How Many Senior Football Clubs in Your County

square ball

Hey guys I was just wondering how many senior football clubs in each county and how each championship is run off eg: Group then knock-out, etc.

Start it off there are 16 Senior Football in Clare.

ROUND 1:
8 x first round games.

ROUND 2:
8 x winners play each other in round 2 to qualify for quarter finals. Losers to round 3.
8 x losers play each other to decide who qualifies for round 3 and who goes to relegation.

ROUND 3:
8 x teams left play round 3 with the winners making the quarters. Losers are out and safe.

ROUND 4:
Quarter-Finals involving 4 (Round 2) winners and 4 (Round 3) winners.

ROUND 5:
Semi-Final

ROUND 6:
Final

Pandiani

12 teams in Limerick.

2 Groups of 6.

Top 3 qualify for knock out stages.

2nd plays 3rd in opposite group in 2 quarter finals.

Winners play winners of groups in semis.

Bottom in each group contest relegation play off.

andyman

Football in Kilkenny lol

Utopia Parkway

20 in Galway. Probably should get rid of at least 4 of them.

Knock out all the way but there is a losers back door after the first round.

Hammer Archer

18 teams in the Meath SFC.

3 groups of 6 teams. Not entirely sure how the quarter finals are decided.

Top 2 of each group go through to the quarter finals.

If it's like the Meath IFC, then the third place team from group A goes through as well with the third place teams in B and C playing off for the final quarter final place.

Bottom in each group go into a round robin relegation playoff. Can get controversial like last year, when Oldcastle and Nobber drew the first game of the relegation playoff. Dunshaughlin then beat Nobber in the next game and their players were on holidays for the final match against Oldcastle who won easily enough meaning Nobber were relegated.

platypus

square ball wrote: »

Hey guys I was just wondering how many senior football clubs in each county and how each championship is run off eg: Group then knock-out, etc.

Start it off there are 16 Senior Football in Clare.

ROUND 1:
8 x first round games.

ROUND 2:
8 x winners play each other in round 2 to qualify for quarter finals. Losers to round 3.
8 x losers play each other to decide who qualifies for round 3 and who goes to relegation.

ROUND 3:
8 x teams left play round 3 with the winners making the quarters. Losers are out and safe.

ROUND 4:
Quarter-Finals involving 4 (Round 2) winners and 4 (Round 3) winners.

ROUND 5:
Semi-Final

ROUND 6:
Final

This was the system in Laois but reducing championship down to 12 over a few years by relegating 2 each year so currently 15 which makes it awkward. Still basically same but Portlaoise got bye in round 1 (not sure if that was just the way it was drawn or they decided it was fairest as they had no chance of being relegated, I think maybe the latter). One team beaten in round 1 got bye to round 3 so they avoid relegation battle, which is made messier by the fact that with 3 in it it goes AvB, losers relegated, Winners vC losers relegated

I liked the system with 16 as it avoided dead rubbers which sometimes happened with a group system, but with odd numbers it seems less fair and the relegation side of things is very unfair imo. I would imagine it will go to 2 groups of 6 when reduced to 12, but I'm not sure of this

Stevecw

8 senior teams now in Carlow. Was 12 until this year. Got reduced due to too many one sided games.

2 groups of 4. Winner of each group goes to semi finals. 2nd in 1 group plays third in the other in the 2 quarter finals.

Bottom team in each group play each other in relegation game.

bruschi

Wexford used to have 16 in a similar set up to the Clare one mentioned there. It was then changed to 4 groups of 4. The football was very competetive at club level, but because of the non competetive hurling at senior, they reduced that from 16 to 12, and for whatever reason, they did the same for football. So they relegated 3 teams and promoted 1 for 2 years to bring it down to 12. So now we have (in football and hurling) 2 groups of 6, where the top 4 qualify for quarter finals. Just as an aside, 6 of the 12 teams are dual in both hurling and football senior; St Annes, St Martins, Adamstown, Rapps/Starlights, Shelmaliers and Sars/Harriers (although they are officially different clubs and players can play for other football or hurling teams, they are in the main made up of mostly the same players).

