Kerry Club Football

[Ciarrai_thuaidh]

Ciarrai_thuaidh Can I ask how are the divisional teams managed? Do the club teams send people forward for selection? Or does management do the selecting from the available club panels? Would there be many rows over players not selected?

Looked at same way as a strong club team in most cases. Take South Kerry for example, a very strong divisional team with a strong tradition of winning championships. They've had external coaches/managers a good bit. William Harmon who managed Rahillys most recently. Paudie Kissane from Cork who is a good coach/S&C mix was involved a few years ago. The South Kerry board would be well run and organised though. Not all divisions are.

In a lot of divisions they just pick someone from the constituent clubs but usually with a fair balance of selectors  - otherwise it just goes to sh*t!

My own part of the county, North Kerry has had a shocking record in SFC over the last 40 odd years. From an era when we had unbelievably strong teams in the 70s and even early 80s - Shannon Rangers and Feale Rangers contested the 1977 final - to no title being won from 1980 to 2007 and only 1 appearance in a final between 1985 and 2007 when Feale Rangers won one. Since 2007 it's been largely similar. Shannon Rangers got things going well for about 2/3 years and reached a Semi in 2014 I think it was. Feale Rangers got to the semi last year but otherwise it's been poor effort, poor organisation, poor performances.
By the way in case anybody's interested, Shannon Rangers is a combo of Beale, Ballyduff, Ballydonoghue, Ballylongford, Tarbert and Asdee.
Feale Rangers is a combo of Listowel Emmets, Finuge, Duagh, Moyvane, St Senans. Those are the main teams in the area. There are 3 teams in North Kerry district (Desmonds, Brosnan and Duagh)who play with St Kierans in the Senior championship to complicate things. St Kierans is basically Castleisland (Desmonds) and surrounding Parishes.

Anyway, Feale and Shannon Rangers were performing so poorly and standing no chance of competing with the likes of East Kerry (who have been utterly dominating Minor for a few years and having disproportionate representation on Kerry squads) so they decided last year to amalgamate and form one North Kerry team and enter just the underage championships to see how it went. There's actually been a good bit of work done behind the scenes on football in the area in schools as there were the odd county player being produced (Jason Foley, Shane Enright, Anthony Maher for example) but not enough guys making the grade and no games being won in county championship.
As it turns out North Kerry won the Minor, lost the U21 by 1 to a star-studded East Kerry and competed well in U15. So while I was against it as it meant less players got the opportunity to play at County Championship level and the coaching and structures being worked on could have been a mid to long term solution - I suppose it has justified itself in a way and now there's 5/6 guys in with a shout of playing Minor or U20 who wouldn't have been.
Anyway, don't know why I said half of that. Bit of a tangent sorry.
Basically the divisional thing is great in so many ways - but in divisions where the structure is gone stale or weak and no work is being done it can lead to very lean and unproductive periods. It's down to the people in the different areas, the strength of schools and underage etc. Right now the East Kerry and Killarney area is massively dominant. Schools like St Brendans, Social Sliabh Luachra (Rathmore) are playing top level. Crokes, Spa, Legion, Rathmore, Glenflesk, Firies, Kilcummin are are all very strong clubs at underage or adult or both..Fossa are coming now aswell. They all feed into East Kerry underage a lot of years except Crokes are almost always on their own. So it's a bit imbalanced.

But all that being said - the divisions just add hugely to the whole level of competition out there. Some of the most memorable games in Kerry in my lifetime involved divisional teams. Laune Rangers and East Kerry played 2/3 times in the late 90s and they were titanic battles. That East Kerry team won 3 in a row and were the springboard for the Kerry careers of Johnny Crowley and Tom O'Sullivan (Rathmore). Then you had the Crokes v South Kerry battles in the 2000s and they were fairly epic aswell. Some of the Minor and U21 games I've seen have been brilliant aswell. Without them it would just be the big clubs like Crokes and Stacks dominating and probably getting more onto Kerry panels aswell, but this way the country boys from all corners get a fair shot. It's why a Declan O'Sullivan (Dromid), Jason Foley (Ballydonoghue), Anthony Maher (Duagh), Killian Young (Renard) - all players from very lowly clubs most of the time - can make it with Kerry I think.

Anyway, end of essay..

