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Quick question, for those of ye who would be still playing at home and thus in the know.

Yours truly has done a fair round of clubs over the last few years, but this year in Galway was nothing short of a complete disaster in terms of playing. I joined this Éire Óg crowd who looked to be junior B, short of players and exactly what I was looking for, but they in turn amalgamated with Fr. Griffin's who had two teams but no pitch, and the whole thing went pear shaped. I trained regularly but it was woeful clique-ish, not like in Dublin or London where lads would go out of their way to help you settle into the squad.

But the real killer was the fixtures - as many of ye know, I'm committed to working when there is live sport on TV, meaning that Sundays are generally a non runner, and I need to have a fairly accurate idea of fixture times so I can work around that. This is where Galway amazed me - their organisation of games was brutal. I only played a few league games for this club up here, but they never started on time, often being over an hour late. As a result I couldn't go to them because I needed to allow for being gone the whole day, and in my job I can't do that.

So what's the story at home? If I was to transfer back and kick ball at home again for the first time in 15 years, what way do junior fixtures work out? Are they always Sundays, or could they be midweek evenings or weekend evenings as often? (would suit me better) More importantly, do they usually start at or about time? I'm not talking about on the dot stuff, but if a game is scheduled for 11.30 on a Sunday morning, is it reasonable to assume that it'll be underway by 11.45 nine out of ten times? It's not like I'm good enough that any team would miss me or anything, and at that level most teams understand work coming first, but you hate committing to a side and only making one in three matches or something like that.

Any advice welcome.

I've seen a few of them this year and most of them start within 20 mins of the fixed time which isn't bad. I've seen a few senior games that were later starting but in fairnes to the clubs it was the ref that didn't turn up. That is the biggest problem at that level, ref's if any are poor and I've seen a few where one of the clubs have to supply the ref.

LS, I can comment on the junior hurling fixtures here as thats where I have been seeing out my playing days. But I'm pretty sure that the junior football schedules are very similar.
Most junior championship games are scheduled for midweek, usually a Tuesday or Thursday night. I think all junior B games are midweek, and Junior A can be either midweek or weekend. Junior A games at the weekend are usually fixed for saturday evening or sunday mornings. All championship games I was involved in started pretty much on time, so no complaints there.
The junior leagues are played mostly midweek, and delays are not much more than 15/20 mins at the most.
Possibility that some teams at junior level might not be able to field a team on occasion, (I've seen this happen once or twice at football league games), so bear this in mind if you are driving from Galway.

That'll do grand.

I can do in running from anywhere, so it's as easy do a game fom the family home in Ferbane as it is from Galway. I've no problme allowing twenty minutes or so, but it's the starting off an hour or more late that's a killer. Midweek is great - I can almost always work midweek games no bother at all.

To be honest not fielding is always a risk. If I was picking a team whee that never happened, that'd mean they have loads of players, and in that situation I'd be just condemning myself to a year of barely kicking a ball - I am fairly useless after all.

Cheers folks.

Actually, the Junior scene has improved a LOT over the last few years. Thanks to the online fixtures you can pretty much plan ahead. The odd time matches are moved to suit individual clubs due to clashes or whatever, but they are encouraged to be played on time and on date.

Generally speaking LS the Junior scene is pretty well run. I remember going to junior games as a young lad to atch my older brother play and games would be called off on a fairly regular basis due to a variety of reasons. However since Ive started playing at this grade I can only remember two occasions when we didnt fullfill a fixture and in both cases it was due to our inabilit to field a team . In most instances games that are due to start at 7pm do so. Most of our games were midweek in both the champ and league and we were given a few days notice of any up coming fixtures.