Soccer Pitch ploughed up on GAA instructions

[AZOffaly]

I think the difference is in the level you play at. I know Laoislad was subbed at a fairly high level, so he'd naturally experience the better grounds, especially in Oscar Traynor competition, and Leinster Junior Cup. There's quite a few clubs, including the soccer club in Ferbane (Gallen United) who are very well run and have things like Astro Turf pitches. Portlaoise, Tullamore etc etc are all good setups. Pike Rovers, Fairview etc down in Limerick would put quite a few to shame.

Where you get the farmer's field with sheep shit, ditches for dressing rooms and ankle breaking grounds are the lower divisions of the provincial leagues, and obviously places like Dublin where there's corporation pitches being used.

I think the sweeping statement about soccer clubs is harsh.

Thats a fair enough assessment,I would agree there are clubs run badly and believe me I have played on those full of cow shit farmers fields with the back of someones Transit for a dressing room.
But there are many good hard working people involved in soccer clubs all over Ireland who put in just as much effort as those in Gaa clubs and there are some fine clubs about as a result.

BTW I was never a sub in my life while playing soccer AZ....

I said you were subbed, as in taken off. Only kidding, the full backs are never subbed. They're like corner flags.

[The Real Laoislad]

I think the difference is in the level you play at. I know Laoislad was subbed at a fairly high level, so he'd naturally experience the better grounds, especially in Oscar Traynor competition, and Leinster Junior Cup. There's quite a few clubs, including the soccer club in Ferbane (Gallen United) who are very well run and have things like Astro Turf pitches. Portlaoise, Tullamore etc etc are all good setups. Pike Rovers, Fairview etc down in Limerick would put quite a few to shame.

Where you get the farmer's field with sheep shit, ditches for dressing rooms and ankle breaking grounds are the lower divisions of the provincial leagues, and obviously places like Dublin where there's corporation pitches being used.

I think the sweeping statement about soccer clubs is harsh.

Thats a fair enough assessment,I would agree there are clubs run badly and believe me I have played on those full of cow shit farmers fields with the back of someones Transit for a dressing room.
But there are many good hard working people involved in soccer clubs all over Ireland who put in just as much effort as those in Gaa clubs and there are some fine clubs about as a result.

BTW I was never a sub in my life while playing soccer AZ....

I said you were subbed, as in taken off. Only kidding, the full backs are never subbed. They're like corner flags.

I can't argue with that 

[Bord na Mona man]

Like this field in Kerry, the GAA got a sizeable chunk of its lands in the 26 counties from the Land Commission either for free or for token amounts. No other sport got the same assistance.

I would be very surprised if this is the case?
All the club pitches I am familiar with were either in the possession of the GAA before the Land Commission, or else purchased in recent times.
A lot of them were either bought by local fundraising, or donated.

[lynchbhoy]

I think the difference is in the level you play at. I know Laoislad was subbed at a fairly high level, so he'd naturally experience the better grounds, especially in Oscar Traynor competition, and Leinster Junior Cup. There's quite a few clubs, including the soccer club in Ferbane (Gallen United) who are very well run and have things like Astro Turf pitches. Portlaoise, Tullamore etc etc are all good setups. Pike Rovers, Fairview etc down in Limerick would put quite a few to shame.

Where you get the farmer's field with sheep shit, ditches for dressing rooms and ankle breaking grounds are the lower divisions of the provincial leagues, and obviously places like Dublin where there's corporation pitches being used.

I think the sweeping statement about soccer clubs is harsh.

In this case, it looks like one set of Kerry cute hoors tried to pull a stroke on another set of Kerry cure hoors, and the second set got mad and tried to teach them a lesson. Bull ignorance on both sides I'd say, but it sounds like the GAA are legally right, even if their diplomacy might be a bit underdeveloped. The soccer lads sound like one of those badly run clubs, with little ambition for themselves who suddenly found out their gravy train was coming to an end. I don't think there's glory on anyone, and the 6am ploughing was at best sneaky.

