club fixtures rubbish & pitch violence

[Darth Faithful]

Long time reader, 1st time poster.
I'm going to have my little rant now!
I just want to refer to a post someone left on a different topic where they wondered why the age profile of club players is falling. Well, in my case, I'm in my early 30s playing football for a junior club. I have a young family and am busy with work. I love my football but the way some of the fixtures are being set up is pure ridiculous.
My club has a limited pick and we have 2 football teams meaning that we have players who will be involved with both teams.
Just recently, my club was fixed to play Jun 'B championship on a thurs, 'A championship on the Fri with 2 league games fixed for Sunday. So it's highly likely that we will have several lads involved in 4 games in the space of the week. In my case, I find it hard to justify to my good lady to be gone out of the house for 3-4 nights that week or be gone nearly all of a Sunday.
Often we get little warning about upcoming fixtures and I can't give a serious commitment anymore when games are piled up on you like this. Yet we hadn't played a football game for 3 weeks up to this. Lads would be hurling too and with the commitment that requires it is definitely a game for young lads or at least single lads.

The other thing that is bugging me is the violence on the field. I play hard but fair & always try to play the ball. Last season, in a big game for us, I was playing in defense & doing very well when a sub came on for the guy I was marking. This guy, similar age to myself, shook my proffered hand and trotted around a bit. I started marking him when he took 2 steps forward and let fly with the forearm catching me in the face. A little lower & I would have broken my jaw. It was unprovoked, vicious & in my view, cowardly. I recovered after getting the magic sponge and played him off the field, he wasn't even booked. I still had to go to work the next day with a very sore face. Now ye might say 'ah get on with it' and I did but that has nothing to do with football. I played rugby for years and never received a shitty belt like that. And I tell you one thing, if he did break my jaw, I wouldn't be leaving it to the GAA to sort out.

So now, I have no time for thugs on the field and the fixtures are making me scratch my head and consider quitting.
Sin é anois lads, any thoughts on this?
Beir bua, uibh fhaili abú!

[TheManFromFerbane]

This guy, similar age to myself

Sorry now if I'm picking you up wrong but are you saying this violence is a new thing? If you are then doesn't the fact that he is the same age as you not suggest this is wrong. If you aren't and are just commenting on the violence through-out the history of the GAA then fair enough.

I'd disagree with you. I don't think we have a huge violence problem in the GAA. I'd say we do have a few loose cannons particularly at Junior level but I don't think this is symptomatic of a huge violence problem.

Never the less he was a scum bag. If you didn't feel the desire to get your own retribution he should have at least got the line and a long suspension.

[Lone Shark]

Howdy thar, welcome aboard....

You've raised two seperate issues there which I will take one by one:

(1) Regarding the off the ball stuff, I don't think you'll find a right minded GAA person who condones that type of behaviour and anyone who'd tell you to get on with it is an eejit, plain and simple. Obviously you should get on with it if you're fit to in the sense that there's no point leaving your team stuck, however that kind of behaviour is out of order and how to eliminate it from the games is one of the main issues facing the GAA these days. The problem in this instance is that there are 30 pairs of eyes on a field and only one ref - presuming there aren't any umpires or linesmen there in an official capacity rather than just filling in for the host club.

(2) Regarding the fixtures pile up, I've a lot less sympathy here, and here's why - ye obviously played championship in both grades already and thus ye clearly have at least 16 or 17 players for each team - so why is there the need for so much doubling up? I understand that some messing around with gradings is always legal and possible, but if ye will bend the spirit of things by playing "A" standard players at "B", then you've got to understand that there will be some consequences for the players involved. The idea behind lower league teams and lower championship teams is to give football to guys who aren't good enough/fit enough/committed enough for the better panel - but if "several lads" as you put it, are playing on both, then ye're either giving fake names or else there are a lot of fellas who played B championship last time out, but ye're not using them because they aren't perceived by ye to be good enough.

In my own club we field two teams and there is some crossover, but it's basically a few good junior players who fill in on the senior league team and make up numbers at senior training and also a few under 21 players who aren't senior standard yet but we want to expose to a good standard of training and opponent. There are others who would be good enough to be on the senior panel but don't have the time to commit properly for a variety of very legitimate reasons so they just play junior. I don't see why you can't say the same to your club - you have work and a young family, both very legitimate reasons to say to a manager that you only want to be considered for one team, unless they're very stuck in which case you'll do your best - which should be the exception, not the rule.

If there was a genuine necessity for you to play twice on Sunday, then ye wouldn't be able to field in the B championship - if ye are able to field in the B championship, why can those players not play on Sunday morning in the division 5 match and leave you free until later that night?

