Money, Dublin and the GAA

[Jinxy]

Haven't looked at this thread in ages.
Are Dublin still getting all the money?

[Lar Naparka]

Any serious Dubs still hanging about?
I have a few genuine questions to put to anyone who is familiar with the way the special developmet funds are being spent.
I had a few pints with an old member of the local GAA club and we got talking about  the uses to which this money is put.
Okay, it's clear enough that clubs pay half the coaching costs and the GAA pony up the rest but my buddy wasn't able to say if all the grant money was spent on coaching only or if moves were being made to attract new members into the clubs.
IMO, if a youngster has to become a member of a club before he can avail of this coaching, the whole process is gong to be self-defeating eventually.
I haven't heard of any club that has recently launched a recruitment drive and  I don't see any more kids wearing GAA gear than the usual amount that has been knocking about for years,
Further more, have any new clubs been set up in Dublin inside, say, the last decade? Can't say I've heard of any.

[Orchard park]

A relative is chair of a Dublin club,

Tyrellstown possibly newest club, also realt dearg which is a country hurling club and na. Gael oige. ...... adamstown collapsed after a fes years.

Only development money clubs get is the 50% contribution towards the GPO.

If there was s penny more  available he would have nailed it

Most GPO work done in the schools with noth members and potential members. Most recruitmernt done at  u6 and below level.....

[Jinxy]

Tyrellstown could be losing their pitch soon.
Any sign of the county board stepping in?

[Orchard park]

as likely as it is that they create new clubs to be honest

[Rossfan]

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/pat-spillane-wants-a-gaa-transfer-system-created-to-stop-an-unbridgeable-chasm-opening-up-between-dublin-and-the-rest-36622735.html

[Maroon Manc]

https://m.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/pat-spillane-wants-a-gaa-transfer-system-created-to-stop-an-unbridgeable-chasm-opening-up-between-dublin-and-the-rest-36622735.html

Does the parent rule still apply that a player can play for their parents county?

[Rossfan]

It must as Mark Nally of Ros Gaels  has declared for his father's native Longford.

[Syferus]

It must as Mark Nally of Ros Gaels  has declared for his father's native Longford.

There's still time for Andy to do away with the Stockholm Syndrome stuff and play for his own county. He'd have bother making the team though, but we give everyone a fair chance in Roscommon.

[Hound]

Any serious Dubs still hanging about?
I have a few genuine questions to put to anyone who is familiar with the way the special developmet funds are being spent.
I had a few pints with an old member of the local GAA club and we got talking about  the uses to which this money is put.
Okay, it's clear enough that clubs pay half the coaching costs and the GAA pony up the rest but my buddy wasn't able to say if all the grant money was spent on coaching only or if moves were being made to attract new members into the clubs.
IMO, if a youngster has to become a member of a club before he can avail of this coaching, the whole process is gong to be self-defeating eventually.
I haven't heard of any club that has recently launched a recruitment drive and  I don't see any more kids wearing GAA gear than the usual amount that has been knocking about for years,
Further more, have any new clubs been set up in Dublin inside, say, the last decade? Can't say I've heard of any.

The coaching grant all goes to the GPO, there's nowhere else it goes. And as you said, the club funds the other 50%.

At my club (a small/medium growing club in Dublin suburbia), the GPO runs coaching sessions every Saturday morning for the young kids, 4-7 years old. Once you get old enough to join a team then parents take over. I think we have 3 primary schools in the area, and the GPO takes PE for various classes in each school, teaching basics in hurling and football to boys and girls and encouraging them to come up on Saturday morning or to join a team if old enough.

The first GPO I had experience of was a Munster lad who loved hurling and didn't care too much about football (we're mainly a football club but have a few hurling fanatics who drive that side of the club - and drive the rest of us up the wall!). This GPO had a great interest in the U15s to minors and they would still speak highly of him. While he was never over them, he became a regular fixture at their hurling training sessions and I believe would usually attend their matches. He had little interest in the younger kids, and while he would be there on the Saturday mornings, he would bring some of the U15, U16 lads to actually do the training drills etc. My son left the GAA club to go to the soccer because the Saturday mornings were a shambles and the soccer academy for his age was far better organised! (That was down to one individual who was a very good coach and had a young lad the same age as mine).

