What exactly do you mean when you say 'Junior clubs be safer getting their own houses in order'? Junior clubs usually are from small areas with
low numbers in their underage ranks. For example our club had only two lads come through from u17s last year and next year have only one. They
are players who have played in grade 3 all through the underage system. So we just pure and simple have a numbers problem. Maybe you in your
wisdom can advise us how to remedy this problem? With regard to it being a credit to any club if they can field 2 or 3 teams this is laughable. A
club that plays all their underage football in grade 1 and has a panel of 20 odd coming through each year and you think its a credit to them? That means that say between the ages of 18 and 30 they have say put 260 players through their system and they are able to field say 40 players on a
sunday and you think thats a credit to them? In that time we would roughly have maybe 25 players through our system and we would expect 20
of them to be playing.
With reference to the 11s team I note in todays Irish News reports on the Ulster CLUB Championship matches. It is club championship. Maybe the
reason 11s teams are not allowed to enter is because they are not clubs. Maybe Armagh should rename their junior championship to the Armagh
Club Junior Championship. That way only junior clubs can enter it. If a club wants to put a 11s team into the league that is different although
ideally the County Board would have a look at organising the reserve leagues better.
I know all too well the struggle of smaller clubs trying to get numbers through from under 8’s right up to senior as I’m sure most of us on here do. Just the way it is unfortunately and it’s the nature of being a small rural club. It’s only getting worse as far as I can see unfortunately and may only be a matter of time until some clubs may have to amalgamate at senior level.
But yes it is an absolute credit to teams being able to get big numbers at all age levels. Fair play to them and thats the standard all clubs should be aiming for. The 25 players from Clann Eireann or Cross or wherever who aren’t good enough to make their senior team should be allowed to play a decent standard of football, imo the best way is at junior/intermediate level.
They would be far too strong for reserve football which would be unfair on them as they’d get a pile of handy games and fixtures not fulfilled which does no one any good, also unfair on lads who want a more casual level of football who also should be catered for.
How would you suggest organising the reserve leagues better?
