Joe Brolly

Started by randomtask, July 31, 2011, 05:28:31 PM

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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.  :)
If you were any use you'd be playing.

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

Quote from: Mourne Rover on April 15, 2018, 08:08:16 PM
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.
If you were any use you'd be playing.

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?
If you were any use you'd be playing.

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!


None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Ea

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

Quote from: trailer on April 16, 2018, 10:36:31 AM
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.

Orchard park

Quote from: Milltown Row2 on April 16, 2018, 09:55:39 AM
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!

how the GPOs tie in with the schools and get the kids that they coach midweek to attend a saturday morning GAA club nursery / academy will dictate if this initiative fails or succeeds. the Dublin model is a GPO is club assigned and schools are assigned to that club / GPO

johnnycool

Quote from: Orchard park on April 16, 2018, 12:16:14 PM
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on April 16, 2018, 09:55:39 AM
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!

how the GPOs tie in with the schools and get the kids that they coach midweek to attend a saturday morning GAA club nursery / academy will dictate if this initiative fails or succeeds. the Dublin model is a GPO is club assigned and schools are assigned to that club / GPO

I get the impression there's very few natural boundaries existing between the clubs and schools in Belfast, especially primary schools.

For example at the Shaws Road area, you've St Pauls, Rossa and Sarsfields pitches right beside each other. The old Rossa club house on the Falls road was a stones throw from St Galls and their pitches. O'D's are right beside St Johns with the Gorts further on up the hill. Davitts are in the mix there somewhere as well as well as a few others. It seems to be family orientated, i.e. you ma or da played for such and such a club, so you play for them. That's OK, but new young blood needs to be brought into the fold.

A friend of mine was telling me of a GDO who was in the school he teaches at and the GDO was informing the kids of when the training was at the club he was affiliated to and the next day the school took a call from the chairman of another club giving out about the GDO showing favouritism to his own club. I'd say whoever looks after the GDO's in Antrim got a similar call if not quicker.

As MR suggests probably too many small clubs and none willing to yield an inch to the other.

On the South Belfast side of things, Carryduff do indeed charge £100 per child membership and from all accounts there's very little leeway on that.  I can't say for sure whether Bredagh are in the same ballpark or not, but they both have really big numbers at underage as the likes of the attendances at their Cúl Camps shows.
Problems I have with that are that if a youngster then decides to pick up a hurl, they've to get a helmet at almost £40 if they chose to buy a subsidised one from the club and then a hurl itself at anything from £15 up you're well out of pocket before you even think about boots and playing gear. That's a big ask for any parent.

In terms of how are they doing on the field, hurling wise Bredagh and Carryduff have picked up quite a few underage championships but really haven't kicked on at adult level. I gather that the same may be true at the football, but can't say for sure.
I'd know a few of their coaches quite well and was asking one last year or the year before as to why their minors were so weak after they'd won the U14 Feile at that age group with a very large panel and he was pretty forthright in that a lot of the hurlers just quit when winning started to get harder, "just another middle class sport" were his words, where they pick and choose. Most still lived in the area. He'd an U16 team down in our place a few weeks back and I happened to be complimenting their fullback who I thought was outstanding and one of the other coaches shrugged his shoulders and "sure he plays schools cup rugby for Methody, not sure how long we'll have him for". That can happen anywhere but there doesn't seem to be the connection to adult hurling/football teams there as yet whereas it's a given in some other places. Must be soul destroying for the coaches at times.
I can only think of one lad currently on the Down senior hurling panel from South Belfast at the minute, if even that and its not as if its a strong panel.

On the county development squads I'm in total agreement with Joe as they are getting in the way of clubs developing youngsters due to the asks put on those picked to go on them. The clubs are having to put training and games on hold far too much.
They are meant to supplement clubs and not replace them as per the Kilkenny model.

Someone touched on the recreational aspect and back in my day that was what we called the thirds team or turds, aka junior team where the lads didn't train, were either shite but loved the game, were retired from serious stuff and in it for the craic or the young lads cutting their teeth (literally) at the adult game as well as play underage.
It wasn't for everybody  ;D

Milltown Row2

Quote from: johnnycool on April 16, 2018, 01:31:42 PM
Quote from: Orchard park on April 16, 2018, 12:16:14 PM
Quote from: Milltown Row2 on April 16, 2018, 09:55:39 AM
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!

how the GPOs tie in with the schools and get the kids that they coach midweek to attend a saturday morning GAA club nursery / academy will dictate if this initiative fails or succeeds. the Dublin model is a GPO is club assigned and schools are assigned to that club / GPO

I get the impression there's very few natural boundaries existing between the clubs and schools in Belfast, especially primary schools.

For example at the Shaws Road area, you've St Pauls, Rossa and Sarsfields pitches right beside each other. The old Rossa club house on the Falls road was a stones throw from St Galls and their pitches. O'D's are right beside St Johns with the Gorts further on up the hill. Davitts are in the mix there somewhere as well as well as a few others. It seems to be family orientated, i.e. you ma or da played for such and such a club, so you play for them. That's OK, but new young blood needs to be brought into the fold.

