Messages

Culture:
Armagh and Antrim to use an example, both had their moments in the 50's.  Armagh came back again in the 70's, reaching the All Ireland in '77, and they more or less stuck around during the 80's and 90's, and took off again in the noughties.  All those teams for Armagh bred the next generation of success. Each team gave their supporters big days out and created an aspiration for young people to play for their county.  Along the way they benefited to an extent from colleges.

By comparison, during the same period Antrim completely lost its way.  The U21 team in the early 70's was the last chance, but we all know what happened sadly, and we lost our way in Antrim more than any other county. The 70's run into the 80's, which run into the 90's, with nothing of note bar the run to the Ulster Final under Baker a while back.  The hurlers had their high point in the late 80's/ early 90's and for plenty in the county not much care could they give about the big ball. The city in particular is very diverse (no bad thing) when it comes to choice of sports or other past times, whereas GAA in South Armagh for instance remained solidly the main if not only show in town, and it was football not hurling. 

The problem now is we've lost the know how, the belief, the willingness.  It would take a monumental collective effort to get Antrim football back in the big time.  We might get lucky with a few generational players and I hoped for a while that might be about to happen - perhaps.  You've seen Duignan come in in Offaly and try to do something like this, although their previous high points weren't as far back.

Our footballing pool has actually become quite small in my opinion.  Most wouldn't know Dermot McAleese if he was standing in front of them (with all due respect).  Casement is just kicking a man when he's down, and is partly self inflicted and reflects the fact that we've had all sorts of administrations running us over the decades and to be honest it's been self-aggrandising or dodgy too often. 

So back to culture, Armagh, Derry and Tyrone have all hung in, had big days, made their own heroes and as they say success breeds success.  Antrim haven't (and Down are in a precarious enough state).  No easy road out of this.  We're scraping around saying maybe it's this, maybe it's that, but I can only think it needs rebuilt from the very bottom up.

Very difficult to magic a county culture out of nothing, has to start at clubs (literally getting cubs to watch their club senior teams) and by extension schools, as player quality goes up the magic moments will start happening at club, school and county. It's a 20 year project.

Antrim need to start running a program on promoting the idea of a "club" Antrim identity. Went to school in Derry in the 80's early 90's and they looked down on Antrim and would talk of pride of Derrys achievements. You fall into the trap of believing them until you realised that Antrim had twice as many Ulsters etc than they did.

The pride Derry lads have is both at a club level and county, always talking about their sucesses. When I joined Antrim minors, we never talked about tradition, winning tradition, the Derry lads have it literally beat into them.


Antrim need to start with youth, coaching etc, and a clear psychology of winning needs to be bombarded into them, from about needing to win and what it takes to win at the top

Usually stay quiet on this issues but I'm getting frustrated on this topic so here goes.

1) the size and capacity for this stadium has nothing to do  with Antrim, it's an Ulster council project and they are planning for semi finals / finals, and 34,000 is what they want
2) The Ulster council are following a standard global stadium business model, where they want to maximize the facility economic potential, therefore conferences, concerts etc need to be considered. This is important, if you can develop alternative funding streams that lessen the load on your current revenue sources you would be an idiot not to do it.
3) Antrim signed Casement over to the UC because the stand needed to be demolished and rebuilt and the Ulster council stepped in, took ownership of the site and responsibility to the demolition etc
4) Ulster council were too arrogant, assuming approval was a certanity, and Antrim board were too naive, believing the Ulster council knew what they were talking about
5) The design problems center around the design concept of traditional stadium bowl. It might have been easier to have private boxes, conference facilities focused on the Andytown road and the existing stand location with the other two sides single tier with support facilities. This would have eliminated the concern of residents about the height of the stadium. (Reading FC, NASCAR stadiums are designed like this   

This could be an increasing problem going forward. Was talking to some NY clubmates and they stated that Croke Park were putting pressure on the US cities to complete their championships eariler so that US GAA wont interfere with the club championships back home.

