If BO'B is to deliver LoI football in Meath, he'll have to try and get the district league united behind a representative team. The youth leagues are the place to start. BO'B says if Kerry can do it, Meath can do it. They sure can but a representative team for a county won't suit every where. It seems the right way for Kerry. Clubs coming together for a representative team happens in another sport in the county.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
With a scale model of the ground if you dont mind.Originally Posted by Nesta99
I did! I said 'I think'......etc. But yeah my point(s) can get lost in rambling nature of my postsIts arguably all pure random speculation that he was being literal and he has genuine aspirations to get Athboy in to LoI. Until there is a 5 or 10 year plan produced with the aim of being a senior club we are all speculating on his comments.
This is the LOI you know
I think the siutation is very different in Meath than maybe Kerry and Mayo.
The NEFL, the league that mens team in Meath play in, also have plenty of Louth teams from both Dundalk and Drogheda, while the the underage league NECL, has lots of teams from south Louth. Both leagues also have some from Cavan/ Monaghan as well. Hard to see any of these teams from outside of Meath caring enough about pushing for an underage-LOI team, when there is two in Louth (and one minor one in Monaghan), that many of their youngsters can play for. (To be fair too, the standard of football in these leagues has improved in the last while too).
The east side of Meath is a strong recruiting ground for Drogheda (while the north part is for Dundalk). Plenty of Meath GAA players played underage LOI for Drogheda. Mickey Newman for example.That option probably isnt the case for maybe a Kerry or Mayo. East Meath - Duleek/ Bettystown are basically suburbs of Drogheda. Plenty of very loyal Drogs fans are living in East Meath, as county, Meath kind of does have a LOI team already in Drogheda, because the hinterland in the south of the town stretches well into the county.
On top of that, the demographic changes of Meath means a lot of Meath isnt exactly 'loyal' to the county, as maybe a Kerry or Mayo man might be. Ashbourne and Dunboyne are Meath in name only. Its really Dublin. In fact, St. Pats recruit pretty effectively from the the county too.
So at least for the east side of Meath, there are as many LOI opportunities as with the best places in the country. It is well serviced. As for the west part of the county, it is probably under-developed in that regard.
But to conclude... I would say a Meath underage LOI team ala Mayo/Kildare/ Kerry will never happen (and maybe shouldnt).... Only chance would be for team from Navan or (unlikely Trim) wanting to expand
Last edited by Kiki Balboa; 20/06/2022 at 5:38 PM.
Good local knowledge Kiki. It also expertly shows why the whole 'every county should have an LOI club' notion is just misguided.
Maybe this is a bit of tangent but I would also say, from growing up... Football in Meath was shocking bad. Country teams in Louth would reguarly beat Meath teams (including the Navan clubs), the NECL was far below the standard of the Dundalk league (with exceptions of course). I remember the grounds being shocking bad as well. Just fields with markings. Louth teams normally have very pretty good facilities, even if from the countryside (Walshestown, Albion Rovers, Bellurgan, Ardee Celtic etc. ). Its a geniune cultural shock that the worst grounds in Louth were the standard pitch in Meath. Exception, as one poster pointed out, was Trim Celtic, which is a proper club run well (from what I remember). They are well established at all levels.
I would definitley say it has changed in the last decade and a half. From what I seen, the football has gotten better at both senior and underage. The MDL Grounds are a great set-up, and there underage leagues are expanding in the number of teams. Where previously there was only Parkvilla in Navan at underage, you now have OMP and Navan Cosmos playing. The population of Navan, supported by Athboy-Kells-Trim is probably an area of the country without an LOI team that could support one. I still think you could have an LOI team there... but they will have to build the foundations differently than Mayo and Kerry.
Killarney wouldn't get behind Tralee Dynamos but they will get behind Kerry FC. Just as we cannot magic up a club, we cannot magic up clubs forgoing years of entrenched rivalry to support a rival who decide to step up to the League of Ireland.
Supporters of Cobh Wanderers have absolute disdain for Cobh Ramblers?
"The population of Navan, supported by Athboy-Kells-Trim is probably an area of the country without an LOI team that could support one."
If these areas can row in behind a Navan club, great! Roll with it!
If there's any entrenched rivalry at all, there's a blank canvas opportunity to have representative youth football for that area. Give it a few years. It either establishes or not. That then can be the deciding factor on making the push to League of Ireland football or not.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
Very interesting thread, prompting a few thoughts, as follow.