A friend of mine was telling me of a GDO who was in the school he teaches at and the GDO was informing the kids of when the training was at the club he was affiliated to and the next day the school took a call from the chairman of another club giving out about the GDO showing favouritism to his own club. I'd say whoever looks after the GDO's in Antrim got a similar call if not quicker.

As MR suggests probably too many small clubs and none willing to yield an inch to the other.

On the South Belfast side of things, Carryduff do indeed charge £100 per child membership and from all accounts there's very little leeway on that.  I can't say for sure whether Bredagh are in the same ballpark or not, but they both have really big numbers at underage as the likes of the attendances at their Cúl Camps shows.
Problems I have with that are that if a youngster then decides to pick up a hurl, they've to get a helmet at almost £40 if they chose to buy a subsidised one from the club and then a hurl itself at anything from £15 up you're well out of pocket before you even think about boots and playing gear. That's a big ask for any parent.

In terms of how are they doing on the field, hurling wise Bredagh and Carryduff have picked up quite a few underage championships but really haven't kicked on at adult level. I gather that the same may be true at the football, but can't say for sure.
I'd know a few of their coaches quite well and was asking one last year or the year before as to why their minors were so weak after they'd won the U14 Feile at that age group with a very large panel and he was pretty forthright in that a lot of the hurlers just quit when winning started to get harder, "just another middle class sport" were his words, where they pick and choose. Most still lived in the area. He'd an U16 team down in our place a few weeks back and I happened to be complimenting their fullback who I thought was outstanding and one of the other coaches shrugged his shoulders and "sure he plays schools cup rugby for Methody, not sure how long we'll have him for". That can happen anywhere but there doesn't seem to be the connection to adult hurling/football teams there as yet whereas it's a given in some other places. Must be soul destroying for the coaches at times.
I can only think of one lad currently on the Down senior hurling panel from South Belfast at the minute, if even that and its not as if its a strong panel.

On the county development squads I'm in total agreement with Joe as they are getting in the way of clubs developing youngsters due to the asks put on those picked to go on them. The clubs are having to put training and games on hold far too much.
They are meant to supplement clubs and not replace them as per the Kilkenny model.

Someone touched on the recreational aspect and back in my day that was what we called the thirds team or turds, aka junior team where the lads didn't train, were either shite but loved the game, were retired from serious stuff and in it for the craic or the young lads cutting their teeth (literally) at the adult game as well as play underage.
It wasn't for everybody  ;D

Back in the day it was your parish as such, kids played and went to St Galls school, there was a st Paul's Parish, Gorts and Ardoyne and St Endas to an extent would be parish clubs as such, the rest, well, kids grow up and move , Bredagh would be generally all from te one area as would St Brigid's, as for Rossa, ourselves and the rest, they are from all over, some of the bigger clubs are to blame in fairness, scooping up kids from schools before they had a chance to go to their local club, and that was when coaches went into the schools..

I'd be half a mile from my club growing up, but I'd have past Rossa O'D's The Johnnies before getting to my club, (more or less) in the other direction the same distance would have been McDee's, Dywers (closed shop ;) ) and Davitts, which had a coach assigned to my school.. You just went to the club that gave out the free bottles of coke after a match  ;D
None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Ea

Orchard park

In Dublin I believe the county board assigns the schools to each club and then that clubs GPO can only attend those schools......

co board needs to take over inter club bickering and work out a system that will maximise the numbers playing irrespective of what club.

Don't see any issue with Bredagh's fees at all

general_lee

Find it borderline ridiculous that a club can go from winning the minor championship last year to not fielding a minor team this year. Is there no lower grade they could enter and play 13-aside?

My experience of playing Belfast teams at u16 and minor back in the day in challenge games is that they always had big numbers, the players were all bigger, there was always one player that looked about 30 and they always told you that they didn't even have their full team cos half the panel played were away with antrim.

Milltown Row2

Quote from: general_lee on April 16, 2018, 03:49:40 PM
Find it borderline ridiculous that a club can go from winning the minor championship last year to not fielding a minor team this year. Is there no lower grade they could enter and play 13-aside?

My experience of playing Belfast teams at u16 and minor back in the day in challenge games is that they always had big numbers, the players were all bigger, there was always one player that looked about 30 and they always told you that they didn't even have their full team cos half the panel played were away with antrim.

At juvenile there was always a big kid on the teams, they all evened out come senior (well not me ffs) The Johnnies always had the bigger lad..

Lower grades playing 13 a-side would be perfect tbh.. I see no reason for this to happen
None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Ea

heffo

Quote from: Orchard park on April 16, 2018, 03:35:38 PM
In Dublin I believe the county board assigns the schools to each club and then that clubs GPO can only attend those schools......


No parish rule in Dublin - the club Steering committee would typically look at what they're getting out of different schools and concentrate resources accordingly - lots of schools in Dublin with crossover between clubs.