[ranch]

Seen this on the Armagh forum so thought I'd copy it over here to see if others think it's a good idea or not. Realistically there probably isn't an appetite to make it happen in Armagh, but it would be an interesting championship for sure.

Long post here, so please bear with me.
As has been discussed in many counties over the years, why don't we adopt the Kerry system of 'regional' teams for a county championship? Individual clubs would still compete in their club championships, but a new system would mean that every player in the county could aspire to competing for the county championship every year.

Let's look at how this might look in Armagh (I'll be using the 2022 leagues to illustrate the point).

First of all, we'd have 8 'Senior' clubs - These 8 would compete in the senior 'county' championship against 'regional' teams as well as competing in the senior 'club' championship too. The winner of the 'county' championship would represent us in Ulster , unless a regional team wins it. If that was the cse then the winner of the senior club championship would go forward into Ulster.
Below Senior we'd then have intermediate, Junior A, B (could go further and have a junior C if necessary). This would increase our competitiveness at Ulster club level also.

The leagues and 'club' championships would look like this;

SENIOR
Crossmaglen
Clann Eireann
Dromintee
Killeavy
Armagh Harps
Maghery
Madden
Granemore

INTERMEDIATE
Ballymacnab
Cullyhanna
Silverbridge
Mullabawn
Pearse Og
Sarsfields
Clan na Gael
Grange
Shane O'Neill's
Carrickcruppen
Tullysaran
St Peter's
St Paul's
Wolfe Tones
Annaghmore

JUNIOR A
Belleek
Whitecross
Culloville
Ballyhegan
Clonmore
Tir na nog
Forkhill
Collegeland
Keady
Cross II
Derrynoose
Middletown
Eire Og
Newtownhamilton
Dorsey
Lissummon

Junior B
Killeavy II
Corrinshego
An Port Mor
O'Hanlon's
Clady
Mullabrack

Beyond this we'd then have our 'county' championship.

REGIONS - COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP (clubs in BLOCK CAPITALS would compete on their own in the county championship unless relegated - when relegated they'd join their regional side the following season - for example, Dromintee next year would fall back into their regional side, Ballymacnab would be going up to competing on their own)

1. SOUTH ARMAGH EAST (cruppen, shanes, corrinshego, whitecross, lissummon, o'hanlons, belleek) KILLEAVY, DROMINTEE

2. SOUTH ARMAGH WEST (Newtownhamilton, Dorsey, Silverbridge, Cullyhanna, Cullaville, Mullabawn, Forkhill) CROSSMAGLEN

3. MID ARMAGH WEST (Clady, Ballymacnab, Keady, Derrynoose, Middletown) MADDEN, GRANEMORE

4. MID ARMAGH CENTRAL (Pearse Og, An Port Mor, Tullysaran, Grange, Mullabrack) HARPS

5. NORTH ARMAGH COUNTRY (Annaghmore, Clonmore, Collegeland, Wolfe Tones, Sarsfields, Ballyhegan) MAGHERY

6. NORTH ARMAGH TOWN (St Peter's, St Paul's, Clan na Gael, Tir na nog, Eire Og) CLANN EIREANN

This is just a rough example of how it might work, I'm sure there are better minds than mine who could refine this even further. Thoughts?

[Dabh]

Someone needs to do a mini series or documentary on the Kerry club football structure at this stage!! 

One of the old threads from 2019 had plenty good explanation on it in fairness.

The main by products of the whole thing that stand out to me are
1.Every club player in the county, regardless of level, gets a chance to play in County Senior championship and
2.Average Kerry club player gets a guaranteed 20 games a year due to the structure. County league (taken seriously), County club championship (Senior, Intermediate, Premier Junior, Junior, Novice ), County Senior championship, Divisional leagues (North Kerry league, south Kerry league etc), Divisional championships - played at end of year.

If anyone wants to ask anything about it work away and I'll do my best though.

All I want to ask is how the feck ye get the time lol. Better than the system here though where theres only 14 league games and then straight knockout championship. Lot of training for little amount of games. Although the leagues are very competitive and taken seriously for the most part, as they are linked to following years championship. only 8 teams in the division means less dead rubbers towards the end.

you forgot the Novice Championship ( easy done in fairness)

No I didn't, you just didn't do your research!

Novice was renamed 2/3 years ago to Junior. Grades are as I posted.

You sure?
https://www.kerrygaa.ie/kilgarvan-are-novice-champions/