Prop Joe

8 in London

2 groups of 4 with top 2 in each reaching the semi's - Bottom 2 play-off for relegation to intermediate

11 senior clubs in Kerry plus 9 divisional teams - Will be changing next year to 16 teams with a straight knockout i believe

No Championship should be straight knockout IMO

P.S 16 senior clubs in Clare is banana's

ciarriaithuaidh

Currently 20 teams (11 clubs and 9 divisional) in Kerry as PJ says...amazed that amalgamation teams aren't the norm in more counties to be honest. They've boosted the quality of the Kerry (and Cork to a degree) championship for years while giving players from small clubs the chance to play Senior championship football every year.
Hopefully that motion to make the competition straight knockout is defeated aswell..there are few enough decent fixtures for club players during May/June/July anyway, without taking away the possibility of another couple of decent games.

I think the craziest club championship I know of has to be the Tipp Hurling one..32 teams!!

DoctaDee

ciarriaithuaidh wrote: »

.......I think the craziest club championship I know of has to be the Tipp Hurling one..32 teams!!

.. 32 also in Dublin SFC divided into 2 pots A & B, 1 team each from AvB in 1st round. The A pot is seeded (based on last years 1st round results I think). So winners advance and losers play in Senior B champ, then they become a straight knockout competition. Losers in the B championship then enter the relegation competition.

Senior clubs (AFL 1 & 2) don't necessarily compete in Senior Championship as they have to win an Inter Champ to progress - St. Pats Donabate would be the prime example, likewise Trinity Gaels in AFL 3 play in Senior by virtue of winning an Inter Championship

Fireball07

12 in Limerick.

2 groups of 6. Top team in each group automatically into semi-final.

2nd & 3rd into quarter-finals. Bottom side in each group into relegation play-off.


It works well enough, I suppose.

Rightwing

DoctaDee wrote: »

.. 32 also in Dublin SFC divided into 2 pots A & B, 1 team each from AvB in 1st round. The A pot is seeded (based on last years 1st round results I think). So winners advance and losers play in Senior B champ, then they become a straight knockout competition. Losers in the B championship then enter the relegation competition.

Senior clubs (AFL 1 & 2) don't necessarily compete in Senior Championship as they have to win an Inter Champ to progress - St. Pats Donabate would be the prime example, likewise Trinity Gaels in AFL 3 play in Senior by virtue of winning an Inter Championship

But Dublin has the population to support that number. Don't think Tipp can hold that number competitively.

Alvin Holler

when we get around to playing it there are 16 in Donegal, changed it last year so there's 4 groups of 4 with top two going into quarter finals.

Bottom 4 play off to be relegated and inter champ promoted.

Tom Joad

17 Senior Clubs in Cavan :eek:. County Board paid a fortune to Peter Quinn to do a report on how to improve the senior championship (Quality was awful and Cavan teams usually hockeyed in Ulster).

Surprise, surprise report recommended a serious reduction in senior clubs (was 15 I think at the time) and more amalgamation (Kerry model). County Board accepted the report but then chickened out when some clubs didn't want to amalgamate and now we have 17 senior clubs with no amalgamations (basically anyone could apply to play senior and you were allowed amalgamate if you wanted!!).

Senior Championship is worse than ever - quality muck and even though it has only started already seriously one sided games - worst so far Killeshandra 0-12 - Castlerahan 2-23 (minus 4-5 top players Castlerahan).

Only Laois and Leitrim have more senior clubs per head of population than Cavan.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Mountainlad

Waterford is the exact same is Wexford, football and Hurling. 12 teams, two groups of 6, top 4 into quarters. Only changed the football format to match the hurling two years ago.

Think it's a tough one for dual teams. At the moment, there are 4 dual teams I think. Abbeyside/Ballinacourty, Nire/Fourmilewater, De La Salle and Ardmore.

Gaultier have some players from Ballygunner and Passage but aren't a dual team.

Nidgeweasel

16 in Donegal Senior Championship.

11 in the intermediate.

Both fairly competitive.

bucketybuck

There are only 20 clubs in total in Fermanagh, calling some clubs "senior" always seemed a bit redundant.

The format changes from year to year, but basically the clubs are divided into division one and two and the division one clubs generally play the senior championship.

ciarriaithuaidh

Tom Joad wrote: »

17 Senior Clubs in Cavan :eek:. County Board paid a fortune to Peter Quinn to do a report on how to improve the senior championship (Quality was awful and Cavan teams usually hockeyed in Ulster).