If this is the approach, then players who are interested in coming out will have to choose between county and travel

You probably didnt see the Hurlers yesterday after that defeat, very difficult to take considering we had a great chance to at least draw level. they posed with kids for photos and signed hurls for ages after the dust had settled.

Kids look up to the seniors so while they probably feel crap after losing the correct thing to do is pose and sign the hurls, nothing wrong with that.

I get the point that RC has laid claim to I don't understand why players in the past 50 odd years would be bothered to just turn up for the jersey and limelight it would bring, and then blame previous managers because of it, there are players on the team now that have been on the panel for over 12 years are they part of that culture of ones RC is talking about?

We'd have to go back to Baker to find a team that enjoyed playing with skill and determination, but we also had better players, its all very easy to blame previous managers but you'd be going back a brave few years and a lot of managers. There has to be a fair bitta blame on that players also.

The problem with Antrim football at the moment is that we seem to produce a solid team every 10 or so years, that last for 1-2 years.

In between times we are always rebuilding. The trick is how do we shorten the time period to produce the next team and how do we prolong their success.

We had a good team around the 2000's (White), then around 2007-2010 (Baker) and this group looks to have good potential 2023. And we're not talking about Div 1 std, we're talking about just being competitive

I was at the Convent and tech at the same time early 90's one of the first, Not too many A-Levels at the time suited for Architecture whereas the Techs had Tech Drawing. When a different route at the finish.

Should have transferred to St Pats, we had an A level Tech Drwing

[development squad model]

Surprise Surprise, Tyrone school casts net a bit wider to attract grade A footballers. Are we saying this ambition us wrong? Heaven forbid an Antrim school would ever start thinking like this!

Perhaps just annoyed that Antrim loses it's grade A footballers to schools like Magherafelt and St Ronan's Lurgan.

Maybe they are Grade A because they went to Magherafelt and Lurgan?  Apart from the grammar schools we also have to encourage our high schools and vocational schools.

There is a good point, a good number of our lads go to St Conor's, and although a Derry school their success is as important if not more to us as Saint Louis. 

Had a look into it last week and there are 42 teams in the MacRory(14),MacLarnon(16) and Markey(12) competitions.

We have 3 MacLarnon (Rathmore, St Marys CBS and St Louis) and 1 in the Markey (St Malachys Belfast).

Donegal has 9 teams across the 3 and it'd be interesting to look at their county squad and see which of these schools they came through.

Then you have Derry who have 5 schools competing but when you have Maghera and Magherafelt as two of them you are in a strong position.

As has been said before it's up to us in some of our clubs to up our game before we blame either school or county development squads.

Agree clubs can/must up the game  Schools and development squads play a big part as well. Most rural clubs have peaks and troughs in numbers. Mixing and playing with a higher and more competitive standard of player plus what should be a higher standard of coaching pulls everyone up.
Average players develop into good players... Good players develop into Very Good...

As for Donegal.... Historically they did well at County Vocational level. There school numbers would be relatively small but they are competitive at lower levels. They have been very strong for many years with regards to development squads and were way ahead of most on this.

Take a look at Letterkenny IT Sigerson team who beat a star studded UCD team..... 15 starters all from Donegal got beat by a late goal by finalists Nuig.

Different model that works for them

Unfortunately apart from the odd exception neither schools or development squad model works in Antrim

The develpoment squad system doesn't. Our standard baseline is lower than other counties, so they are picking the cream from a higher talented crop.

Antrim's development system needs to be focused on how to raise all standards.

This is one where I've experienced soccer getting it right. In both England and the US, professional teams run development centres that support a group of clubs. Clubs will encourage (some will enforce) their kids to go to these. The fact that they are getting top class coaching with the better players in a area helps with standards

my fault for believign that Gfast was for belfast and surrounding areas . Do we really need coaches in Toome the strongest area for football in Antrim? or hurling coaches in the glens? this is a cop out. I , and i'm entitled to my opinion, is they should be in North / South / East Belfast flat out - greater need but harder work

Gaelfast is the coaching of the games department of Antrim GAA.
Our aim is to reinvigorate Gaelic Games ni Belfast and Antrim....

