man... move on, nothing to see here 

Rossman is correct. The term Ulsterman is used mainly but not exclusively by local media to denote someone who is from here as opposed to the 26 counties, especially by reporters who can say the word Irish. I wouldn't use the term to describe myself, that is a generational thing but neither would I see it as a term of abuse. and maybe Johnny is right lets reclaim it.

The irony is that people from Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan can often be referred to as 'nordies', when it is probably more exclusive to people from the 6C. Ulster should be reclaimed from unionism, I agree.

I think you're right about bringing players in and having to adapt to the system in two weeks but I think something needed to be done after the Monaghan game. Sure look at the last few pages of posts, people were crying out for other players to be brought in.

what do you make of the suggestion this man way gay? That he went to the club many times and interacted with others on grindr? Was he simply scoping out the lay of the land and his targets or was he a closet homosexual with a mental illness acting on some kind of rejection?
Maybe everyone is reading in to it all too much? But a lot of people are certainly leveraging this to fit their agenda.  So far I've seen:
Closet homosexual
Mental illness
Gun problem
radical islamic terrorist
Hate crime
Homophobia

Surely it wouldn't take too much scoping and planning to carry out an attack like this? Buy the weapons, maybe visit the place once to see its layout and where most people are, check on Facebook for when a particularly busy night is, and that's it.

If he genuinely was in the place 'at least a dozen times' and on Grindr and the like, it would seem to me to be far more likely that he was gay and possibly unable to deal with that fact (or the shame associated with it).

Anyone who kills 50 unarmed civilians under any umbrella is mentally unsound anyway, whatever their apparent motive.

They have a habit of sticking their foot in their mouth anyway.

Unfortunately, it isn't clear that Scotland will move even if there is a Brexit. One problem with this is that it might throw the nature of arrangements between Scotland and England into confusion also and a giant customs station at Gretna does not make any more sense than one at Killeen, although it is probably less likely that someone will fire mortars at it.

I think that Scots will definitely vote to leave in the event of a Brexit. If Britain wants some sort of free trade deal with the EU, they may have to succumb to free movement of citizens anyway which renders border posts redundant. Whether or not they will agree to that in four or five years depends on who is in power - left to see how big a mistake they've made, Labour could well be voted back in. Either way it just goes to show the sheer stupidity in voting for a Brexit. I dislike the EU but it's economic suicide to leave.

If the above outline (re; no border posts in Ireland, MNCs moving to Dublin etc) does come to pass, the best result for anyone that wants to see the breakup of the U.K. would be a Brexit with a heavy 'In' vote in the 6C and in Scotland.

I can understand some of the ideological arguments for leaving the EU, including a reclaiming of national sovereignty, freedom from TTIP which looks like it might be forced through the EU, and a shift away from neo-liberal politics which the EU is championing. However, Switzerland and Norway have to adhere to pretty much all the legislation with virtually no input into the legislative process. Essentially, Brits will be leaving the table but still having to follow the adult's rules.

Leaving the EU will be an economic disaster, as the UK goes towards the back of the queue for trade deals, and the above problems (as regards EU legislation) could become even worse as Berlin dominates procedures even more so than it does at the minute. Plenty of large businesses have said they will relocate and I think that small ones will also feel the pinch.

I think that many nationalists (Scottish and Irish) that are lukewarm to the idea of a Brexit believe the old adage that 'England's difficulty is Ireland's (Scotland's) opportunity'. In Ireland, I think that many American multinationals will move to Dublin - we speak the same language as those Stateside, the culture is similar and the start of a working day in California is the end of it in Ireland, compared to an hour after it's finished in Paris or Dusseldorf. In Scotland, a UK out of the EU is bound to be more than enough to swing a future vote on Scottish independence to an out vote.

