Bellew a throw back to another era

Big Francie Bellew is back for Armagh this Sunday with his first start for the Orchard County since damaging his cruciate ligament last year.
Bellew has been one of Armagh's key defenders since Joe Kernan brought him into the Armagh team in their winning season of 2002 as a corner back.
Since then Francie has been an absolute rock at the heart of the defence.
He has been badly missed since his injury and new manager Peter McDonnell will be hoping he can get one more good year from the veteran defender.
The only player in recent seasons to clean Francie out was Kerry’s Ciaran Donaghy in 2006 when Francie slipped close to goal.
However, I think that contest changed when Francie got a fairly innocuous yellow card just before half time at a period when Donaghy looked totally frustrated by the Crossmaglen man’s tight marking.
Bellew is a no-nonsense defender, almost a throw back to another age.
You’ll not see him galloping forward knocking points over the opposition’s crossbar but he takes the marking job so seriously that I wonder does he follow his man into the opposition changing room at the interval.
Hope the big man can complete his comeback, he hasn’t many more seasons left in him at the top, hope he gets to enjoy it!

Francie back for Armagh but will it go ahead?

With all the talk that up to 10,000 fans will turn up in Crossmaglen this weekend for the Armagh Dublin game the question already must be will it go ahead?
We have had snow and hailstones in the North already today and God only knows what the weekend’s weather has in store for us.
Let’s hope if there is gong to be any cancellation this weekend that the fans get some sort of early notice.
There is no charge for this week’s game given that over 1,500 fans had already paid in the last day before the ref called off the game.
The fact that 10,000 are now expected reminds me a wee bit of all the people who claimed to be in the GPO in Easter 1916.
Although only around 2,000 rebels in total were involved in that attempt to overthrow British rule half a million people in Ireland have claimed direct descent from people who were there.
You wouldn’t half know that we are getting close to the championship with Armagh manager Peter McDonnell ready to give another long-term casualty Francie Bellew a start.
Francie is a great defender and Armagh could be doing with his services right now.
The good thing for Francie is that he won’t have to worry about getting too fit cos after all as Pat Spillane famously said at half time of the Armagh Kerry All-Ireland final of 2002, which the Orchard county went on to win, ‘my granny is faster than Francie Bellew’.