Clubs fall from grace

cms88

Seen today that Laune Rangers were relegated to Div 3 of the league in Kerry after going down to Intermediate last year. Not too long ago they were in county finals and winning them not long before that.

Austin Stacks another, only 2 champions in almost 30 years.

Much the same in Cork. The Glen won last year but for the first time in close to 30 years. The Barrs not far off 30 years from them in either code and Blackrock the same.

Now these are just examples in Kerry and Cork, but the question is how can theses once great clubs fall away like this?

In the example of the 3 Cork clubs they've won close to 100 champions in Cork between them. If was almost as if they were winning championships and next thing it just stopped.

rebel girl 15

It generally happens after a win - especially if the team has an older age profile. I know my own team, we won our provincial championship, lost the All Ireland QF and the bulk of our team retired or left or moved on as we had been working towards it for a few years

Mal-Adjusted

There could be a load of reasons, emigration being a severe one in clubs in recent years but teams will always go through periods of peaks and troughs.

Fr Tod Umptious

Castlebar went 20 years without senior titles in Mayo, '94 to '14, they won again in '16.

Athenry in Galway. 7 county titles in 11 years between 94 and 04. 3 time All-Ireland winners. Last won the county title in 2004 but haven't been at all competitive in the last decade and haven't really shown signs of producing any hurler to add to the county panel. They have come through a bit in football in recent years which may be a small contributing factor. Have had a couple of good underage teams which never came to much.

Poor_old_gill

Killorglin is a small town so maybe that might contribute to it?

What I would say about Laune Rangers is that they do practically nothing at underage level- never really challenging for anything. I'm open to correction but I'm not aware of them having anything more than 1 or 2 decent underage teams in the last 10-15 years.

Kerins O Rahilleys winning 1 Kerry Championship in close to 60 years is crazy enough considering the talent that they usually have

Hammer Archer

I wouldn't consider it a "fall from grace" really given the small size of the club, but Kilbride won 5 Meath SFCs in 8 years back in the 1960s/70s (and lost the famous 1965 abandoned final where Martin Quinn sat on the ball in protest at being sent off) and had one of the best club teams ever (they had 6 players in the Meath All Ireland winning team of 1967).
Since their last SFC in 1971 (which was their third in a row), they haven't won an adult title and are now a bottom half Junior B team.


Though that team was simply a freak occurrence in one of the smallest clubs in Meath. Can't really call it a fall from grace given that they never had consistent success apart from that 10-12 years.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Castlebar's long period of mediocrity is perhaps the biggest example in Mayo.

Garrymore won 6 championships in the 70s and 80s but haven't been up to much ever since.

PARlance

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Castlebar's long period of mediocrity is perhaps the biggest example in Mayo.

Garrymore won 6 championships in the 70s and 80s but haven't been up to much ever since.

Would you not include Ballina into the mix? A good current example. A massive amount of County titles but haven't been at the races in about 10 years.

They haven't fallen off the face of the earth like the examples in the OP but no senior final since 07, after the AI win in 04, is a massive fall off for a team that was in finals and winning them so regularly.

Boom__Boom

cms88 wrote: »

Seen today that Laune Rangers were relegated to Div 3 of the league in Kerry after going down to Intermediate last year. Not too long ago they were in county finals and winning them not long before that.

Austin Stacks another, only 2 champions in almost 30 years.

Going down to intermediate in Kerry is not exactly the same as in a lot of other counties - compared to other counties, which have a high number of teams that are only very very average that are senior and have a lot of poor quality games in the county championship as a result. The standard in both the senior and the intermediate is generally very good and very competitive.
A friend of mine was making the case a few months back that the intermediate championship in Kerry this year was probably the most competitive GAA competition in Ireland -that's most competitive in terms of there being the highest number of teams who could realistically claim to be in contention to win it [Part of this was due to a restructuring that saw 3 teams relegated from senior and none promoted, combined with the spread of teams who have won it/being in the shakeup in the last few years]

Also the league is Kerry tends to a be a good bit more competitive than in a lot of/most other counties and because there is a 3 teams up 3 teams down it's not unusual for there to be a lot of movement both up and down - it's not that unusual for clubs to jump 2 divisions in 2 years.

Having said that Laune Rangers should probably be doing better - they have a good history, Killorglin is a good sized town(for a one club town) that wasn't too badly hit by the recession (compared to a lot of other places in Kerry anyway) As someone said underage might well be the problem - I think they definitely have been underperforming at underage for a while now - ISK (the secondary school) have been struggling to make an impression in terms of post-primary football the last while as well so it's likely to be a while before things improve.