the kerry lads were wrong to plough the field at 6am
they should have done it at 10am in full daylight

having played in leinster counties ,kildare and dublin uc leagues the top few clubs with club houses and grounds are the exception. Its akin to the top three or four senior GAA clubs in each county having similar facilities.
Its great salthill devon and a few others have top notch facilities, but big swinging micheal , sure even the crappiest of gaa clubs have this these days.
why cannot soccer clubs (with funding from the freeloaders association of Ireland - FAI) do what the GAA clubs have done.
I recall playing soccer teams in different 'fields' in various years as they never had their own grounds and never thought to look for them either
they were happy to be nomadic.
If thats what they are happy to go with, then they cannot be whinging about being evicted from fields and places.
should be easier to get fields now that the value of land has gone down. But soccer needs to wake itself up and start paying its own way as imo the majority of clubs are freeloaders at worst or casually negligent/optimistic at best!

[stew]

i would have a bit of experience myself up in the north and i can honestly say that the clubs with their own facilities are mainly the ones that play in the irish league divisions (and even some of those teams dont). in terms of junior soccer teams the first time i have ever played at a grond which was owned by the team we were playing against was last saturday. other than that it is always pitches provided by local councils etc with the clubs having absolutely no ambition to develop their own ground.

But most GAA facilities were provieded either for free or at a discount by the state....

Its a bit unreasonable to expect soccer clubs to keep up with GAA facilities considerng they have grown in numbers in the middle of the Celtic Tiger boom and would have had to pay developers for pitches. Very few GAA clubs have had to do that.

The problem with some soccer players and clubmen, both  in the north and the south is they love to hate on the gaa, they were too feckin lazy or simply didnt care enough to go out and raise funds to develop their club....................... strike that,they didnt even have people who had a vision to do that in a lot of cases. The fact is the GAA is the success it is today because the people at the grass roots level had a vision and they worked bloody hard to make that vision happen, the Harps in Armagh is a prime example of this, I know the work GAA members put into their clubs, there are men on this board that worked 20 plus hours a week for the club without compensation because they want what's best for the club they love.

Some soccer heads sicken my shite, they piss and moan about the big bad gaa and the special breaks they get and all the while they sit on their hands and do feck all to improve their infrastructure but have the balls to whine about the GAA. I have news for your clowns, the GAA has a legacy of building strength through the community for well over a hundred years, the soccer clubs higher powers that be, i.e. the IFA and FAI have let down their members and supporters because they have been run very badly for DECADES. The IFA seem to be getting stronger however the FAI are about as useful as teats on a bull.

[stew]

Salthill Devon are a fantastic club and more power to them but they are very much the exception. It shows what can be done though.

Thats great, their members obviously learned somethign from their GAA counterparts and decided to actually get out into the community and work to get the facilities they wanted, by stark contrast there are hundreds of soccer clubs all over Ireland who do feck all to improve their lot but still find the time to sit on their hands and complain about the big bad GAA.

There was one muppet from Louth who lived here in Green Bay for ten years, he absolutely hated the GAA with a passion and yes he was a soccer head, he spoke with such passion and conviction about his beloved club and bemoaned the fact that his club had nothing while the big bad GAA club had everything and it seemed that every woe in his life was the GAA's fault. I asked him one question and it was this, when was the last time you or one of your fellow members put together a proposal to buy a site for the club that would house a clubhouse and maybe a few parking spots, he thought about this and said it had never come up, I just looked at him and said well in my experience with gaelic football clubs it always comes up and the members who are the lifes blood of the organization work hard for years to get what they want, I challenged his committment and told him to get back to me when he could prove to me that the GAA get special treatment from the powers that be. I have been waiting years for a response and of course there will never be one because he would rather sit on his arse and complain than actually get involved in helping his club/association, and therin lies the difference.

[brianboru00]

What is the latest with this

[Orior]

What is the latest with this

In a shock development, it has been discovered that the field was ploughed.... by a man on a tractor.

[AZOffaly]

What is the latest with this

The latest is that it's come up lovely with two harvests of Kerrs Pinks. They've been sold and the soccer club is buying their own pitch with the profits.

Everyone is happy.

[Lar Naparka]

The approach seems a bit harsh alright, but sometimes its easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I know a case in (not gonna say where) of a soccer mad family who have allowed the local club play on family land for 15 years or so, always on the understanding that it was a temporary arrangement. 3 years ago when the father wanted to get sites for his 2 girls, he served the club with notice to move off. They promply blockaded the land and are in the process of sueing for squatters title. Looks like the family is gonna lose their own land.
I've no doubt that they now wish they'd locked the soccer club out instead of doing it the nice way.