In the north, it all depends on whether you believe the British government and the English people have the stomach to impose a hard border between the 6 and 26 counties. I personally don't believe they do. I think the Tories - especially those in the Brexit camp - are more than willing to finally get rid of the north and its petty squabbles once and for all, especially with Scotland gone and it really is just England left in the mix. As someone said earlier in this thread (I think), border posts in South Armagh are followed quickly by the phrase 'sitting ducks'. In this case, the UK's external borders move to Holyhead and British airports, finally confirming the idea that the north is NOT part of Britain. Moderate unionists will also swing round to the idea of a united Ireland, especially when they look at a liberal, modern and (hopefully) prosperous south and compare it with the Little Englanders version of the UK.

In the event of a hard border being imposed (unlikely), I believe it will push a lot of Catholics who like the status quo back to nationalism, as they will bitterly resent being stopped and searched every time they want to cross the border, which for a lot of people, is multiple times a day if not a week. For example, from Newry to Clones, a car crosses the border 3 times each way if they go via Castleblayney.


However, I think it's all irrelevant. On polling day, anyone who is currently a 'don't know' - of whom there are a sizeable enough portion, will give in to the devil they do rather than the devil they don't, and vote to stay in the EU.


EDIT: I should probably also say that Scotland leaving the UK also leaves the unionists here with a bit of an identity crisis. They were so scared of it the last time, they even wanted voters in the north to get a vote. They call their accent 'Ulster Scots' rather than 'Ulster English'. Anything that weakens their arguments for unionism should be welcomed by nationalism.

Surely those chasing the United Ireland pipe dream should be in the Brexit camp and the inevitable break up of the UK such an outcome would precipitate? Then again it seems to be OK to cede sovereignty to the EU but not the Brits.

I think the SNP are hoping for a Brexit more than northern nationalists.

The soccer has kept everyone away from the board. Tut Tut.

The grammar is slipping as posters rush their posts during the breaks in play for "injuries".

I think Donegal are over the hill. Monaghan to win by 3 or 4 and Tyrone to beat Cavan in a close game and overcome Monaghan in the final.

30 matches a year? Take a good minor player, who's playing MacRory or equivalent plus county football. 30 club matches, minimum 4/5 MacRory matches plus a couple of challenge games, 2-4 games in Ulster Minor League, another 3/4 challenge matches, then at least one game in Ulster MFC. Throw in 5 or 6 games (maybe more) for a senior or reserve team and that's around 45 games in a year. Then we can add in another 3 at least for the club U21s.

Is it any wonder players are burning out or walking away? The above player would then be training 2x a week with his club, 2x a week with the school and when it's over, another 2x a week with the county. Some senior teams might want him to train with them too.

When I was playing minor, I think we had about 20 competitive games over the season plus another 6 or 7 challenge matches. That was perfect, had pre-season, had a good run of league games then a break in the middle (which some boys genuinely needed to study - what if you're looking to do medicine and have 5 exams in one week?). Then back to finish the league, few weeks break then championship for the next two months. During the exam break, you havechallenge games and anyone who wants football plays for one of the adult teams - and there's no pressure about missing a game or training with an exam the next day. I think getting rid of the exam break would be a mistake, it's not like lads don't look at a football for 6 weeks, there's just no competitive minor or U16 games.

Some very good underage players in this county disappear because of chronic injuries that playing extra games would not be helping, in my opinion.

With a match at the weekend and one training session for an hour during the week is hardly asking too much from young lads. The exercise would do them the world of good .

If you think that a manager would let the team away with one hour on a Wednesday night with the league in full swing, you mustn't be involved in underage teams at all. I'm not that far gone from underage football, and although I was lucky enough to still be able to train with no impact (or a positive impact), plenty of my friends weren't and needed that gap. Even with no games for weeks, teams trained 3 times a week. It doesn't really matter anyway, Doen's underage performance over the last number of years has nothing to do with an exam break in the league.

Welcome aboard Johny Mc  . I disagree with your point about too much underage football though. We have an  all county league with only 9 games. Surely there should be more games at this level. The exam break needs to be done away with and u16 and minor games played at the weekend to ensure a consistent level of football throughout the year.

Doing away with the exam break is mental - games every second or third weekend possibly, but not no exam break at all. The players need that time to concentrate on their futures and not on an underage league.

As regards Johny's original point, are U8/10/12 not restricted to one solo and once bounce anyway?