As for Stacks and KOR sure them Tralee folk are more interested in stuff like prettiest girl competition and the like - there's a definite correlation between the increase in popularity of the Rose of Tralee and the decrease in success of Tralee football.

rpurfield

Hammer Archer wrote: »

I wouldn't consider it a "fall from grace" really given the small size of the club, but Kilbride won 5 Meath SFCs in 8 years back in the 1960s/70s (and lost the famous 1965 abandoned final where Martin Quinn sat on the ball in protest at being sent off) and had one of the best club teams ever (they had 6 players in the Meath All Ireland winning team of 1967).
Since their last SFC in 1971 (which was their third in a row), they haven't won an adult title and are now a bottom half Junior B team.


Though that team was simply a freak occurrence in one of the smallest clubs in Meath. Can't really call it a fall from grace given that they never had consistent success apart from that 10-12 years.

Bellewstown and St. Vincents would've been of the same mould at one stage, I think you see that in country clubs where you get an exceptional bunch of players through and they win all in front of them but when they break up the club goes backwards quick enough.

MilfordBud

In my own county you have the top 4 teams in the winner's list who've all had decent droughts. Thurles Sars have 34 titles and have have won 6 of the last 11 counties but went 31 years without one before that.
Toomevara have 22 titles, are gone 8 years since winning one, I don't see them winning one soon, they only won one in 61 years up to 1992 then won 11 in 17 years.
Moycarkey are in 3rd place on 12, haven't won one since 1984, were intermediate for a few years in 2000s. They have some very strong underage teams coming through at the moment.
Boherlahan Dualla in 4th with 11 haven't won one since 96 and are intermediate now.

DEFTLEFTHAND

MilfordBud wrote: »

In my own county you have the top 4 teams in the winner's list who've all had decent droughts. Thurles Sars have 34 titles and have have won 6 of the last 11 counties but went 31 years without one before that.
Toomevara have 22 titles, are gone 8 years since winning one, I don't see them winning one soon, they only won one in 61 years up to 1992 then won 11 in 17 years.
Moycarkey are in 3rd place on 12, haven't won one since 1984, were intermediate for a few years in 2000s. They have some very strong underage teams coming through at the moment.
Boherlahan Dualla in 4th with 11 haven't won one since 96 and are intermediate now.

The first ever club All Ireland champions Roscrea have also been in the doldrums for years. I don't think they've had anybody on the senior county panel since Diarmuid Fitzgerald.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Hollymount had a serious decline in Mayo as well. Technically the club doesn't exist anymore as they amalgamated with Carramore.

MfMan

Borders no.2 wrote: »

Athenry in Galway. 7 county titles in 11 years between 94 and 04. 3 time All-Ireland winners. Last won the county title in 2004 but haven't been at all competitive in the last decade and haven't really shown signs of producing any hurler to add to the county panel. They have come through a bit in football in recent years which may be a small contributing factor. Have had a couple of good underage teams which never came to much.

Athenry in the ha'penny place compared to Castlegar, kingpins in Galway so often, but without a title sine '84 I think. No excuses about population decline either, they're on the edge of the city. Once mighty Tuam Stars were usually the team to beat in football but haven't a title since early 90s. (Shudda beat Corofin last year when leading by 3 late in the 1/4 final - might have gone on to win it.) Dunmore McHales also a long way off their prime.

KevinK

In Clare:

Wolfe Tones contested the All Ireland Club final in 1996, last year they were playing intermediate ( they did win that and are back in the Senior Quarter Final this year, so maybe only a blip)

St Joseph's Doora- Barefield contested All- Ireland club finals in 1998 and 1999, they are also currently intermediate.

16 senior clubs as well, so not like other counties with very few senior teams making relegation much more likely.

Mal-Adjusted

in fairness, Clare recently dropped from 20 to 16 senior teams, so all anyone needed was a bad year in 2014 and it could easily happen.

CrabRevolution

Trim, Co. Meath. Between 1987 and 2001 they won 9 Meath SHC titles. Few near misses in between too; in 1991 they lost a replayed final by a point, in 1993 they lost a semi final by a point to the eventual victors, and in 1999 they were thrown out of the championship at the semi final stage due to a fixture dispute. It's a shame the club intermediate championships weren't around to see how they'd compete.

Since 2001 Trim have only reached the final twice, and been easily beaten each time.

Rathmolyon too, to a lesser degree. Won the championship 3 times between 1993 and 2006, reached a few finals and won several league titles in the same time period. This year they were only one or 2 losses away from going down from Intermediate to junior. It hasn't helped that their best player left the club this year. He's on the Waterford panel for next saturday now.