Surprise, surprise report recommended a serious reduction in senior clubs (was 15 I think at the time) and more amalgamation (Kerry model). County Board accepted the report but then chickened out when some clubs didn't want to amalgamate and now we have 17 senior clubs with no amalgamations (basically anyone could apply to play senior and you were allowed amalgamate if you wanted!!).

Senior Championship is worse than ever - quality muck and even though it has only started already seriously one sided games - worst so far Killeshandra 0-12 - Castlerahan 2-23 (minus 4-5 top players Castlerahan).

Only Laois and Leitrim have more senior clubs per head of population than Cavan.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Jaysus..17?!! Thats a crazy number of individual clubs for Senior competition in Cavan.
When you say clubs were reluctant to amalgamate, do you mean the Junior/Intermediate clubs? Very surprised such a narrow-minded attitude prevails.
In my home club, we amalgamate with 5 other junior clubs to play Senior championship. Of those 5, there are at least 2 we have gone "to war" with multiple times during my lifetime alone, including our nearest and bitterest traditional rivals..yet we've always played together at minor, u-21 and Senior without any major issue. Have had patches of success aswell despite having nowhere near the strength in depth of other areas.

Tom Joad

ciarriaithuaidh wrote: »

Jaysus..17?!! Thats a crazy number of individual clubs for Senior competition in Cavan.
When you say clubs were reluctant to amalgamate, do you mean the Junior/Intermediate clubs? Very surprised such a narrow-minded attitude prevails.
In my home club, we amalgamate with 5 other junior clubs to play Senior championship. Of those 5, there are at least 2 we have gone "to war" with multiple times during my lifetime alone, including our nearest and bitterest traditional rivals..yet we've always played together at minor, u-21 and Senior without any major issue. Have had patches of success aswell despite having nowhere near the strength in depth of other areas.

Good article here about it.
http://www.anglocelt.ie/sport/gaelicfootball/articles/2014/07/04/4031303-opinion-clubs-resistant-to-any-kind-of-change-and-football-suffers/


Am very familiar with North Kerry GAA (married a North Kerry Woman ) and it is a great example of how amalgamations can work for the good of the county team and the individual clubs and players.

Monaghan (not too dissimilar is size to Cavan) has only 9 senior clubs and a very competitive senior and intermediate championship.

The big worry for the county team is that all the good work done at underage level will be wasted because of the poor state of the club structure/ championships in the county.

CrabRevolution

18 senior football teams in Meath. Bit of a lopsided system, played in 3 groups of 6, top 3 from group A, and the top 2 from groups B and C enter the QFs. The third placed teams from B and C playoff for the last quarter final spot.

Used to have 16 teams but there was some argument a few years ago about extra time in a relegation playoff match which resulted in nobody getting relegated, and a 17 team championship. Of course nobody wanted to offend anyone by relegating 2 teams to fix this, so an extra team was brought up.

Hurling is 12 teams, 2 groups of 6, top team in the semis, 2nd and 3rd placed teams play each other in the QFs.

I see some counties have 2 groups of 6, but 4 teams go through from each group. Seems a bit of a waste to play a series of 15 games in a group just to eliminate 2 teams. Also means that a team only needs to win 2 matches, or maybe win 1 and draw 1 to go through, and they'll be in the same round as a team which won all their matches.

Crash Bang Wall

Tom Joad wrote: »

17 Senior Clubs in Cavan :eek:. County Board paid a fortune to Peter Quinn to do a report on how to improve the senior championship (Quality was awful and Cavan teams usually hockeyed in Ulster).

Surprise, surprise report recommended a serious reduction in senior clubs (was 15 I think at the time) and more amalgamation (Kerry model). County Board accepted the report but then chickened out when some clubs didn't want to amalgamate and now we have 17 senior clubs with no amalgamations (basically anyone could apply to play senior and you were allowed amalgamate if you wanted!!).

Senior Championship is worse than ever - quality muck and even though it has only started already seriously one sided games - worst so far Killeshandra 0-12 - Castlerahan 2-23 (minus 4-5 top players Castlerahan).

Only Laois and Leitrim have more senior clubs per head of population than Cavan.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Yeah its ridiculous, and whats even worse is that Castlerahan can lose this w/e, after losing the preliminary round game, and still win the Championship.