SCOTTISH CUP 4TH ROUND - Match Preview

BUT ALL THAT CAN CHANGE! All the bad memories we’ve endured over the current campaign – and christ there’s been a helluva lot of them! – can be put to rest all in the space of ninety glorious minutes this Sunday as the Martin O’Neill Circus comes rolling into town – complete, for a limited time only, with a brand new clown; a one Mr Craig “I’m bigger than Newcastle Utd” Bellamy. Yes its Scottish Cup time once again down at East End. And after the debacle – and eventual victory – against Third Division minnows East Fife in the last round it’s the turn of the big boys to come to town this weekend, and they don’t come any bigger – in the SPL at least – than Scottish Cup holders Celtic. In a repeat of last year’s cup final Sunday’s match promises to (hopefully) be a fiery encounter in-front of the watching SKY cameras complete with studio guests Jim “I love Laudrup” White and Charlie “Berti, Berti get tae f**k” Nicholas. With the fixture kicking off at a ridiculously early time of 12:00PM a home win could promise to be the best hangover cure after a night spent in The Foundry since we humped Rangers a couple of years back.

After a, lets just say, less-than-satisfactory performance against Craig Brewster’s Inverness Caley Thistle side last Saturday at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium (…just hold on a minute while I get my breath back after all that…) Davie Hay will undoubtedly once again face selection problems – or of course he could just deliver the good old boot up the arse method to the current starting eleven! With Aaron Labonte joining the injury list after picking up a knock last week against Caley, the only addition to the squad looks to be that of Macedonian signing Georgi Hristov with Scott Wilson possibly looking set to miss out on Sunday. With Georgi set to start against the champions, the only other change to the starting line-up looks – at this stage – to be Greig Ross slotting in at right-back in place of Aaron Labonte such is the lack of room for maneuver due to the current injury problems. Should the team take the aforementioned shape against Celtic on Sunday then the team will contain only five of the starting members of the cup final team – Derek Stillie, Andrius Skerla, Gary Mason, Barry Nic, Gary Dempsey, with Andy Tod coming on as a sub – turnover or what?!

Whereas the memories of last season’s cup final will stay with me, and no doubt thousands of other Pars fans, until the day I die, let’s just hope that this Sunday proves more memorable for us Pars fans in a different way.

Aye, the trip to Hampden was superb, the feeling of cup final day, welcoming the team to Hampden, the scoreboard at half-time were all tremendous but give me a scrappy win on a piss-poor day whilst nursing a scudding hangover over the cup final memories any day of the week. And just think…get past Celtic (stay with me I’m no talking complete guff!) and then who do we play next?! Well if we can beat Celtic then we’ll certainly be playing a team that is beatable at least and then who’s to say we can’t go all the way! Although we better not get too carried away yet. That’s what happened last year and then what happens? Mike McCurry goes blind for a split second failing to spot Bobo Balde playing a spot of basketball in his own box with score at 1-0 to the Pars. But then what else do you expect?! Still, one crappy green (or blue depending on the occasion) tinted spectacled biased referee couldn’t ruin my memories of a superb day.

With a newly-signed world-class striker set to make his debut for his new team on Sunday it could prove to be an exciting occasion for all the viewers out there in tellyland…but enough about Georgi Hristov, we’d better talk about Craig Bellamy briefly. A man with all the talent in the world and an ego to match…although not the goals record to match I’d like to mention! With Bellamy’s talent not in doubt it would be safe to assume that the arrogant Welsh striker won’t find it hard to score goals by the barrel load in the SPL. For all the defenders that Bellamy ahs faced in the Barclaycards Premiership this season – Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Sol Campbell – none – I’d like to point out – have been of the same quality of big Andrius Skerla. You know what to do Andrius, if the wee nyaff does play on Saturday just give him welcome to Scotland that Mr Souness would want to hand out to the striker.

Just remember the immortal words of the legendary David Bowie; “We can be heroes just for one day!” Albeit the guy did speak some pure gash – “Ground control to Major Tom etc…” – but the lad was right, all the Pars players can heroes for one day…lets just make sure it’s for longer than the first forty-five minutes this time!!!

COME ON YE PARS!!!