The next GPO we got was an Ulsterwoman. She was a better all rounder.  My lad was back by then, but had little to do with her. She took one coaching session when the main manager of his team and his son left but wouldnt go to the match that weekend. She did become a mentor for one of the girl's teams.  She was a bit rough though, plenty of bad language and eventually annoyed plenty of people!

The current lad is pretty well regarded and is keeping his nose clean. He's not over any team. I think he's good at the admin side, email groups and stuff like that.
None of them have ever had anything to do with any of the adult teams, as you'd expect.

None of these are what you call expert coaches, but know the basics very well and very important can teach parents the basics to give us a better chance of teaching the kids.
While you'd get some people saying, they're feckin useless, why are we spending money on them, I think there's no doubt they have increased participation and young member levels. But they don't go near any elite players we might have. If you look at the underage teams in my club and what division they are in, there's a strong correlation with where a team has a mentor who played senior football, then they're inevitably in a higher division than the ones where the mentors have little adult playing experience and are getting their coaching skills from the GPO.

The club is in the initial stages of planning a refurbishment. Clubhouse and pitches badly need improvement. I know capital grants and loans are being applied for, but don't know the detail. Lots (and lots and lots) of fundraising going on, members being asked to dig deep "for the future of the club".

[Lar Naparka]

Any serious Dubs still hanging about?
I have a few genuine questions to put to anyone who is familiar with the way the special developmet funds are being spent.
I had a few pints with an old member of the local GAA club and we got talking about  the uses to which this money is put.
Okay, it's clear enough that clubs pay half the coaching costs and the GAA pony up the rest but my buddy wasn't able to say if all the grant money was spent on coaching only or if moves were being made to attract new members into the clubs.
IMO, if a youngster has to become a member of a club before he can avail of this coaching, the whole process is gong to be self-defeating eventually.
I haven't heard of any club that has recently launched a recruitment drive and  I don't see any more kids wearing GAA gear than the usual amount that has been knocking about for years,
Further more, have any new clubs been set up in Dublin inside, say, the last decade? Can't say I've heard of any.

The coaching grant all goes to the GPO, there's nowhere else it goes. And as you said, the club funds the other 50%.

At my club (a small/medium growing club in Dublin suburbia), the GPO runs coaching sessions every Saturday morning for the young kids, 4-7 years old. Once you get old enough to join a team then parents take over. I think we have 3 primary schools in the area, and the GPO takes PE for various classes in each school, teaching basics in hurling and football to boys and girls and encouraging them to come up on Saturday morning or to join a team if old enough.

The first GPO I had experience of was a Munster lad who loved hurling and didn't care too much about football (we're mainly a football club but have a few hurling fanatics who drive that side of the club - and drive the rest of us up the wall!). This GPO had a great interest in the U15s to minors and they would still speak highly of him. While he was never over them, he became a regular fixture at their hurling training sessions and I believe would usually attend their matches. He had little interest in the younger kids, and while he would be there on the Saturday mornings, he would bring some of the U15, U16 lads to actually do the training drills etc. My son left the GAA club to go to the soccer because the Saturday mornings were a shambles and the soccer academy for his age was far better organised! (That was down to one individual who was a very good coach and had a young lad the same age as mine).

The next GPO we got was an Ulsterwoman. She was a better all rounder.  My lad was back by then, but had little to do with her. She took one coaching session when the main manager of his team and his son left but wouldnt go to the match that weekend. She did become a mentor for one of the girl's teams.  She was a bit rough though, plenty of bad language and eventually annoyed plenty of people!

The current lad is pretty well regarded and is keeping his nose clean. He's not over any team. I think he's good at the admin side, email groups and stuff like that.
None of them have ever had anything to do with any of the adult teams, as you'd expect.

None of these are what you call expert coaches, but know the basics very well and very important can teach parents the basics to give us a better chance of teaching the kids.
While you'd get some people saying, they're feckin useless, why are we spending money on them, I think there's no doubt they have increased participation and young member levels. But they don't go near any elite players we might have. If you look at the underage teams in my club and what division they are in, there's a strong correlation with where a team has a mentor who played senior football, then they're inevitably in a higher division than the ones where the mentors have little adult playing experience and are getting their coaching skills from the GPO.

