Fixtures Pile Up......in January

[corner back]

rooting out the weaker teams that shouldn't be competing at the business end of the Championship.

Of course a Clara man likes the structure of last years football championship!

The aim shouldn't be to root out the weaker teams. Surely giving all players decent games and at least one championship knock out game in August as per last years hurling structure was a great system. This allows players in general to develop their games and as a bonus maybe show their worth for county selection (e.g. Stephen Egan, Lusmagh goalkeeper). A system that knocks teams out after two games in May hinders the development of weaker clubs due to disinterest and isn't in the interests of the county either.

I agree with LS saying that the changes are a knee-jerk to Tullamore winning but not with his views on the structure. I think the changes should have been kept for at least one more year as planned.

[The Magpie]

Of course a Clara man likes the structure of last years football championship!

I'm open to correction on this one, but as far as I'm aware, the current 3 group format has been in place for the Football since 2001. I liked it then too

If you're looking for

decent games

they have to be meaningful. We'll have our share of meaningless games with 6-team groups.

If you're looking for

at least one championship knock out game in August

then we can achieve that by scheduling the championship differently.

The aim is always to root out weaker teams, whether it's explicitly done through knock-out, or whether it's a death by a thousand cuts in a league-only system.

[joe bloggs]

LS,
18 months ago the clubs in Offaly were given the following choices as what to do with E250,000 that was coming the county boards way from the opening up of Croke Park

1) Put it towards the development and running of OCP

2) Clubs could propose some projects they had in the pipeline and the top ten would get E25,000 each

3) The money could be put into a fund going towards the purchase of land for county training facilities etc.

Choice 3 was voted for and to the best of my knowledge some land around Killoughey (Dont hold me to that) has been earmarked for the development.

I'm delighted if that happened. I remember the announcement all right, but I can't recall a decision being made. I hope the land hasn't been bought at the rates from 18 months ago though!

I'm afraid Kinnity man is wrong. The clubs voted to pocket the cash by reducing the amount of tickets to be sold for O'C park development draw by 17 tickets each for 3 years. In other words giving themselves €5100 over the three years in ticket sales to keep.