All the journalistic briefings coming out of the DUP camp now tell us that First Minister in waiting, Peter Robinson, is set to kill the Maze National Stadium project at birth.

And that being the case, there will not be a new National Stadium anywhere.

All the talk about relocating the stadium to Belfast is to miss the point that rugby and gaelic will not play there.

It can only be home to football alone which is fair enough, if Peter is prepared to fund it.

But don't count on that after the obscene amounts of money already spent to bring the Maze to the first brick stage, not to mention the interminable Belfast stadium studies.

Set against the needs of our hospitals, roads, schools and industry, a football ground is hardly going to be top priority.

Personally, I've never been that bothered about the location of the new National Stadium aspiration so long as they plonked one somewhere.

And as the Maze seemed the only show in town, or out of town as the case may be, that was good enough for me.

But I have also warned from day one that if the National Stadium dream floundered, then football would be the biggest loser and I now fear that is coming to pass.

Rugby will retreat to Ravenhill, gaelic to Casement and Clones, leaving football with a run-down Windsor, like the rest of football here, shamefully starved of Government funding down the years, in comparison to other sports.

So what makes us think that's going to change?

We'll be straight back into arguments over money, location, planning permission and Concerned Residents groups.

And all the time nowhere for our increasingly confident, vibrant and emerging wee country to showcase its' sporting prowess.

So here's to you Mr Robinson.

Your record for providing centres of sporting excellence in your Castlereagh and East Belfast heartlands is second to none.

Are you now really prepared to deny future generations, of the country you are soon to lead, a lasting sporting legacy we can be proud of in the shape of a modern 21st century truly National Stadium?

And for all the wrong reasons over an outbreak of since subsided panic in the party?

That's where the voters of Dromore come in.

Normally a council by-election in a wee County Down market town would cause barely a ripple on the political scale.

But this one became seismic when the disaffected of Dromore not only gave the DUP a bloody nose instead of the expected shoe-in, but also endorsed a candidate aligned to the DUP's nemesis, Jim Allister.

Policies and personalities suddenly seemed to come under the spotlight.

Next thing you know, Big Ian is away, young Ian is away and the Maze is under threat. Watch your back, Eddie Poots.

The business case isn't stacking up, come the cliched whispers from DUP insiders.

And its taken them this long to work that out?

What about the 365-day business park and accompanying leisure industry employment benefits the original Government bean counters told us would flow to surrounding towns, ironically enough, like Dromore?

Business cases, as we know, can be made to fit if the will is there.

The real reason I believe the DUP seem to have gone cold on the Maze stems from the Dromore effect and its the wrong one.

I'm talking about that particular Prod bogey seized upon by opportunist politicians and others to descredit the Maze for their own ends.

The so-called 'shrine to terrorism', Maze museum, Conflict Transformation Centre, call it what you will.

I find it insidious the way people's fears were played on over one admittedly emotive aspect of many-facetted project , because:

1/ The reminder of the site's dark history is planned to be far enough away from the stadium itself so as to be only seen by those who actually make it their business to go there.

When visiting teams go to Nuremburg in Germany, their fans don't view the site of the Nazi rallies, bolted onto the city stadium, as a shrine to Hitler. They have their photos taken on the steps where he ranted.

2/ The fear-mongers conveniently neglect to mention that a Loyalist compound has also been preserved alongside the former jail hospital where the Hunger Strikers perished. How come that doesn't cause them the same offence?

3/ Most people see the biggest monument to terrorism in this country as that great white edifice at the top of the Newtownards Road. We may not like it but we live with it so long as people aren't being killed wholesale anymore. And the DUP are in residence there.

The party might have been planning to make changes anyway. I don't know.

But, having done so, they really ought to have kept their nerve on the stadium issue on the grounds of the political history lesson that tells you protest voters, having delivered their message in by-elections, invariably return to the fold at General Election time.

Point made, and, in the case of the Dromore voters, content for Peter to sit up in Stormont just so long as he isn't seen to be cosying up to wee Martin too much, as will surely be the case.

That's democracy, Pete. Its enshrined in the title of your party.

So now extend some to our three major sporting organisations who believe in the National Stadium ideal.. and give it a sporting chance.