The club is in the initial stages of planning a refurbishment. Clubhouse and pitches badly need improvement. I know capital grants and loans are being applied for, but don't know the detail. Lots (and lots and lots) of fundraising going on, members being asked to dig deep "for the future of the club".

Thanks Hound, that was a very comprehensive reply sorry I didn't respond sooner.
I asked the question because I was  interested in finding out where the development money is being spent. Going by what John Costello, Paraic Duffy and other prominent GAA spokespersons say, the state of GAA affairs at club level is a cause for alarm and every cent granted to Dub clubs is more than justified if the game is to continue to survive.
I can understand this a lot better than most of my fellow culchies because I was involved with underage football both at schools and club level for many years. 
From what you say and from what I've heard from people involved with local clubs, the grant money is being spent mainly on coaching young players who are already members of some club or other.
It seems little or nothing is being done to attract kids who might otherwise opt to player soccer or not to play football of any sort.
I see that as a serious flaw because the percentage of population that are actively involved with the GAA is far less that it is in (all?) other counties. This is a problem that was identified when the strategic review committee set up in 2002 released its findings. 
If you recall, this committee was set up to deal with areas of concern to the GAA and to come up with a blueprint for the future. One of the problems investigated was the abnormally high dropout rate of Dublin clubs. The pity was that one of the recommendations was that Dublin be split in two and inevitable backlash led to the report being shelved in its entirety.
One finding above all others interested me.
Five Dublin clubs were each so big that it could field more underage players than any one of five different counties. There is a serious downside to this however.
Very few of the youngsters involved with those Dublin clubs, and other large ones, will be around to play at senior level.
Some will leave anyway- same a shappens with other sports but only 30 or so, at most, will player at senior club level. By comparison, the numbers in those counties who will stay with their clubs until they reach that level will be considerably higher.
IIRC, the technogabble used in the report was "Underrepresentation." There just aren't enough places at the top to accommodate the numbers further down the line so many will drop out.
I'd go further and say that the work done by Dublin clubs in catering for young children is commendable and little appreciated. Holding onto them in sufficient numbers is a problem. In the process, a considerable amount of time, money and manpower is involved with little positive return.
The rural counterparts of those Dublin kids may not have the same facilities but they will  belong to a large number of different clubs so the likelihood of them staying on until they reach senior level is far higher.
What put me thinking about this underrepresentation problem was what Paraic Duffy had to say when he retired.

In plain terms, he was backing a system that the GAA had found to be flawed 15 or 16 years ago. Like I say, Dublin GAA has a fight on its hands to hold onto to their market share, never mind increasing it but concentrating on coaching kids who are already club members doesn't seem a good idea to me.

[Dinny Breen]

Dublin North won the Leinster School A Hurling Title last week. Probably gone under the radar, but there was also a Dublin South in the competition. A Dublin team last won it in 2008 when a combined Dublin Colleges team won it.

With all this money being spent and with the schools prepared to go North and South surely inevitable that the clubs will follow suit.

[tippabu]

Dublin North won the Leinster School A Hurling Title last week. Probably gone under the radar, but there was also a Dublin South in the competition. A Dublin team last won it in 2008 when a combined Dublin Colleges team won it.

With all this money being spent and with the schools prepared to go North and South surely inevitable that the clubs will follow suit.

Starting team was made up from 11 different schools and cannot represent beyond leinster, there were 16 different schools represented in the panel

[Dinny Breen]

Dublin North won the Leinster School A Hurling Title last week. Probably gone under the radar, but there was also a Dublin South in the competition. A Dublin team last won it in 2008 when a combined Dublin Colleges team won it.

With all this money being spent and with the schools prepared to go North and South surely inevitable that the clubs will follow suit.

Starting team was made up from 11 different schools and cannot represent beyond leinster, there were 16 different schools represented in the panel

How many different clubs were represented and how would this compare to say St Kierans?

[Syferus]

Amalgamated teams at school level are a total nonsense. Shouldn't be allowed at all. What's the point of A, B and C grades so?