IT will be with a sense of serious injustice that Glebe Rangers play their final game of the season this evening (Wednesday).
The Ballymoney men are furious with IFA officials who have insisted that they travel all the way to County Fermanagh for the game in the middle of the week, when the initial fixture was intended to be this weekend.
It means the Glebe will be missi
ng a number of key players for the game, which was crucial to their hopes of a top two place in this season’s Carnegie Second Division .
After toiling all season and being right in the mix for the title coming into their last games, Glebe men feel they have been severely handicapped by the IFA's decision.
They appealed it immediately but that was turned down last Monday night meaning they are forced to travel all that way for a 6.45pm kick-off.
"It's lunacy," said a Glebe Rangers official. "We feel that the football public and supporters of the game should know about the total lack of consideration the IFA has for the inconvenience caused and the avoidable and unnecessary financial positions incurred to smaller clubs by unreasonable decisions.
"It seems obvious to make Ballinamallard against Dergview match in midweek where there was much less travelling involved for the away team and then keep our game on the Saturday.
"It seems that it is the opinion of everyone else, except for the Executive Committee and the Appeals panel who seem to think that it is fair to make us travel so far in mid week.
"How this decision was reached in the first place we will never know - or is something else at play here?"
Glebe Rangers lodged an appeal with IFA chief executive, Howard Wells, together with the requisite £100 fee for an appeal.
In their letter of appeal, the Ballymoney club stated: "We feel that we are being penalised and inconvenienced due to fixture congestion through no fault of our own.
"We have fulfilled all our fixtures on the set dates this season yet we have to accommodate clubs that have postponed matches for various reasons, when these fixtures were initially set to be played on Saturdays.
"For this reason we feel that a fair playing ground should be provided for everyone."
However Mr Wells and the appeals committee didn't agree that it was unfair to travel so far when an obvious solution to play Ballinamallard and Dergview - who are more than half as close together - was suggested by all parties.
The upshot of the decision is if Johnny Law's side are to finish in the top two in the next 24 hours they must do it the hardest way possible.
The full article contains 454 words and appears in Ballymoney Times newspaper.