Are you sure about that?

I think Gaelfast required the approval of Down County board for it to fly with Croke Park in the initial planning.

It was also noted that the Dublin program catered for the whole of the county including country clubs.

Also, my relatives in Dublin told me that the main issue in Dublin was the north siders, the south side clubs had money and resources, but the Dublin county when for a holistic program, nt just a northsider one.

So Antrim is smart running a full county program

Just catching up on the conversation, ref schools, are good first step would be to create a Co Antrim schools championship, create some local rivalry.  Kerry and Cork do this, and vocational schools used to have this structure.

Might be a small step in creating the GAA coulture that we were discussing eariler

So Tyrone have made the bold step of releasing a new Jersey that is actually the same as the one 5 years ago...hoping no one notices.

https://twitter.com/darragh1984/status/1484612639565266947?t=i_WxKSEEj-KwkHMG-oRVQA&s=19

Strange. Won't help sales as many fans already have it in back of wardrobe, including me.

3 vertical stripes replaced with 4 (got to update for the all ireland) and a v neck instead of a round collar - very important changes

Heard the spirit levels were pretty good tho....

Mc Nultys have completed 3 years, and finished with the McNamee. A move to the next challenge (or a well earned rest) is to be expected.

Finger on the pulse as usual Bannside, the Latter I have heard from numerous sources.

Martin Mc Elkennon and/or Enda Muldoon by any chance??

Ciaran Mc Cartney maybe in the frame.....?

I would have thought that Dougie would be in pole position now after he won the "battle of the brickie" junior final

[quality ex players in place from under-6 squad right through to seniors.]

Maybe the point has been lost in the noise but St Galls' super success was boosted with a different process than your typical Antrim club and without such may have been just an excellent club side in Antrim rather than the All -Ireland champions.   

Your typical Antrim club needs an environmental change and shift in local culture allied to proper structures in order to get to anywhere to the position that Bannside is aiming for.  That takes time, belief, confidence and a complete change in mindset within and around the club community.   

The question is are Antrim Gaels capable of that?  Can we create that culture or is there too much distraction, apathy or lack of will?  Would the Antrim team ever be household names in the county?

Is a lesson well learned in Cargin.....quality ex players in place from under-6 squad right through to seniors.

This is the trick. Some people are obsessed with the senior manager, but its the youth coaches who are critical in the club. With the right coaches who are passionate about the club who know the sport,  they are the really important ones.

From a Creggan point of view, when Toby became chairman in the 90's, he worked really hard at getting teams together who would stay at an age group for a couple of years. We also had Micky Moran and Hugh McGettigan  took time to coach the coaches, focusing on a evolving process from U8 to U18. That's where the hard grind is.

I seem to recall St Endas leaving South Antrim to join SW & NA leagues & championships due to lack of games at underage. It worked a treat for them.

I know what you are saying but they still based in South Antrim on the map! None of their lads go to school in Derry either

But they benefit from playing against kids who do go to Derry schools. forgetting maps, St Enda's are a SW club. They came to the SW and asked for help and the SW let them join, with restrictions for the first year. I#t has been a major success for the club. So if St Enda's win a senior championship, it will be under the SW banner

[Pat Spillane]

I hate these things, why not just list the top 15 players who received the most All Stars in that position.

The problem is that the team would be dominated by Kerry.

Top 14 players with total All Starts

9   Pat Spillane   
8   Colm Cooper   
7   Mikey Sheehy   
6   Stephen Cluxton
6    Peter Canavan   
6   Jack O'Shea   
6   Ger Power   
5   Brian Fenton   
5   John Egan   
5   John O'Keeffe   
5   Páidí Ó Sé   
5   Tomás Ó Sé   
5   John O'Leary   
5   Seán Cavanagh   

With the exception of John O'Leary (Cluxton), who can you exclude the players with the most All stars from a list of best all star team. Nuts

They must be building Jurassic Park out in Ballykinlar!

They def pulled together a monster of a committee. Maybe spending more time building a committee than finding a manager