Influences on youngsters playing and staying with a defined sport?

[onefineday]

In all the talk of giving up the summer to other sports in the split season there is never a mention of the fact that even when we had them there was nothing aimed at kids.
My nephew is glued to soccer clips and skills on YouTube. It's something the GAA need to look at.

A decent fantasy game and somewhere to get proper accurate stats could really make an impact on the younger generation too.
Like it or not it's very difficult to compete with the global appeal of soccer when it comes to YouTube, TikTok etc - moments like canavan's dummy solo and grugan's goal are great, but since kids don't know who half the players are, they're not going to have the same desire to watch them. Award 6 fantasy pts for a goal by a midfielder though and....

Also in terms of the younger generation for a huge chunk of them the fact that so many games are on TG4 is massively offputting.

Absolutely!!
I think I mentioned it elsewhere, surely we could have dual commentary options - hit the red button for bearla!!

[trueblue1234]

We talk about drop off levels and no doubt they are high. But is there not a few reasons for that. As a club, we've never seen as many kids at our under age. We wouldn't have had half the numbers in my younger days. Parents push their kids now to be more involved and more active than ever before.
There's so much out there now for kids that drop of increase is inevitable imo. When I was young you had Football, soccer. That was it for the majority. Now there is swimming clubs, junior running clubs, rugby, gymnastics, dance, media, tennis, etc. it's great for them to have so much options. But they all drain on the free time of a child and they have to make choices. I know we are never off the roads. But it's great to have them a taste of everything. And the reality is that football won't be for everyone. I think the GAA in the most part have a good structure in place. I know for years soccer would have been well behind in structure and organisation albeit they are catching up now (Tyrone). But I don't think it's a case of GAA not doing enough in the most part. It's just other sports are sorting themselves out now as well.
That said any coach that is putting winning a game ahead of game time for the kids at anything under u12 needs a word in their ear. Kids should get equal time in the most part.

[johnnycool]

We'd a "Night with the Stars" in our club about a month ago. The panel was Sambo McNaughton, Conor Laverty, Jarlath Burns and Brian Cody, ably hosted by Mark Sidebottom and one of the questions from the floor was "At what age should kids be training and playing to win games?"

Sambo gave examples of the Dall U12's he'd managed, similar Burns talked about they'd a coach who'd made it clear when he took an underage team that he was going out to win games and tournaments and Silverbridge U13's won an Armagh title for the first time in ages, Laverty didn't talk much about specifics but talked about they wanted Kilcoo teams to be brave when playing and the winning would come in it's own time...

Last up was Cody, as old school as you will get in terms of management, he never mentioned winning once, he talked about instilling the love of the game in the kids, talked about players that had went on to win numerous AI's with Kilkenny seniors, not getting on teams in their youth, Derek Lyng being one and the other I think he mentioned was Martin Comerford, weighed down with AI medals at senior now. He talked about some of the lads on his teams at senior never needing motivation, they just loved to train and play games. Sure, what would he know!

Winning = success and Losing = failure is an adult construct which children, especially young kids don't buy into.

I'd a daughter who played for our U14 camogs who were beaten out the gate by Bredagh the other night, she's only 10 and her first game at that level and the first thing I asked her was whether she enjoyed it and she did, she got about three touches of the ball and was delighted with herself. The fact that there was 30 plus points in the game, I'm not even sure she realised, maybe some of the older girls would be more conscious of that and certainly the coaches weren't making a thing of it and it's not a reflection on them either, win, lose or draw and the same wee girls will rock up to training as usual the next night and hopefully enjoy the comradeship and fun of playing camogie together for as long as possible in their lives.

[blanketattack]

I remember going to watch indoor bowls being played in east Tyrone when I was 14. This woman was throwing and got her skirt caught in her knickers and I was transfixed[/B. She was in her 60s but it didn't matter. Ever since, I've been mad about indoor bowls.

Is that the modern meaning of the word?

[Sportacus]

In all the talk of giving up the summer to other sports in the split season there is never a mention of the fact that even when we had them there was nothing aimed at kids.
My nephew is glued to soccer clips and skills on YouTube. It's something the GAA need to look at.

A decent fantasy game and somewhere to get proper accurate stats could really make an impact on the younger generation too.
Like it or not it's very difficult to compete with the global appeal of soccer when it comes to YouTube, TikTok etc - moments like canavan's dummy solo and grugan's goal are great, but since kids don't know who half the players are, they're not going to have the same desire to watch them. Award 6 fantasy pts for a goal by a midfielder though and....

Also in terms of the younger generation for a huge chunk of them the fact that so many games are on TG4 is massively offputting.

Absolutely!!
I think I mentioned it elsewhere, surely we could have dual commentary options - hit the red button for bearla!!

Or they could try harder to facilitate those with a cupla focal.  Would it be that hard to mention some common phrases that they might use during their commentary: "over the bar"; "wide"; "free kick to...".  You're either fluent or you're lost.  It's a missed opportunity imo.

