One of your five a day

You never really know what to expect in your emails. This pic arrived this morning -









Yes, some nice swedes. Seems that turnips are white, but Swedes have a purple top. Another little nugget . . .
[Your blogger] - Got some interesting information on swedes in the email today!
[Everybody else] - What about Pat McDaid and Derry City at the weekend?!!! Wheew

Derry City - what a mess. And it's getting worse. First you have the financial meltdown at the club, with various reports about how much they owe (and the amounts don't seem to be getting any smaller). Now they've been thrown out of football by the FAI and a bad situation's been made worse because the FAI and Derry City are at loggerheads and the legal eagles are getting involved. Whatever way it goes, it's not good for Derry City.

It seems to hinge around what was said at that getting-famouser meeting between the club and the FAI last Wednesday. The FAI Director Fran Gavin claims he and three other FAI reps were told by Derry City that they had a load of players on second contracts - ie probably getting more money than they were supposed to officially under FAI rules. But Derry City chairman Pat McDaid has flatly denied this.

Which begs the question - why did the FAI go into crisis mode and then thrown Derry out?

It seems that one of the questions our sports editor Arthur Duffy at the Derry City news conference yesterday was along the lines of - "What did the FAI hear at their meeting with the club last Wednesday that caused John Delaney to say on Thursday that they were 'gravely concerned'?"

I haven't heard the reply to that one yet.

Looking in from the outside, it's hard to avoid the impression that Fran Gavin is right to say that Derry City should take their oil and go into re-build mode in the First Division. But then you remember the elephant in the corner - the massive debt - and the fact that City are also being denied their prizemoney for finishing fourth.

There have been warnings about the financing of football on these islands, and Derry City is far from the only club in Ireland in diffs. At the McCloskey fight in Magherafelt on Friday night, I was told of a rumour that some bookies were no longer taking bets on the Dundalk v Derry City match. I assumed this was because people felt that Derry's players would be dispirited - to say the least - because of what's been happening, and wouldn't be in the form. It was only the next day that I heard the money was going on Derry because of what's been happening at Dundalk!

Sean Connor stepped down as manager there after the Derry defeat on Friday night.

Strange times . . .