[Archangel]

The further down the ladder your team is, the less likely you are to have a consistent fixture roster. This I suppose, is only natural, but when you are on one these teams at the bottom of the ladder, it's hard to take.

"The idea behind lower league teams and lower championship teams is to give football to guys who aren't good enough/fit enough/committed enough for the better panel - but if "several lads" as you put it, are playing on both, then ye're either giving fake names or else there are a lot of fellas who played B championship last time out, but ye're not using them because they aren't perceived by ye to be good enough."

What about a club that is just Junior-B for instance. They train just as committed and plan their season to win a championship. You can't compare their desires with Rhode's 3rd team for instance. The teams that play each other are of similar standards, but the clubs aren't.
Your other point is very valid, where there is quite an amount of 'legal' team hopping and I'm quite positive some 'illegal' shenanigans as well. Again this only hurts the smaller teams in every sense.
There's no real answer

[Lone Shark]

What about a club that is just Junior-B for instance. They train just as committed and plan their season to win a championship.

No disagreement with that but the issue that Darth Faithful was upset about was because he was going to be on the go all weekend because he was committed to two different teams. My response was only to highlight that if the club were operating within the spirit of the rules in stead of just within the letter of the law, this wouldn't be an issue.

[swiftpost]

D'ont want to be contradicting you LS,but I d'ont fully agree with your last comment.

You name your first 15 and ideally they are your best 15. The problem is if some players are on the county senior,u21 or minor. You are without them for a lot of games, therefore some club players would be needed to play in 2 different leagues in the same weekend.

I know what you are saying happens ie some clubs abuse the system so they have a greater chance of winning a div 2 or 3 league, by naming lads that retire the previous year on their first 15 etc

[Darth Faithful]

Hi lads,
just in response to LS's comments, my club do try to play to the spirit of the rules, lads who are selected for Jn 'A are not selected for Jun 'B championship. We list our 1st 15 who lay in the league and those players don't play for the Jun B in their league. Also as someone else said, plenty of the Jun B's will play in the higher league games due to absences, injuries, etc and will sub the 'A championship games, this is where things pile up a little.
I just find it hard to understand why a league game would be fixed for the same week as a championship game or why there are huge gaps between league games and then a heap come together.

[Lone Shark]

D'ont want to be contradicting you LS,but I d'ont fully agree with your last comment.

You name your first 15 and ideally they are your best 15. The problem is if some players are on the county senior,u21 or minor. You are without them for a lot of games, therefore some club players would be needed to play in 2 different leagues in the same weekend.

I know what you are saying happens ie some clubs abuse the system so they have a greater chance of winning a div 2 or 3 league, by naming lads that retire the previous year on their first 15 etc

It's a discussion board, contradict all you want, it's what we're here for!

I agree to a certain extent with what you're saying, but in my experience a lot of clubs when in a situation like that and forced to cover for a few missing players on the strong team, they draft up a few of the better lads from the weaker team and that's fine, but then they expect the same lads to play two games rather than moving the effect on down the line and giving a few of the weaker team's subs a start. I know it's the league and you want to win every game but the fact of the matter is that players will be missing, players will be on holidays and yet it usually happens that the same lads end up kicking their heals while the guys in between the better and weaker teams get pulled all over the place, even when they don't have the time to do it, as in Darth Faithful's case.

[Lone Shark]

Hi lads,
just in response to LS's comments, my club do try to play to the spirit of the rules, lads who are selected for Jn 'A are not selected for Jun 'B championship. We list our 1st 15 who lay in the league and those players don't play for the Jun B in their league. Also as someone else said, plenty of the Jun B's will play in the higher league games due to absences, injuries, etc and will sub the 'A championship games, this is where things pile up a little.
I just find it hard to understand why a league game would be fixed for the same week as a championship game or why there are huge gaps between league games and then a heap come together.

I understand that a little crossover is fair enough and will always happen, certainly in my club a lot of the Senior subs are guys who are the better junior players, but the point is that they are also guys who are happy to do this. The guys who don't have time for this usually just play with the juniors and don't make themselves available to the senior panel, which is fair enough and no-one blames them for this. Everyone has a life and all that and yours seems fairly full.

I guess I just don't understand why you're turning up for the A team to be a sub when you don't have time and when they almost certainly wouldn't use you as it would render you ineligible for the B team.

As for the fixtures, well that's just one of those things. I'd say you'd search long and hard to find somebody in the county who didn't have at least a few gripes with the fixtures list, and what's more if you tried to fix things you'd have twice as many complaints.