Inside Track: It’s been all red and white in recent times

These pages have been draped in red and white for the past number of weeks, stories mostly centred on Louth teams. And the supply chain has yet to grind to a halt.

Pleasing to some, hopefully, but the wish is that if followers of other codes have gone missing they’ll return to the fold. Plenty has been going on away from the Gaelic fields, not least in the world of soccer, nationally and elsewhere.

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Horses and greyhounds are still running, and golf balls are being driven prodigious lengths and knocked into holes from bunkers and all over greens. Rory continues to delight and exasperate in equal measures.

Darter Luke Littler hasn’t stopped hitting the red bit, and when required, the outer ring. He’s no longer the Boy Wonder, but part of the elite, sitting comfortably among the hardened pros, MVG, another Luke, Humphries, Rob Cross, the smiling Stephen Bunting, the chap with the many-coloured Mohicans, Peter Wright, and the like. The stern-faced James Wade is no longer finding a regular spot on the big stage.

The turn into the second of four rounds has been taken in the League of Ireland’s First Division, and Dundalk fill the top spot, just as they have since the drop of the flag.

Ciarán Kilduff’s side remain unbeaten, and are six points clear of the next best. They haven’t been ignored by Inside Track – John Murphy and his colleagues’ commentaries from Oriel and elsewhere are taken in when there’s not a clash.

When they’re not, there’s the usual search of the following day’s daily for the scores. It’s often in vain.

And on that point: following the recent televised Friday night Premier League tie between Derry City and Shamrock Rovers, scores from other games were read out. Not among them were the First Division’s.

If depending on oxygen from these sources to stay alive, the second tier teams would die a death.

The last time a Kerry team came to these parts it was to play a game of Gaelic football. New ground, therefore, was broken with the recently-formed Kerry FC visiting Oriel last Friday week.

Not an O’Shea, nor an O’Keeffe, nor a Moynihan in sight, but some players with strange-sounding names, which, of course, is now par for the course in soccer. It ended in a 2-0 win for the home side, bringing their unbeaten run to 16 matches.

Across the channel, Crystal Palace won the FA Cup. The Londoners, believe it or not, have supporters around our place – one of them, from the latest generation, made it over to Wembley.

His delight, however, was smothered when he came home by the grief which followed Man United losing to Spurs in the Europa Cup final.

There wasn’t as much weeping and gnashing of teeth after the Louth minors lost the Leinster final, or when one of your writer’s selections got beaten on the post at Nottingham.

Inside Track is on the search for an English League player to shout loudest for with Kevin De Bruyne’s departure from Man City. The scorer, but more often the creator, of many goals is moving to pastures new having given Etihad fans more than they could have wished for over several seasons.

De Bruyne was the main reason why IT put faith in, and money on, his Belgium side whenever they played in World or European finals. The Walloons never delivered, but the same can’t be said for the team in sky-blue.

That many football trips have been taken of late over the M1, M50 and N7, there’s not a landmark along the way that couldn’t be identified.

Four times St Conleth’s Park in Newbridge has been visited, the last of them, for the Louth seniors’ defeat by Monaghan.

This promped a disgruntled supporter to suggest a change of the famous slogan to “Anywhere but Newbridge.”(The minors had been beaten at the same venue a few days earlier.)

There have also been trips to Portlaoise and Longford, each of these yielding a victory. You would think, therefore, that the chariot with a Dublin registration would have been given a rest on one of the days in between matches for the under-20s and minors.

No, let’s go the races in Naas, someone suggested. It would have been a dead non-runner but for the fact that a horse in which we carry a small interest was on the card.

So, the four-wheeler was steered out again, and if any of us wasn’t on for driving, it probably could have found its way down by itself.

But it was all worthwhile. The horse crossed the line in front, helping to bring up a few decent bets. There are some lovely views in the midlands.