This is the story that interests me most; I wonder what the outcome was. My sympathy is with the farmer but his rights in law are what matters. Being morally right is one thing but it's being legally right that matters.
There's a soccer club in my area that's bucks the usual trend as the members fundraised and bought their own grounds.  Everything was going well until the building boom began and the land on both sides of their entrance laneway was built upon. There was no problem at the beginning as the houses on both sides backed onto this lane and they had no access to this lane. Then one very elderly house owner, who had been a club member for years, got leave to knock an opening in his back wall and use the lane.
The very strict understanding on all sides was that this was a personal matter and the right of access was to be granted to this man and to him alone. He died shortly after he began to use the lane and the new owner promptly began to use it as well. The club objected and took him to court. The judge found in favour of the house owner and he was granted right of access.
A GAA club in Dublin had a somewhat similar problem some years ago. It has a high wall all around its grounds and the committee felt it had full ownership of all the land inside this wall. Years ago, a group of members were allowed to set up a pitch and putt course in a corner of the grounds. It seemed the right to use this plot was cut and dried; the club was very much a part of the overall club and members attended AGMs and the likes. The fun began when the executive committee decided to close the pitch and putt section down as the area in question was to be used for a juvenile pitch.  The 'tenants' objected and the case went to court. The club lost this case and had to leave the pitch and putt course as it was.
It might be a good idea for all clubs to have a solicitor check their legal rights to the grounds they use.

[dublinfella]

It might be a good idea for all clubs to have a solicitor check their legal rights to the grounds they use.

Which is an extremely valid point. Despite the invective on here about soccer clubs using council pitches, more GAA facilities than you would think are on land that the GAA don't own, but are trustees on or rent.

Look at the handball alley row at Croke Park for an example. The GAA lodged planning permission to build offices on the site despite the fact that they are trustees. The fundamental issue in Kerry was the same. There seems to be an attitude that if the GAA run the site as a trustee they own it and can change use, and that is not the case and legally very, very dodgy territory to be on

[jodyb]

The approach seems a bit harsh alright, but sometimes its easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I know a case in (not gonna say where) of a soccer mad family who have allowed the local club play on family land for 15 years or so, always on the understanding that it was a temporary arrangement. 3 years ago when the father wanted to get sites for his 2 girls, he served the club with notice to move off. They promply blockaded the land and are in the process of sueing for squatters title. Looks like the family is gonna lose their own land.
I've no doubt that they now wish they'd locked the soccer club out instead of doing it the nice way.

This is the story that interests me most; I wonder what the outcome was. My sympathy is with the farmer but his rights in law are what matters. Being morally right is one thing but it's being legally right that matters.
There's a soccer club in my area that's bucks the usual trend as the members fundraised and bought their own grounds.  Everything was going well until the building boom began and the land on both sides of their entrance laneway was built upon. There was no problem at the beginning as the houses on both sides backed onto this lane and they had no access to this lane. Then one very elderly house owner, who had been a club member for years, got leave to knock an opening in his back wall and use the lane.
The very strict understanding on all sides was that this was a personal matter and the right of access was to be granted to this man and to him alone. He died shortly after he began to use the lane and the new owner promptly began to use it as well. The club objected and took him to court. The judge found in favour of the house owner and he was granted right of access.
A GAA club in Dublin had a somewhat similar problem some years ago. It has a high wall all around its grounds and the committee felt it had full ownership of all the land inside this wall. Years ago, a group of members were allowed to set up a pitch and putt course in a corner of the grounds. It seemed the right to use this plot was cut and dried; the club was very much a part of the overall club and members attended AGMs and the likes. The fun began when the executive committee decided to close the pitch and putt section down as the area in question was to be used for a juvenile pitch.  The 'tenants' objected and the case went to court. The club lost this case and had to leave the pitch and putt course as it was.
It might be a good idea for all clubs to have a solicitor check their legal rights to the grounds they use.

Finally have an answer for you Lar. Haven't seen the mate in months but was talkin to him a couple of days ago. The club successfully sued for possession by adverse title and are now the legal owners. Family land no more./