Joe Brolly

[rosnarun]

In fairness to Joe it is very hard to be consistently original about GAA. Tom humphries was probably the best GAA journalist 20 years ago and even  he gave up after a while.  The plodders like Sean Moran and Breheny rely on statistics but never rise above mediocrity. 

As Eugene McGee told Kimmage in 2015

 "A lot of the matches are shite, but the worst of all is having to write the column in wintertime. I sit down every Saturday night and say, 'What am I going to write here?'. I'm 30 years writing columns now, for God's sake! And some all  of the stuff I write on Monday is pure shite."

just corrected that
they just cant be arsed to look for Real stories that's whay journalist should shut up and journal

[Avondhu star]

"Would you believe I have an entire thread dedicated to me on gaaboard?"
"Do you, Joe?"
"Oh aye, it's true. 700 PAGES long."
"Hang on, I'm just looking at it here and it's only 300 pages long, Joe."
"Did I ever tell you about the time myself and big Geoffrey McGonigle went on safari and he tried to smuggle a giraffe onto the plane home?"

FFS! It wasnt a giraffe, it was an elephant. Dungiven use it now for bringing young lads to matches and the elephants obeys instructions given in Irish

[Jinxy]

Joe Brolly: If youngsters can't get regular games, they will turn to soccer, or PlayStation, or alcohol, or drugs

'A few days earlier, our minors had played against one of the west Belfast clubs in an official cup fixture. Their club is in a very underprivileged area of the city and they do tremendous work with their young people. But by the time they reach 16 the kids are abandoning the games.

Belfast has a population of 700,000 (2011 census), compared to Dublin's 1.3 million. But like every other club in the city, there is no full-time coaching in the feeder schools, no strategy linking the schools and club, no regular matches, and no resources. The result is that a densely populated area that could be a powerhouse for Gaelic games with a strong sense of community is instead a wasteland. As the minor game unfolded, their subs ate pizza that had been delivered to the sideline, smoked cigarettes and poked fun at their team-mates. The referee abandoned the match with 10 minutes to go after a melee broke out. One of their club stalwarts texted me afterwards to say, "My heart is broken after watching that today, mo chara." This year, for the first time in living memory, the fabled Rossa club on the Shaws Road are unable to field a minor football team. In the second biggest city on the island, the real GAA is collapsing.'

https://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/joe-brolly-if-youngsters-cant-get-regular-games-they-will-turn-to-soccer-or-playstation-or-alcohol-or-drugs-36808029.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

The article in full is well worth a read tbf.

[BennyHarp]

Texting Joe is a sure fire way to get a mention in the Independent.

[Milltown Row2]

Heard about this match today!

[Jinxy]

Just picturing the subs running to join in the schemozzle with a fag in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. 

[Mourne Rover]

Brolly's piece says that Belfast has a population of 700,000 as part of his attempt to claim how badly it is doing in GAA terms. However, he has confused the metropolitan area, which includes the surrounding districts of Lisburn, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh and North Down - mostly barren ground for the GAA - with the actual city, which only has a population of 300,000. There's no doubt that the  GAA is struggling in west and north Belfast but with a few exceptions that has been the case for quite some time.  On the southern side of the city, Brolly's own club,  St Brigid's, and the Down sides Bredagh and Carryduff are all developing strongly.  If you take into account that more than a third of Belfast is in Co Down, and also leave out the unionist districts, the Co Antrim part of Belfast which Brolly is writing about effectively has a GAA population of considerably less than 100,000. It should be doing much better, and it deserves much more attention from the GAA at national level, but many other urban areas across Ireland are also underperforming, and the Belfast population figures put forward by Brolly are completely misleading.

[Jinxy]

Brolly's piece says that Belfast has a population of 700,000 as part of his attempt to claim how badly it is doing in GAA terms. However, he has confused the metropolitan area, which includes the surrounding districts of Lisburn, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh and North Down - mostly barren ground for the GAA - with the actual city, which only has a population of 300,000. There's no doubt that the  GAA is struggling in west and north Belfast but with a few exceptions that has been the case for quite some time.  On the southern side of the city, Brolly's own club,  St Brigid's, and the Down sides Bredagh and Carryduff are all developing strongly.  If you take into account that more than a third of Belfast is in Co Down, and also leave out the unionist districts, the Co Antrim part of Belfast which Brolly is writing about effectively has a GAA population of considerably less than 100,000. It should be doing much better, and it deserves much more attention from the GAA at national level, but many other urban areas across Ireland are also underperforming, and the Belfast population figures put forward by Brolly are completely misleading.

I am shocked.

[hardstation]

Brolly's piece says that Belfast has a population of 700,000 as part of his attempt to claim how badly it is doing in GAA terms. However, he has confused the metropolitan area, which includes the surrounding districts of Lisburn, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh and North Down - mostly barren ground for the GAA - with the actual city, which only has a population of 300,000. There's no doubt that the  GAA is struggling in west and north Belfast but with a few exceptions that has been the case for quite some time.  On the southern side of the city, Brolly's own club,  St Brigid's, and the Down sides Bredagh and Carryduff are all developing strongly.  If you take into account that more than a third of Belfast is in Co Down, and also leave out the unionist districts, the Co Antrim part of Belfast which Brolly is writing about effectively has a GAA population of considerably less than 100,000. It should be doing much better, and it deserves much more attention from the GAA at national level, but many other urban areas across Ireland are also underperforming, and the Belfast population figures put forward by Brolly are completely misleading.

