More McCartney

“Nigel has been on the phone a few times. I’ve had a good chat with him and he has made me believe it’s time to come back. I had a few issues with Lawrie Sanchez and injury problems did not help but that’s all in the past now. I want to get back into the team and it’s up to me to prove myself again. Everything seems positive and I’m glad I’ve made the decision as I want to play for Northern Ireland.

“I’m back to full fitness and looking forward to the new season with West Ham and getting back into the international squad. I had a few run-ins with Lawrie and it was disappointing that I had to bring my international career to an end. From the moment he took over, it was a clash of personalities and we didn’t really see eye to eye. Having said that, he has proved himself to be a good manager and the next two or three Euro qualifiers are going to be massive matches. If we can take maximum points from those winnable games, we will be in a very healthy situation.”
Surely, surely Worthington won’t let him walk straight into the team…

More McCartney

“Nigel has been on the phone a few times. I’ve had a good chat with him and he has made me believe it’s time to come back. I had a few issues with Lawrie Sanchez and injury problems did not help but that’s all in the past now. I want to get back into the team and it’s up to me to prove myself again. Everything seems positive and I’m glad I’ve made the decision as I want to play for Northern Ireland.

“I’m back to full fitness and looking forward to the new season with West Ham and getting back into the international squad. I had a few run-ins with Lawrie and it was disappointing that I had to bring my international career to an end. From the moment he took over, it was a clash of personalities and we didn’t really see eye to eye. Having said that, he has proved himself to be a good manager and the next two or three Euro qualifiers are going to be massive matches. If we can take maximum points from those winnable games, we will be in a very healthy situation.”
Surely, surely Worthington won’t let him walk straight into the team…

McCartney ‘reaffirms’ commitment to NI

Question marks remain
From the IFA:
“GEORGE McCartney has reaffirmed his commitment to Northern Ireland and has expressed his interest to the new NI manager, Nigel Worthington to be considered for the forthcoming Euro 2008 qualifiers.”
Though the cynics among us will doubtless ask if there was any commitment there in the first place to re-affirm…

McCartney ‘reaffirms’ commitment to NI

Question marks remain
From the IFA:
“GEORGE McCartney has reaffirmed his commitment to Northern Ireland and has expressed his interest to the new NI manager, Nigel Worthington to be considered for the forthcoming Euro 2008 qualifiers.”
Though the cynics among us will doubtless ask if there was any commitment there in the first place to re-affirm…

Sproule on route to Bristol

The BBC are reporting that Ivan Sproule is on the verge of joining Championship newcomers Bristol City for a ‘substantial’ fee.

New away kit out 6th July

Northern Ireland’s new away kit, which commemorates 25 years since the win over Spain at España 82, will be available to buy from Friday 6th July. They can be pre-ordered at the IFA and on the JJB website.
Prices are £40 / £29.

Brunt staying put / 29th in rankings

Chris Brunt has pledged his future to Sheffield Wednesday, despite reports linking him with a £2M move to Fulham or Wigan. The 22 year-old said:
“I’ve got another year left and unless the club want to sell me I’ll be staying. I want to play at the highest level possible and I want to get there sooner rather than later and with Wednesday.”

In the latest FIFA rankings, Northern Ireland are 29th in the world, our highest ever ranking, up four places. The Republic dropped 6 places to 28th. England are 8th, Scotland 23rd, and Wales 75th.
In other news, U21 striker Daryl Fordyce has been released by Portsmouth.