1. If NI can have a pyramid from Junior, through Intermediate, to Senior, then there is no good (stress) reason why ROI cannot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northe..._league_system
Even the women are getting in with it, with the Premiership currently comprising 8 teams (due to expand to ten), with 7 divisions beneath that (last two regionalised):
https://www.niwfa.org/ (Click on "Leagues")
2. Even the original pyramid builders 4,000 years ago knew that you build from the bottom up, not from the top down. In particular, for new clubs to commit to achieving and maintaining third tier status, they must know that there will be the safety net of a fourth tier.should they go through a bad spell and get relegated.
While promotion from beneath is the best way of ensuring sustainable competitive standards throughout.
3. The LOI's proposed schedule seems unfeasibly rushed:
"Commence consultation on the formation of an Irish football pyramid by Q4, 2022 with an agreed and transformed football pyramid structure in place by 2025"
https://www.fai.ie/domestic/news/fai...-2025-launched
It has taken the IFA/NIFL twenty-odd years to get to the present state, with continuous development, evaluation, and reform along the way. Here, for example, are the latest Licensing criteria for clubs wishing to play in the third tier or above, an 86 page document(!):
http://www.irishfa.com/media/37056/i...ion-manual.pdf
(Note the minimum stadia requirements in Annex D, from page 63 onwards)
4. I really don't understand how artificially elevating Youth Leagues can lead to consistent, sustained, country-wide clubs at adult level - at best it might lead to one or two teams emerging and becoming established (Kerry? Mayo?), but a lot more are surely needed for a third tier, never mind a supporting Intermediate level beneath.
5. There is no mention of how to get round the problem of summer/winter leagues, as it effects promotion and relegation to and from the third tier.
Now I should add, that I'm not saying any of this in order to "big up" the system in NI, never mind "do down" that in ROI - God knows we've got plenty of problems of our own in NI, while the existing LOI has many credits over the NIFL, not least playing standards and attendances.
But I have to say some of the suggestions for expansion seem to me to be far from reality. For example, I took a quick look at Athboy Celtic's Facebook page. They've got a nice, shiny new Clubhouse, overlooking a fine looking pitch, with two 6-a-side all weather pitches adjacent. And there's probably hard surface parking for 30 or 40 cars. All very good in itself, but there are absolultely no facilities for spectators, indeed not even a rope round the pitch.
Now I get that no-one is taking this particular proposal seriously, on here or elsewhere, but the fact that a former CEO of the FAI could even suggest it, without being laughed out of town, is closer to Father Ted than the Premier League.
And before anyone comes back to have a pop, I might add that as well as having a general nerd's interest in such matters, I am also thinking ahead to a possible All-Ireland league etc, which if properly done could help domestic football on both sides of the border. But before this latter could happen. both the LOI and the NIFL need to get their acts together.
Last edited by EalingGreen; 20/06/2022 at 11:08 PM.
Interesting post above Kiki. Long post alert, and im not sure I can get across my own experience of or thoughts on Navan/Meath and having a LoI team as its not at all straight forward with the eccentricities.
I spent weeks every summer as kid staying with family in Navan and sports communities were very different to what I experienced in Dundalk and elsewhere. It was/IS a town thats hard to profile for sporting organisations and this partly contributed to there never being a solid effort by any clubs that could join LoI . When working for the Sport Development section of LouthCoCo we often met up with our Meath counterparts and many a chat was had on this subject, and the consensus was there was no consensus that a senior club could work. They often spoke of the difficulty of allocating resources where it could be most effective - MDL ground was a good choice in the end but there was nerviness when it was formed, that bridges were being burnt by breaking away from another district league and that it could fizzle out if clubs didnt take up an invitation to join. They certainly never envisaged that it could grow to be the main regional leagues with over 50 clubs and many of them fielding multiple teams.
People that were kids from 1987 to 2001 (including that semi final series with Dublin), they tend to be very GAA and are still, but there hasnt been another surge in Meath support since 2001 (prior to that they tended to do something every decade that kept people interested and getting a boost with newcomers, they now tend to be a more passive type supporter i.e. you just follow your own county, watch them if they happen to be on tv, and if going to games it will generally be the latter stages of an all Ireland, the die hards are fewer with there being over 20 years since being at the business end of things over the summer. There are 17 senior GAA clubs in Meath, and of those some are always struggling to grow participation. Louth has 40+ clubs in contrast and dont have have the level of issues with participation to the same extent. The standard is poorer in Louth regardless of participation but thats a whole different discussion. .
Navan rugby club also had a good following in relative terms especially for the Towns Cup. Soccer was the niche sport in general not just LoI niche - there were pockets of support for Drogheda and even Dundalk but minimal though they did exist, and now after 2016 EL campaign, for bigger games a mini bus goes from Navan (and Kells) to Oriel Park.
