What would be the cause , overheads, lacks of players and coaches ?
Announced on Twitter they were closing the doors ,sad to see one of the founding members of the League of Ireland disappear completely…..
https://mobile.twitter.com/StJamesGa...33834712367106
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
What would be the cause , overheads, lacks of players and coaches ?
Shocked by that news. Very sad. Does anyone know what the story is here ? Is it financial, or are they struggling to get players and field a team ? If the latter, you'd think a solution could be found.
Strange that only last week they had pre-season back and were looking for new players (as per their twitter), and now they're gone.
One wouldn't imagine the expense of running a LSL team could be that crippling? As you say, the inaugural double winners, so very sad to see a piece of LoI history go to the wall.
Hard to believe they just folded after 120 years without at least a shout out to the football community for a dig out of some description.
Must be hard tp keep going though when the club isnt even in the top level of amateur football
https://mobile.twitter.com/eoinneylo...35526627590151
Couple of tweets there might paint the picture,seems more and more clubs in the inner city are closing…..
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
Its a real grind to keep the show on the road as we know, arguably as hard or even harder for junior clubs than senior if sensible, with the greater potential to generate income at senior level and that larger communities can be rallied when things are close to terminal. Unless there is at minimum 1 super dedicated club person that drive everyone else on ad practically gives over their lives to keeping a club going then there will be a slow steady wind down, where other are reluctant to step up in case they are left carrying things. Increasing costs, insurance for a number of years a big concern, a chronic shortage of playing facilities has put the squeeze on, there's less benefactor type sponsors willing to help from late 2000s and more recent lockdowns and businesses struggling. The necessary burden of health and safety, safeguarding, registrations etc just saps up willing volunteers. The age old Irish ability for fallings out between clubs members is never far away and has done plenty of damage over the years too, ego before club. The issues with aggression against refs at certain levels and a growing shortage will impact all levels increasingly in general. A trend has been noted in Dublin but in Dundalk there are a few clubs gone that if ye went back 10 or 20 years you would never picked them, Bank Rovers (FAI Cup qualifiers a few times) Rangers, Seatown off the top of the head albeit the latter 2 club schoolboy clubs with senior teams also. Its not all for the FAI to come up with the fixes but they need to work on issues such as insurance costs or grassroots powerbase will shrink.
It's a perfect storm for Dublin intermediate/junior clubs post-worst of the pandemic with increasing costs, less volunteers with time/money on their hands and declining participation levels latter maybe due to the demographics of low birth rates mid 90s catching up in aspects like this. If this expected recession materialises St. James' Gate likely won't be the last to drop off or merge
I'm not really in touch with what's going on GAA or Rugby wonder if they are experiencing similar challenges at club level?
Last edited by total hoofball; 15/07/2022 at 12:27 PM.
The Leinster Senior League needs a strong Bohemians
By way of contrast the DDSL club where I coach is experiencing unprecedented growth, so much so that we have a waiting list in the 100s for both boys and girls. All in the shadow of the biggest GAA club in the country. So it's certainly not all doom and gloom.
No One Likes Us, We Don't Care
is it true they'd no schoolboys section / link to a schoolboy club? if so not hard to see why they'd eventually go to the wall. very hard to keep going when that is the case imo
It's a shame that Guinness didn't see merit in the club continuing. I appreciate it's part of a hard-nosed corporation these days, but there's a brand heritge angle to the club and the drink.
Guiness should've sponsored the in what would be proverbially small beer financially. Then change their home or away colours to black shirts with a cream-coloured top/shoulders and the Guiness brand as sponsor, and sell tonnes of them around the world. London Irish Rugby Club famously had a few such shirts years ago and shifted loads of them. You could see an agle where Guiness could actually make some revenue out of the club this way to under-write or negate the cost of sponsoring it.
Bit of both, kids looking to play A or even A1 and B will be courted by a few clubs (who will make room for good players) while kids playing C, D, E etc usually just sit on the list until there's room. Means you end up losing some kids to GAA particularly as they are much better at the sport for all concept, especially at the younger ages.
Also the girls game has exploded so no idea how that demand will be met but guessing that most clubs are experiencing the same growth with the same challenges.
No One Likes Us, We Don't Care
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022...-amateur-game/
St James Gate will continue playing after all,good news for them…..
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
Iveagh Grounds were sold to Trinity weren't they? Wonder how that left SJG fixed lease wise for the use of the facilities/ pitch etc. By all accounts they weren't the best run over recent years. Hopefully they can make a proper go of it, if they have the facilities long term and can get the 1st's going, add 2nd's and then maybe look at getting boys/ girls youths going they can build back up.
A few reasons seem to be combining to cause this but I think another big killer is they don't get any money from Diagio any more.
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