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Danny , alive but not very well as still gutted that i was supporting Poulter as had backed him at real big odds to win 2grand ,but thanks too the english press starting which i think was scaremongering i backed Harrington at 64 1 on BETFAIR ,have too hand it too him he held his nerve again. Vanburn i actually tipped CISN too pul of the shock & you wont like this but will be supporting them as still have lot friends in the service side of your fine club . danny i was away england last too weekends thanks too ROYAL ASCOT & wasnt online so u will be sorry too hear that fancied Jargelle too win sat &duly obliged at 20 1 (betfair 36 1) mighten no a lot bout Cricket but still fancy making a few £ on the nags.PS vanburn i will buy you a couple as i will put it on HOLMSEY TAB .it will be cracking CUP FINAL & has too be said what fantastic job Holmsey& the DOWN DEMOCRAT have done promoting it.

Fantastic effort by Donemana yesterday. Regarding the venue the final has been in Dublin for years now. North County are a fantastic side and it will be a real David v Goliath encounter. Let's even the whole thing up and have the final in the North West. Cricket fans will come out on mass and Donemana will be emptied. Even at a neutral ground in the North West they will be underdogs but they will go in to the game believing they can win. There was a real buzz going round the North West yesterday when the scores were coming through from Merrion. Fantastic stuff.

Massive win from CSNI yesterday in the Challenge Cup as well. If only they could have Gary Wilson all season it might change the landscape in the NCU. North Down have had the indian sign over Waringstown so now they will believe they can win it too. Going to be a great NCU final.

Vanburn

Its a pity you weren't a betting man as you might have got good odds from Jeff on csni beating north down yesterday!

Congratulations to CSNI on their well deserved victory.

Ps.Jeff you still alive?

Jeff Maguire - Tips (horses?)
Jeff
Spoke to Holmesy at Comber yesterday during Challenge Cup Semi, and it seems my previous posts (should that read Starting Posts?) have perhaps been taken out of context? Feel free to continue with your horse racing tips, it would seem you know more about the nags than you do about cricket!!!! Maybe I should take more notice, and who knows I might make some money, but then again it is at times difficult to understand your language! Look forward to seeing you at the Cup Final on 15 August and having a pint (or should that be a "punt") with you. Holmesy says first pint is on you?

Congratulations Donemana on reaching the Irish Senior Cup final. Now we can have a true North v South final which is what the competition is all about. I understand the venue has yet to be decided but let's toss for either Dublin or North West and not fall into the trap of playing at Stormont. Either venue would guarantee a good crowd but with no NCU team involved the match should not be staged there.

Without getting into the sunday debate I feel that amateur sportsman being asked to take holidays to play cricket on a friday is farcical. The self employed give up a days work, others take hard earned holidays to play cricket.

Re Sunday Debate

I don't want to turn this into an argument over religious beliefs but I would like to point out that on Sunday the Ulster GAA Final will take place in front of 30000 fans.

Surely this is an example that people can have their religious beliefs, go to their place of worship but still find time to play and watch sport at the highest level.

Perhaps the 28 members could learn a thing or two from the GAA.

Paddy

Ps loved your reply Michael Patterson!

Michael, what's the cricket difference in 28 players not being available on a Friday because they have to work? Conscience is obviously very important to certain individuals but to many others, economics is just as important. Also you have to respect the views of others who don't subscribe to the 'no sport on Sunday' culture because your club elects to play within a union structure that makes democratic decisions based on a two-thirds majority. There's no easy solution because every club has its own problems and we live in an era where dog eats dog to get an advantage, and perhaps four points. Goodwill to all men is the common sense solution that seems to be getting less and less every season.

Michael
I think we need to be careful that we don't turn this "Never on a Sunday " into a Ballymena issue. I think the town suffered in the past being referred to as the Bible Belt, locking the swings and closing the swimming pool never mind the cancelling of an ELO concert. You will play cricket for a long time anywhere in the world before you find a nicer or more popular group of individuals as the Kennedy brothers, Carl Williams, Mark Adair etc. As you know from being our scorer at the time I captained a Ballymena 2nds team for a couple of seasons that was made up primarily of guys whose Christian beliefs forbade them playing Sunday cricket and we had great comaradere and great fun. I just happen to be of the opinion that the "witness" part of being a Christian might be better served relaxing this reluctance to take part in "only a game" on a Sunday.
So lets not focus on any club and lets just look at the wider picture. If the majority of teams want to play Sunday cricket why the power of veto. I hope our country is a civilised country or at least aiming to be. We are moving away I feel from this Ulster Protestantism mindset to a more multi cultered society and abolishing the Never on a Sunday stance is another step in that direction. I know that at Muckamore we now probably have more spectators at our Sunday games than we do have on a Saturday and I think this might be the case at other grounds.

Andy,

This issue extends throughout the whole club.

To the best of my knowledge, of the 62 players who have represented the club at men's level so far this year, 28 (45%) would not play cricket, or any other sport, on a Sunday.

Admittedly this does not constitute a majority, but so significant is this proportion that it is clearly impractical for Ballymena to schedule fixtures for Sundays.

Good luck to Donemana tomorrow in the ISC, you're flying the flag for the whole province, not just the North-West!

