Under-age training misconduct

joebloggs32 · 08-05-2018 1:20am

Trasna1 wrote: »

Whataboutery at it's finest.

The two issues here are interlinked. You have a sweary U12 coach where some of the lads didn't want to play for his team. The club executive should have dealt with this coach and told him to tone down his behaviour. It doesn't matter how much of a stalwart, servant or how good of a man he otherwise is.

The failure to deal with the first problem means the second problem presents itself: children trying to together out for the next level up. It's not made clear why the secretary was so upset at two young lads doing this although I can think of reasons - like perhaps encouraging other players to leave U12, but he handled it terribly. If the club we're unhappy with 11 year olds playing U14, they shouldn't have been let tog out. They should have been brought to their parents and the situation explained to them. And so what if noses were put out of joint.

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is a sports club, nothing more - that perspective should not be lost. That secretary should be thanking his lucky stars that those lads didn't concoct a much more sinister story.

Of course the follow up after the complaints was handled shambolically. Total head in the sand stuff until they had to deal with it. Finally forced to deal with it, they then circled the wagons.

The two lads in question may have already rigged out when the club secretary became aware they were there. The article does say one of the parents dropped them to the game. They may have got there before the secretary. People are busy. I have done the job before and teams can arrive very early to warm up, so I may not always get there before then.
Maybe when he started to write out the team sheet then he became aware of their presence and didn't want to embarrass them by asking them tog back in on the spot in front of the others. That really would create a sh1tstorm. Having a quiet word would be better in that case, but ideally leaving it after to speak with the parents would have been best, but we all do make mistakes.

joebloggs32 · 08-05-2018 1:22am

Gravelly wrote: »

I see this "he was only a volunteer" excuse being raised time and again on this thread, and have heard it raised as an excuse for unprofessional/stupid/biased behaviour in clubs on numerous occasions. I've volunteered for all of my adult life in sports coaching, and would never use this as an excuse. If someone expects to be paid for basic human decency or adherence to the rules THEN THEY SHOULDN'T BE COACHING KIDS. It frightens me that this needs to be pointed out. Every person coaching kids nowadays has gone through at least a basic coaching course and a child protection course - no excuses, no bullshït, if you can't or don't want to do the right thing, don't coach kids.

Neither do I expect to be paid, or anyone I have ever met either at underage level, or acting as club officers. You missed my point.

Gravelly · 08-05-2018 1:24am

joebloggs32 wrote: »

Neither do I expect to be paid, or anyone I have ever met either at underage level, or acting as club officers. You missed my point.

I didn't. You tried to reinforce it in your next post. I wouldn't want you coaching my kids if that is your attitude. The coaches fücked up, and weren't man enough to admit it, the club fücked up and tried to double down to "protect the club"

*EDIT* Just noticed now you are a teacher. Jesus.

Guy:Incognito · 08-05-2018 1:49am

big_drive wrote: »

Interesting read.
Easy to see why it’s hard to get volunteers in clubs , it’s dangerous these days. You could be accused of anything, often falsely

It's hard to be accused of stuff if you don't put yourself in a situation of being alone with 2 kids in a dressing room.

Guy:Incognito · 08-05-2018 2:14am

Choochtown wrote: »

Let's get this much clear:

Kimmage is not highlighting kids being made to play out of their age bracket. In fact his article is very much supportive of the parents who decided to put their 10 year old kids in the u14 squad due to the U12 mentor using the f word at a training session.

I am not condoning the language at all but Kimmage has based his sensationalised article around this very minor incident.

It is extremely unfair that this mentor (remember the only accusation against him is that he used the f word during a training session) has been named and shamed in a national newspaper. Someone who freely gives his time to train the kids. Someone who it appears wasn't even approached by the parents in question about his language. They went straight to Croke Park (and it appears Paul Kimmage as well) about this very minor incident.

The irony here is that Kimmage triumphantly writes about the parent being cautioned for "his emotive language" when he talks to the GAA National Children's Officer!!!

Pure hypocrisy from Kimmage who clearly has a problem with the GAA.

Did you read the article or what? A club official, not even the coach of the team, shut himself in a room alone with 2 kids at the very least. On top of that, if the kids are to believed, he was intimidating and bullied them. After all this the club rallied around and acted completely in their own self interest and siding with the adults involved and

I have no connection to gaa other than my son plays underage gaa. I've been less than impressed with some of the goings on with his club. That's without even saying anything about the ability of the coaches or their inability to see the playing issues with the team. I hadn't played gaa since primary school and rarely get to see his matches because they clash with my own matches but i can see in a couple of minutes what's lacking in his game in particular and go through it with him. None of the stuff I talk to him about is ever said by coaches when I ask him. I'd really question whether they've ever played the game.

