Player Retention in the GAA

boscosbrigade

Hey guys!

A group of us are doing some research for a local GAA club around the issue of player retention around school leaving age. There really isn't an awful lot of information gathered on the issue so it would be good to get some light shed on it.

We're looking for responses from both current AND former players, male and female, any code and it only takes a minute! Cheers!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=79396605&postcount=1

So what do you think? What might help encourage young players to stay on in the GAA?

zetecescort

a set programme of games for club and county to aid arranging of work/holidays would be a good start

Realt Dearg Sec

Just did your survey but it doesn't take account of what is, for my club and for most any junior hurling team in Dublin, at least, a huge demographic: people who stopped playing and returned to it. Your questions only cover people who have stopped or who have continued so I wasn't sure how to answer.

The reasons people in our club stopped are various and complicated, and the reasons they returned, to a new club, are also various and complicated.

For me...
I grew up in a county where not being much good at the game didn't give you much outlet to play. Hurling is a serious sport to its players, no matter what level or how much of a laugh they have, or how much they drink or anything else. But in a place like Kilkenny there really isn't much room for you if you aren't at least handy enough at it. So you feel marginalised, and eventually you are likely to stop. I did, quite young. I am guessing the lack of a proper schedule each year makes it harder and harder to justify giving up so much of your summers as a young lad, and your family time later. That wasn't an issue for me, just a sense that you weren't needed. The GAA can really do a number on itself in that way, particularly if you grow up in a bigger club.

I moved to Dublin five or six years ago and wouldn't have thought of playing hurling as I was in my mid 20s. Then I heard how low the divisions go, someone said to come down training with a big club. I did, realised there really is room here for people of any ability, but realised for all sorts of reasons that the club I was with wasn't quite for me, so got involved with a new junior club. People at our club, as I say, have returned to the game, in a lot of cases. Their reasons are their own. For me it was partly a realisation that all the other sports would never mean the same thing to me as hurling does. You simply can't beat it for the sense of community, the sense of belonging, and the intensity of the game itself, the pure thrill of taking a tackle and the feel of belting the ball. There'll be plenty of time for not playing. But in Dublin the opportunity was there to play at a level where others felt the same, and a chance to play at a club where that kind of baggage wasn't there, that history that if you weren't good you couldn't play, or the politics that are all over rural GAA clubs.

Clareman

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