Perhaps Michael Taylor would clarify if the "non-Sunday cricket" relates solely to the 1st XI odr does it extend extends to other sides in the club?

Ivan,

I have read your contributions to the Sunday cricket debate with interest, but I find that I have a few objections, both to some of your and other people’s comments on the issue.

At this point I should make clear that, although I do not play Sunday cricket in the NCU on account of being a member of Ballymena CC, I am not a Christian, I have no principled objection to Sunday cricket and, indeed, I regularly play on Sundays while at university. However, my respect for the beliefs of those who do not wish to play on Sundays should be made abundantly clear below.

Firstly, you correctly make the point that Ballymena have played Sunday cricket in the recent past. Indeed, I played in two Sunday fixtures for our 1st XI in 2005, away to both Woodvale and Laurelvale: we played those matches without six of the Christians in our side and lost both encounters heavily. However, these occasions have been the exceptions rather than the rule, matches which were played in desperation in order to fulfil our fixtures during trying times: you will remember that in April, May and June of 2005 Ballymena effectively had no home ground, what with extensive drainage work being carried out at Eaton Park.

Thus, when the NCU created this official ‘roster’ of non-Sunday clubs, the only sensible option for us was to sign up. By doing so we both respected the wishes of the many players within our club who held Christian values, while also avoiding the situation where we would have matches scheduled or compulsorily re-arranged on days when we had no home ground. Such a decision was both considered and practical.

Again, I cannot fault you when you remark upon the unfortunate difficulty players experience when trying to make themselves available for mid-week matches, but no club is exempt from this problem, including Ballymena. If we take as an example the Saintfield match that sparked this debate, we were missing Michael Glass, Gareth Fisher and, sadly, Richard White, had this been the Friday before, Mark Adair, myself and no doubt a few others could not have played. Though Saintfield fielded a 1st XI which was missing five or six regular players, of the Ballymena XI which played on that Friday, nine would have been unavailable had the match been scheduled for a Sunday.

“Tough!” you might say, given that players are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to disappointing either their employer or their captain, but one could reasonably argue that the bond between man and God, for those who choose to enter into such a relationship, is much stronger than between boss and worker and its terms perhaps non-negotiable. That Ballymena’s cricketers can, in the most part, make themselves available for cricket during the week is something totally unrelated to their stance regarding playing on Sundays, and is merely coincidental. If this were not the case, and if players such as the Kennedy brothers and Carl Williams could not get off work to play mid-week then our position, given the circumstances outlined above, would still be no different.

You continue with the statement that the situation such as we have in the NCU is uniquely ridiculous, “that is does not happen in any other civilised country”, asking “why should it happen here”? The answer is simple: Northern Ireland is a special case. This has, for time immemorial, been one of the most passionately religious regions in the Western world, with the fervency of Ulster Protestantism – and this in just purely theological rather than socio-political terms – renowned, well-documented and even feared. Where religion is such a strong part of public life and so intrinsic to the character of a country (as I write this, the News Letter sits beside me, its headline reading: “MP defends the role of faith in politics”) perhaps a little more care needs to be taken.

You further argue that there is not “any single good reason” why a club should have the power to decide whether or not it plays cricket on a Sunday. Leaving aside circumstances particular to individual clubs, the main reason is this, and though it may sound high-handed and irrelevant to the matter at hand, please hear it out: the political, social and constitutional fabric of the United Kingdom and much of the Western world is, or at least has been for some time, dominated by the idea of liberty, whether it be political, social or religious. The freedom of choice to play or to not play cricket, or to work, or to be formally engaged in any activity on a Sunday might not be the most convenient to those it indirectly affects, but it is typical of the freedom of belief and expression afforded by the liberal democracy which has stimulated so much of the prosperity we currently enjoy. If Northern Ireland is, as you have just said, a “civilised country” then surely this principle should be upheld.

Not for one minute am I arguing that if we forced Sunday cricket upon clubs within the NCU then the moral fabric of our society would unravel before our eyes, but my concluding point is this: liberty of conscience must prevail, and I think you might agree that its importance is much greater than that of four points in Section Two.

Are you saying this is a civilised country Ivan? We're hardly a good example of that.
On Sunday cricket there is certainly a minority involved but that doesn't make them dispensable. Why drive them out of cricket because we can't find a workable solution? If civilization equals democracy then we should be able to accommodate everyone's views and that's exactly what's happening right now. It's still only a game and if people want to play they'll play. If some want to go on holidays, shop with the wife, work, or go to church then that's their prerogative. Toleration and accommodation are the buzz words these days, are they not?

Never on a Sunday.
The article gathers up on the thoughts of the few posts there have been on the subject however I can't see how it "would be a sad day when club's are forced to play Sunday cricket ". Surely this is a decision for the NCU and if a 60% vote for Sunday cricket is carried then that's it. After that if a club or a team don't want to play they should be at the mercy of the opposition with regard to rearrangements. In 2008 the number of Never on a Sunday cricketers must be a very small number(judging by the teams fielded on a Sunday) and I can't see any single good reason why they should have a power of veto. It doesn't happen in any other civilised country so why should it happen here.