[thewobbler]

The GAA has the promotion of the Irish language as one of its aims.
Despite that, 99.9% of all GAA business is conducted in English.
An Irish language broadcasting service put lots of effort into bringing us games that nobody else has any interest in broadcasting.

We are complaining that the Irish language aspect of this service is damaging the GAA.

We're some country.

My simple response to this is that the  Catholic Church once had an amazing gig going on in Ireland.

Full of rules. Full of aims. Full of processes. Full of expectations that people would not roll against it.

As an institution it has been decimated by the Information Age. People who had doubts, worries, concerns found each other and over a course of time initially a few, then more, then most of the rest, decided it wasn't worth the effort.

By accident more than anything else, the most competitive and enjoyable product in modern Gaelic Games is now delivered in an medium alongside Irish Language. Which most of us do not understand and for sone of us (not me personally) is actually a turn off.

The GAA can continue to lazily describe this output as promoting the aims of the organisation and the bigwigs can wallow in their glorious pursuit.

But somewhere along the line, if the people don't get the product they want, then attention will be turned elsewhere.

[thewobbler]

And my simple response to that is that virtually none of the games that TG4 cover were covered by anyone else before they arrived and they continue to be covered by nobody else.

RTE simply has no interest in providing free to air access to these games weekend after weekend for 12 months of the year. They never have.

You are fighting the wrong fight. You are fighting a minuscule negative (among ignorant people) in a massive positive.

I know where you're coming from here. But I do think you're measuring things against the past instead of evaluating the future.

The league has, by virtue of semi-professionalism, become the value product in Gaelic Games. Not because of TG4, but because semi-professionalism means that until 24-26 counties are ejected, the championship is a car crash competition. The league now consistently produces better games. A d4 game is unfailingly more enjoyable to watch than a provincial first round match. A d1 game is unfailingly better value than a provincial semi final. It cannot and will never compete with the AI quarters and onwards.

But buried away in as Gaeilege, nor is it given the chance to.

[thewobbler]

GAAGO and RTE get their pick of National League games each week so that's not quite the case, wobbler.

TG4 chase the club games, U17, U20 games up and down the country. Nobody else wants to do this.

You have the wrong bogeyman

TG4 had been brilliant. Yet should we ever reach a point in time where we can press a button to switch language, their viewing  figures will rocket... and their hearts will fall. We all know that. It's the truth we have to accept.

[Milltown Row2]

Not a word of Irish do I know, nor ashamed to say it but TG4 for me is at the very heart of GAA, ploughing a lonely path. I never miss a game as it's recorded every week. I hope they never have the option of having an English translation button!

[From the Bunker]

I think it's great that matches are in Irish on TG4.
I think it's great TG4 covers the (unsexy) Games.
I think TG4 cater for a minority group very well.

TG4 remind me of when local radio licences were given out back in the '80's and people outside of Dublin began to realise there was a world outside the Pale that could be catered to.

[onefineday]

GAAGO and RTE get their pick of National League games each week so that's not quite the case, wobbler.

TG4 chase the club games, U17, U20 games up and down the country. Nobody else wants to do this.

You have the wrong bogeyman

TG4 had been brilliant. Yet should we ever reach a point in time where we can press a button to switch language, their viewing  figures will rocket... and their hearts will fall. We all know that. It's the truth we have to accept.

Some great points wobbler. I'm just pro-choice is all, totally acknowledge tg4's trojan work (it should also be noted that it's cheap content and that tg4 has obligations to provide a certain percentage of indigenous programming), hope they keep it up and I'd be delighted to see gaago rights move to tg4 (with dual language option)  when the commercial reality of the gaa's decision becomes clear to them at the end of the season.

[marty34]

The whole point of TG4 is to provide an Irish language service, regardless of the content.

Just because it's in Irish (and no other option available) means I'm not going to watch it.

I know no-one who has said I'm not watching that league game because it's in Irish. Are people on here saying they can't follow a game and see what's happeing bacause of the language?

Remember it was TG4 who brought the club scene alive then AIB came on board with the marketing.

The clue is in the name of the station.

[Rossfan]

Never ceases to amaze me at the number of "gaels" who moan about matches i nGaeilge ar Telefís Gaeilge!!

[ardtole]

Tg4 showed the last 2 down u20 games. Its a fantastic service.

[onefineday]

Never ceases to amaze me at the number of "gaels" who moan about matches i nGaeilge ar Telefís Gaeilge!!

Never ceases to amaze me when people jump in with comments without bothering to inform themselves on the context.
Someone pointed out that having so much of our non championship gaa broadcast exclusively as gaeilge was not conducive to attracting kids used to the razzmatazz of the premier/champions league to follow games - some of us agreed and I suggested that a duel language option would be the ideal solution. I'm not entirely clear on why that is a problem.