Fitba Tonight

I'm off to Almondvale tonight to see my beloved Livi take on the Accies in the league. It is an experiment in Friday night football at the club to see if juniour club supporters and Old Firm, Hibs and Hearts supporting dads might accompany their children to a Livi game.

Anyway it means I'm able to see my team play and still attend the Scottish Lib Dem Conference on the same weekend which I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, to thank you Pearse Flynn for chosing this weekend for this experiment. It also means that for this conference at least I'll be relaxed during the afternoon sessions as other delgates from rival teams may be fretting over their teams performance (in recent years some good friends have been supporters of relegation rivals).

Mission Accomplished - Don't Go Lawrie

Lawrie Sanchez said when he took over as Northern Ireland football manager that he's love to overtake the Republics team in FIFA's world rankings. Well this week it was announced that hThis was mission accomplished.

Northern Ireland have risen 13 places to 45 while the Republic have slipped 6 places to 49. Now our next mission must surely be to built on the start to the European Championship Qualifiers and get to the Finals and then even if we fail to pick ourselves up again and aim for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. I hope that Lawrie stays with the team to accomplish missions 2 and 3. After all Tom Cruise made MI-3 did he not.

Northern Irish Football 20 Years of Hurt. Is It Over?

The last time Northern Ireland qualified for a major football tournament finals was the 1986 World Cup. Which brought to an end legendary Pat Jennings career against the most worthy of opponents Brazil.

Who would have thought that in this international week that the best performers of the home nations would be Northern Ireland with a win last night against Latvia and a good away draw against Denmark. The last time Northern Ireland had such a good chance in international football Scotland were also riding high so the current parallel in performance must be a good omen.