The World is Horseradish

Here at chez Brixworkwear,( home to the fourth largest, but friendliest, workwear store in Monaghan ), we are an easy going bunch and generally get a long fine. United in our dedication to keeping our customers toes safe and bringing a little bit of style to the sometimes drab world of workwear. Sometimes when we stray from this workwear Utopia that we live in we are quite shocked by the polar opposite points of view that can be adopted over the most mundane points of view.

"But what do you mean Paul, can you illustrate your point with an example ?"

Why yes I can indeed. Watch this video and count the passes the white team makes :

Well what did you think ?

You'd be amazed when some people see it for the first time that they think it's some kind of trick.

Anyway, I attended a meeting of our local junior soccer league on Monday night and I was reminded of this test. Picture the scene....

It's Monday evening, 9pm and ten plucky souls are sitting in the corner of a bar in Castleblayney planning the Winter season of football for the U-8, U-10 and U-11 little Ronaldo's of Monaghan. This is my first meeting and my first mistake appears to be that I am wearing a v-neck jumper as opposed to some badly fitting shell suit with our club's logo emblazoned on it.

Anyway , for the past three years a great little programme called "Don't cross the line" has been run on Monaghan United's astro pitch on Saturday mornings over the winter months. This has been a huge success. It is a 9-a-side non competitive league played on half a full sized pitch with liberal use of substitutes allowed. The basic premise of this league is to get kids out playing football in a relaxed atmosphere and where everyone gets a chance to play. It is well supported by clubs and parents and takes place in a great facility. It has been run as an under 11 league up until now.

In August the august body known as the SFAI changed the rules on age group classifiactions and this has led to a degree of confusion ,consternation and an outbreak of hostilities between Monaghan and Cavan leagues. We had intended to run our under 11 league again this year but allow anyone born in the year 2000 to play in it. This we thought was in the spirit of the new laws.

Enter stage left a representative of the Cavan League, a "guest/spy" at our meeting who vociferously argued that we were trying to run an Under 12's non competitive league in Monaghan to detract from his competitive Under 12 league in Cavan, we were contravening the SFAI rules and that he wasn't standing , or sitting , for it and promptly stormed out, taking his little black cloud with him.

To everyone else in the room all we were trying to do was to get kids out playing football, but to him we were in league with Lucifer and possibly the GAA in trying to ruin football in Cavan. It could be argued that Cavan people were doing a pretty good job of that themselves but this was no time to be petty...

The meeting carried on and there was only one further argument to do with a finals day for trhe U-8's. This argument was not over where the finals should take place, or over the date. No this argument was over whether the crisps and coke that were to be given to all of the kids on their final day should be bought locally in Monaghan or , more "economically" over the border in Armagh. I was about to propose that we set up a sub-committee , the “Monaghan Strategic Economic Snack Procurement Initiative” but at that stage the fight had left me.

"PAUL ! Have you sent those Haix samples to Cork County Fire Brigade ?" Stephen called out from the warehouse.

"No , I'm finishing my blog."

"Blogs ! We have a business to run here!" And so our little utopian bubble burst......

I was reminded of the Yiddish expression " To the worm in horseradish , the world is horseradish."

We all have our points of view and we either have to appreciate that not everyone holds the same view as we do , or shout really loudly, get annoyed, start a border war with Cavan and buy crisps in Flemings.

I sent the samples to Cork Fire Bridgade. And now I'm finishing my blog.

Today's prize is a new addition to the Cat workwear range here the new CAT Highline winter jacket , simply answer the following :

1. What was the most pointless argument you were ever involved in ?

2. What amazingly low price is the CAT Highline jacket on BRIX ?

The best answer will get the jacket and the next three, from my point of view, will get a pack of socks.

Cheers,

Paul

P.S. Today I am listening to the brand new and brilliant Florence and teh Machine's "That's What The Water Gave Me"