GAA is struggling in West Belfast but is developing strongly in the 3 clubs in the south of the city?
I’m not sure that paints a fair or accurate picture.

[Fionntamhnach]

Brolly's piece says that Belfast has a population of 700,000 as part of his attempt to claim how badly it is doing in GAA terms. However, he has confused the metropolitan area, which includes the surrounding districts of Lisburn, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh and North Down - mostly barren ground for the GAA - with the actual city, which only has a population of 300,000. There's no doubt that the  GAA is struggling in west and north Belfast but with a few exceptions that has been the case for quite some time.  On the southern side of the city, Brolly's own club,  St Brigid's, and the Down sides Bredagh and Carryduff are all developing strongly.  If you take into account that more than a third of Belfast is in Co Down, and also leave out the unionist districts, the Co Antrim part of Belfast which Brolly is writing about effectively has a GAA population of considerably less than 100,000. It should be doing much better, and it deserves much more attention from the GAA at national level, but many other urban areas across Ireland are also underperforming, and the Belfast population figures put forward by Brolly are completely misleading.

Just to add - Soccer? Video Games? Drink? Drugs? Except for maybe the last one all the demons listed there were being touted as being the trinity of satanic influence taking young boys away from their rightful place with the GAA back when I was lining out as an under 14 a quarter of a century ago! It's definitely nothing new. And the problems in getting a team to field in one urban club in Belfast sounds like a problem within that club and/or it's catchment area. It's not conclusive proof that the GAA in Belfast is in a major crises at youth level.

(P.S. Given the author of the article then like f*ck I'm going to click on the link to read it & give it hits, so I'm going by what Jinxy has quoted.)

[Jinxy]

I'd say roughly half of the lads I played underage football with didn't stay on after minor, so that's nothing new.
I would say almost all of them enjoyed their football, but wouldn't have been the most enthusiastic trainers.
When you transition from underage football to adult football there is a significant culture shift (at least there was in my day).
A lot of the time it can feel like training isn't a means to an end, it's an end in itself.
Train more, train harder, train better, so that maybe, just maybe you will earn the right to actually play football at some stage.
I remember when the balls would come out of the bag at this time of year and lads would be positively giddy at the idea we might actually play a game instead of doing loads of drills and small-sided stuff.
Usually, we were disappointed.
A lot of the lads that I know who drifted away from football would be regular 5-a-side soccer players.
It's enjoyable, it doesn't ADD to the daily stresses & strains of life and if you can't go some evening you don't have to justify yourself to anyone.
The GAA badly needs to come up with a recreational format that will allow the 'casual' player to stay involved in the club, get some exercise and generally just have a bit of FUN.
Remember that?

[Milltown Row2]

Belfast has too many clubs, and a lot of kids are not being directed into gaa clubs the way they used too at primary level.. schools have more options, I didnt go to a school that had soccer, both Primary and secondary were all Gaa, teachers seemed to have more time to coach and I can remember coaches coming in from other clubs to help out (or poach  )

Now you have soccer in all schools, parents arent bothered anymore also, as long as they are doing something they seem happy enough.. Can't blame soccer for that, its wall to wall coverage on TV so it will have an impact, plus their fixtures are run a lot better TBH..

Drink was always there but drugs now is big factor, mental health issues are another thing on the rise, not sure what the clubs do now for awareness on these areas, but that needs to be tackled..

The troubles actually helped with Gaa numbers I believe, mainly because of identity, identifying yourself with Ireland and or national sport, the family side of it increased numbers, brothers all playing for the one club and so on, that's still there of course but getting less and less.. once the troubles had stopped kids started to get their kicks elswhere, Belfast opened up and the club wasnt a place where you hung out, the city centre was..

How do we get it back? back to basics for me, get the planning right in the clubs for starters... I know we have taken our eye of the ball lately and as a club we are going through that down turn that all clubs go through, we need to sort ourselves out and no amount of money from headquarters will fix that unless we create the right mix of coaching, encouragement, attitudes and targets to inspire children to stay at the club through to senior...

Its not that long ago we had 2 senior hurling teams, 3 senior football teams, 2 south antrim (beer belly teams ) all getting games.. we are back to one in each code, feeder teams are important but kids just want to play for the first team and walk away now if they are not getting a chance.. The numbers are there and the facilities/pitches are better than what I played on so hopefully the planning that Antrim will put in place with the investment will sort things out long term.. oh and get Casemnet built!

[Applesisapples]

Whatever about the veracity of joe's numbers, he has a point. The strength of the GAA has always been it's clubs. County development squads put pressure on smaller clubs in particular and result in lack of games. Kids need matches to keep up the interest. It is time we got back to our roots.

[trailer]

Carryduff charge £100 for an child to be a member. It's a lot of money to fork out on 7 year old who might not like it. They'd need to have a look at that. Clubs in affluent areas can get carried away sometimes. The clubs should look at themselves first rather than the fixtures, development squads

[omagh_gael]

Carryduff charge £100 for an child to be a member. It's a lot of money to fork out on 7 year old who might not like it. They'd need to have a look at that. Clubs in affluent areas can get carried away sometimes. The clubs should look at themselves first rather than the fixtures, development squads

Fecking hell, £100 per kid!! That's nuts.