Baird submits transfer request

After sticking with Southampton throughout the years when he had more international caps than club appearances, their player of the season Chris Baird has handed in a transfer request. This comes just days after Southampton laughed off a £2.5 Million bid from Fulham.
Following last night’s results Euro 2008 qualifiers we have fallen to 3rd place in the group. Sweden thumped the Icelanders 5-0, Spain beat Liechtenstein 2-0, and Denmark beat Latvia 2-0 as well.
The top of the group is as follows:
1 Sweden P: 6 – Pts: 15
2 Spain P: 7 – Pts: 15
3 Northern Ireland P: 6 – Pts: 13
4 Denmark P: 5 – Pts: 10
UEFA will rule on the Sweden – Denmark postponement tomorrow. However with a double header against Liechtenstein and Latvia coming up, hopefully we can take 6 points and charge back up the rankings. Hopefully…

Who do you belong to?

What follows are some reflections on last month’s Champions’ League final. Don’t worry, normal service will resume shortly!

Local fans of Manchester United and Liverpool were left ruing the name of Kaká in the closing weeks of the football season. The Brazil and AC Milan star first scored three goals over the two legs of Milan’s Champions’ League semi-final against United, and then set up Filippo Inzaghi to score the killer second goal in the final against Liverpool in May. This ensured that Paolo Maldini would lift the European Cup for a fifth time and that for the second year in succession an English team would fail at the final hurdle in their bid to win club football’s biggest prize.
A month ago, many of us would not have had much time for watching Milan celebrate reaching their eleventh, and winning their seventh, European Cup final. Looking back however, one unusual feature of the celebrations was seeing Kaká, the tournament’s top scorer, running around in a t-shirt with the slogan: “I belong to Jesus”.
Why would one of the world’s greatest footballers feel the need to do that? Many people maybe feel that we don’t belong to anyone. We are our own person. Or if we have to belong to someone, we probably all belong to Jesus anyway as after all, God created us.
Of course, the only place to find answers to these questions is in the Bible, and the answer to the question “Who do you belong to?” may be rather more alarming than we thought. One of the conversations Jesus had with the religious people of His day is recorded for us in John chapter eight. Jesus had just told them that ‘the truth will set you free’, however the people protested that as they had never been enslaved to anyone, they did not need to be set free. Jesus responded by saying that ‘everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin’. They thought that they didn’t belong to anyone, but Jesus told them that in reality they were slaves to sin, and He even went on to say ‘you are of your father the devil’.
This truth did not just affect a few people in Jesus’ day. God created mankind as perfect creatures, who delighted to obey his commands. However since Adam and Eve broke God’s law, all of us have been born as rebels against God. We don’t need to be taught to lie or steal or think wrong thoughts – we do all these things automatically. We like to tell ourselves that we’re reasonably good people and compare ourselves to people who are much worse than us. If we compared ourselves to God’s perfect law however, we would see that we fall terribly short of keeping it every day of our lives. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1 v 8).
The amazing thing is that we who are born slaves to sin and the devil can, as Kaká’s t-shirt said, ‘belong to Jesus’. Jesus came to earth to set us free from this slavery. He did not mainly come to show us how we should live, as we could never come near His standards. Instead, Jesus came to live the perfect life that God demands from us, and then die on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of His people.
Jesus Christ offers to rescue us from sin. “The Lord sets the prisoners free” (Psalm 146 v 7). He calls on us to repent of our sin and rely on Him alone for acceptance with God, both in this life and in the life to come. He offers to free us from the power and guilt of sin. Surely that is an offer too good to refuse.

Southampotn manager George Burley has labelled Lawrie Sanchez’ offer of £2.5 million for Chris Baird as ridiculous. He said:
“There was a small bid – a ridiculous offer – which Fulham made for Chris. Certainly, Chris is not a player we’re even thinking about letting go. He has two years left on his current deal, he’s our player of the season and he signed a contract at the end of last season because he did so well. We’ll be talking with him again about extending his contract. Fulham made a derisory offer – a ridiculous amount of money for somebody of Chris’ quality – and we’ve got no thoughts whatsoever of letting Chris go.”
Baird has also been attracting interest from Middlesborough and Man City.
He is just one of FIVE Northern Ireland players Lawrie is reported to be after – the others are Healy (of course), Davis, Hughes and Brunt