Things changed a lot from late 90s and for about a decade as people from Dublin moved to Navan and other Meath towns. While a lot already had an affiliation to their Dublin LoI club, there was a jump in soccer participation. Conversely there was a decline in numbers playing GAA (although that was from high starting levels) it was felt that growth in soccer clubs was connected with a decline in All-Ireland success, and new residents didnt have a sense of connection with Meath GAA. so mid noughties the MDL really took off, had their nice facilities refurbished and extended and additional pitches went in. A good proportion of that growth wasnt local to Navan and environs with Louth, Monaghan and Cavan clubs joining. With population growth the sociodynamic of the town changed and schoolboy clubs were being swamped - there wasnt the amount of schoolboy clubs like you'd see in Drogheda or Dundalk for example and there was a big shortage of coaches. There were few options then after for footballers when they became too old for schoolboys unless players were good enough to play in the junior or intermediate game. A lot played in the AUL also.
Anyways....so the MDL evolved in to a North East regional league, was well run and the standard has been on the up. With a closer look and as Kiki alludes to, there are good reasons why Jamie McGrath was the first senior mens cap from Meath. On the fringes looking in you would think that football was really thriving in Navan but the majority of participating clubs were from other towns and regions
From chatting with coaches in Navan or from Meath over the years, they wouldnt say that a senior/LoI club in Navan is a banker at all, irrespective of the population. There isnt a club that can make that connect with people that they would get out and support so any potential club from Meath playing LoI would be need to be a new club and let time do its work where people start to relate to the club. Trim would be an exception where there is a club and history already there that people could buy in to. Something like Meath FC, especially if based in Navan would cause a load of hassle with Trim and Dunboyne clubs and maybe Athboy now.
Last edited by Nesta99; 21/06/2022 at 2:25 PM.
On 2, ideally that fourth tier would itself be a provincial/regional league that would bridge the gap between LoI reserve teams and county league clubs - in Munster, for instance, that would include teams from the MSL, KDL, Limerick and District League, and Tipp South and District League, among others, though what would be ideal for that province mightn't work for Connacht-Ulster, perhaps.
I think the Third Tier is a good step in building a pyramid though, because of the massive gap there is between the First Division and regional/intermediate leagues. Not only in terms of players, but also in resources. If a Kerry team were in the league this year, they would have faced 3 full-time teams (Cork, Galway, Waterford). Very few teams would want that risk, there is too big of a gap to overcome (nevermind the risky finance situation). Also, there really isn't an intermediate system in Ireland. You have the USL (Donegal league), LSL (Dublin league) and the MSL (Cork League), but they all more-or less act as local leagues, with some outsiders. I know in Louth a couple of teams play in the LSL, but then dropped out to the NECL, because, for them, it was a bit pointless. Long trips to Dublin, for very little prestige league, no local credit given. LSL was seen as the same as the NECL really.
You are definitely right about building it up from the bottom too, just im not sure that is proper first step. I think there is a problem with the junior/intermediate leagues because once you get down from the top LSL and MSL leagues, where do the regional leagues fit in. The standard of football might be higher in the leagues (if they are), but that also might be because the bigger regional areas have no real drive to improve. There is a low ceiling for the regional league teams (and probably for the LSL teams too) which means they stagnate. Creating a system were growth is rewarded (via promotions... access to play in prestigous leagues) is vital.
So, the Thrid Tier is a necessary first step because it fills the gap of a real top intermediate league and is a pretty big missing piece in Irish Football.
The thing is though - all existing clubs will have some sort of neighbouring 'rivals'. It's the nature of both football in general and Ireland[s parish structures in particular. If a particular club decides to make the step up to senior football, then I doubt they care about their rivals 'rowing in' behind them. That wouldn't have been a concern for the likes of Longford Town or Finn Harps or Bray Wanderers when they all stepped up to the senior game. And most ordinary people aren't usually connected to non-league clubs in their area (or at least not strongly so). So once an area without a senior club gets one, then any ordinary people with a potential interest in a local team in the LOI will be drawn towards them - including from areas with previously rival teams in (e.g. Finn Harps drawing fans from a wide area). Those ordinary supporters won't care about the rivals up the road who are now a level below anyway. so irrelevant.
In short - feck the small town rivalry. The first club in an area to ascend to the senior game steals the advantage. If the area can sustain senior football then so be it. If that objective is such a marginal task as to be dependent upon which of a set of rival clubs made the jump first, then senior football probably isn't built on strong enough foundations in that area anyway.
Very knowledgeable posts above from Kiki and Nesta on soccer in Meath and it's development over the years. Consider my cap doffed.
