Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

The Belfast Telegraph is claiming that four weeks after the IFA announced that it had secured Nigel Worthington’s services as manager until 2010, the Ballymena man is yet to actually sign the contract. Given that a stated priority of the Association was ensuring that their new manager could not simply walk away from the job if they were offered a lucrative post in England (as happened with Lawrie Sanchez) it is understandable that accusations of incompetence have been quick to surface. On this occasion only, I will defer from indicting the IFA so harshly for the time being. From the beginning my thoughts on Nigel have been ambivalent. Perhaps this is a master-stroke by Howard Wells et al. Maybe they suspected that Iain Dowie was soon to be sacked from his position at Coventry City and intend at the last minute to whip away Nigel’s deal and sign a proper manager with unquestionable commitment and who could motivate the Northern Ireland team.

Having been initially positive about Nigel Worthington’s appointment as Northern Ireland boss, I was worried to read, amongst an unrepentant exegesis of his arguments for withdrawing Phil Mulyrne and Paul McVeigh from successive Northern Ireland squads, the following debilitatingly negative analysis of the current playing squad: "Without being disrespectful, this team isn't like the side that had names like McIlroy, O'Neill, Armstrong and Jennings."We have only a handful of Premiership players but they have big hearts." Whilst the actual factuality of Worthington’s statement is hard to contest, given recent results, given the amount of confidence instilled in the team under Lawrie Sanchez, given that a new manager might be expected to try and boost, rather than destroy, the confidence of his new charges, the comment is a deeply unhelpful one. My immediate reaction to Worthington’s appointment was certainly positive. I see the new manager’s task as maintaining a s...

It seems only appropriate that I kick off this blog with a post about my first unambiguous love - the Northern Ireland football team. In the wake of Lawrie Sanchez's resignation, the success of the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign lies in the less than capable hands of Howard Wells and Jim Boyce of the Irish Football Association. This pair of inepts have been tasked with head-hunting the next Northern Ireland manager, a position which will be assumed with the side top of their group and fresh from wins against Spain and Sweden. Ominously Graham Taylor has been the latest figure linked to the job, a man so discredited in the world of international football that his name has become synonomous with the least palatable type of root vegetable. Rather than trying to maintain the momentum which Sanchez has brought to the campaign, allowing his backroom staff to see out the final five games without changing tactics and personnel, it would be typical of the IFA to throw money at an inveterate ...