Regarding facilities, I'd say Athboy, along with Trim always had a decent pitch. They put big money into the convent grounds in the early 80s when the club first formed. I remember weekends as a youngster when matches were called off all over the county due to rain but Athboy's game went ahead. At the expense of not building a clubhouse they built a proper pitch with real irrigation and drainage etc. There was a period where the senior team played a bit outside the town but in recent years they've now built a second ground (both in the town) with more pitches, all weathers and finally a proper clubhouse. Athboy were always well run and had good people involved, they've just been limited by their small population.
Fair point above too regarding much of east and south Meath already being in the catchment area of established Louth and Dublin LOI clubs.
The only remaining area in Meath that could potentially develop a LOI club would be Navan/Trim/Athboy/Kells areas.
For me, the real elephant in the room here, and maybe what B'OB was getting at, is how underwhelming Navan soccer has been over the years given their size, especially since the population boom over recent decades. You'd imagine if any Navan club was run as well as Trim, or even Athboy or Kells they would have been been able to develop soccer a lot more in the town.
Also worthwhile mentioning that Athboy are competing with a rugby club, indoor basketball club and decent gaa club (leinster junior football champs in 07) in the town too.
Their website states they've 300 registered members, which is fairly decent when you consider that's more than 10% of the towns population.
Any chance of the two or three junior clubs in Navan merging to form a new club?
oh boy I'm not good at football forums
Every area/region is different. No one solution for all. When Mayo players start moving beyond U19 level, they either follow what Kerry FC are trying to do or one club takes it on.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined. First Division '14: 7 first teams.
Opportunity lost for new clubs/regions to join the LoI family.
As far as I can tell, there is only one real junior club in Navan that has anyway of a proper schoolboys section is Parkvilla. Even at that, they are a club that for their catchment area (1oth largest urban area in the country), are very small. OMP United and Navan Cosmos have schoolboy teams... but I wouldnt call them proper schoolboy sections. They have normally always been senior teams.
Also, technically in county Meath, Ashbourne Utd, Dunboyne and Rathoath Harps are all staples of the North Dublin Schoolboys league and LSL, and dont compete in the NECL/NEFL (the more proper Meath league). Those clubs are far more competitive/ developed than Parkvilla would be.
-------------------
I actually find the topic hugely interesting. Drogheda, Dundalk, and Navan are towns of a similar size, in a similar place in the country. Yet, the football is radically different in each town. Each town has very different circumstances and very different infrastructures. You could nearly write a book on it.
Towns like Ashbourne, Ratoath, Dunshaughlin and Dunboyne are very much in the Dublin sphere of influence in every way. A guy from Ratoath once admitted to me that they thought lads from beyond Navan were wild country men. To them, Navan was even borderline, at best.
So the county is quite split in many ways. There's the Dublin sphere of influence in the south, the Drogheda sphere of influence to the east, and then the Navan/Trim/Kells/Athboy area, which I think someone called 'proper' Meath above 🙂.
A LOI 3rd tier team in that area, based in Navan, would be interesting to see.
It might even put a stop to Trim hoovering up the best players from their surrounds, as those top players would be naturally drawn to the LOI team. Currently the top 6/7 players from Athboy actually play with Trim Celtic, which means the Athboy senior team is much poorer than it should be. They've spent most of the past 10 years not even in the top division, which makes B'OBs comments even more laughable. There was apparently a big dispute in Trim about that recently because most Trim guys couldn't get anywhere near the Trim Celtic 1st team, which contains guys from all over.
Do we think Mullingar would ever be considered for LOI again? I’ve no idea what the local situation is there in terms of competing with other sports buts it’s a large town that’s attempted LOI before….
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
I think we can just give up on Mullingar.
Not even just in terms of the LOI, just generally.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
Isn't it "putting the cart before the horse" to look at a town/district/county/region to see if they could rustle up a club to join the senior set-up, esp if that club is amateur, or even "generously expensed", never mind semi-pro?
Surely you need to start with already established clubs which have the potential to step up at some stage, of which there must be many throughout the country?
Which means giving them a proper structure within which to operate, so that the best of them (playing standard, stadium, facilities, structure, finances, support etc) can then make the step-up sustainably and organically.
I mean, if anyone had suggested a generation ago that eg Ballinamallard (fFounded 1975) or Warrenpoint Town (1987) would ever achieve senior status in NI as semi-pro teams, they'd have been laughed at. Or Dungannon Swifts (1949) a generation before that.
Yet all three (and others) made their way up from the bottom of the pyramid to the top, where they've all proven a welcome addition.
Of course, to set up a structure to facilitate that sort of evolution in ROI could take a decade (minimum) or two (more likely). But that is surely an argument for starting now, rather than grasping at some other process, no matter how unsuitable, simply because it gives a veneer of quick "progress"
Last edited by EalingGreen; 22/06/2022 at 4:29 PM.
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