I do coach his rugby team though so I've plenty of experience being on both sides of the fence. The club acted appallingly in this instance and the amount of apologists on just the first couple of pages of this thread wouldn't be showing the gaa in a good light from the outside imo.

Guy:Incognito · 08-05-2018 2:23am

Choochtown wrote: »

You do realise that

1. That is an unproved version of events from a parent who heard something whilst in the stand from "a neighbour's boy"

2. That is not the same mentor who is alleged to have sworn at the kids

??

You reckon he never even mentioned any of it to his son before or in the months the hearings dragged on for? Never asked his side of it?That the whole while, the son never asked what was going on and it was all based on some other kid coming up and telling him in the stand what happened?

The guy wasn't a mentor at all, going by the article btw, he was a club official. He had no business being in the dressing room alone talking to the boys ing he first p,are.

Tell me how · 08-05-2018 7:24am

ebbsy wrote:

Yes they should have. I would have put that guy in hospital and he wouldn't have seen me coming.

Seriously???

Over an unpleasant but relatively minor series of events. What sort of example would that be to your 10 year old? How many coaches would stay volunteering if one of them ended up in the hospital over something like this.

Talk about overreacting.

Someone said it earlier, the problem isn't so much the original event, (swearing by a coach or the 2 lads being spoken to by a single adult) but how the club tried to manipulate the situation since these issues were raised.

joebloggs32 · 08-05-2018 7:39am

Gravelly wrote: »

I didn't. You tried to reinforce it in your next post. I wouldn't want you coaching my kids if that is your attitude. The coaches fücked up, and weren't man enough to admit it, the club fücked up and tried to double down to "protect the club"

*EDIT* Just noticed now you are a teacher. Jesus.

Nowhere did I say that I would condone the actions of the secretary IF they were true. I am just looking at it from both sides of the argument which most people here are not. As a history teacher that's what I always do. Never take anything as gospel without knowing all the facts, which we don't here.
I have personal experience of this as something similar happened to my father about 20 years ago when the sunday world ran a story and slapped his photo across it. It wasn't to with GAA but another sporting organisation. He was never contacted by them ahead of publication, they just ran the story as someone in that club was pushing an agenda.

Peatys · 08-05-2018 7:45am

Ardent wrote: »

Whatever about which side of these stories you believe, you can't excuse the club's behaviour in dealing with the complaints - for example, rallying support at an impromptu meeting to which the complainants were not invited. What were they trying to achieve there? Is that how you run a club?

The club say that the complainants were invited.

Bonzo Delaney · 08-05-2018 7:50am

ebbsy wrote: »

Yes they should have. I would have put that guy in hospital and he wouldn't have seen me coming.

Have you anything else to add here apart from looking to fight someone

Working class heroes · 08-05-2018 7:52am

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

The complainants say otherwise.

Bonzo Delaney · 08-05-2018 7:53am

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

The very end of the article states thst all the u12 parents were invited to the meeting ....but the two 10 yr olds were move to the u 14 panel which sort of makes the club look imcopentent

dieselbug · 08-05-2018 7:58am

Bullying, from start to finish. easy to say the coach only used a few swear words but I think there was probably a bit more to it. Swearing and shouting at a child is intimidating and frightening from the child's perspective and would probably put many a child off participating in sport for life.

When the parents took a stand against it the reaction was to attempt to bully the parents, complainants.

You can analyse it to death but put simply bullying from start to finish.

PARlance · 08-05-2018 8:01am

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

What I gathered was that the AE was being quite "coy" by saying that all parents of the U12 team were invited... the complainants had withdrawn their kids from the U12s.

That's what I took from it anyway.

Mountain out of a molehill for me. Very poor behaviour from a lot of folk but it falls short of the scandal that Kimmage has been desperately craving. Lance is proving to be some void for him.

ford2600 · 08-05-2018 8:09am

This whole thing is a bit sad; Athenry needs the GAA and the quicker they get this sorted and move on the better for everyone. A 2 page spread in a national newspaper probably hasn't helped.

Just an outside* perspective on why this might have happened.

Athenry has grown hugely over the last 10-20 years. A lot of the new people in town probably have children playing GAA, while the older members who were involved in clubs huge successes are still involved. IME meshing the new and old in a GAA context isn't always easy. There is always going to be a conflict.

There has always been a huge divide within my own club, sister football and hurling clubs with different identities and names but with same players/supporters/pitch etc. Over the years there was an uneasy peace until the juvenile club grew and the new "outside" members went WTF at an AGM and pointed at the huge fcuking elephant in the room! Its still evolving but a few noses were out of joint for a while.

Given how much hurling matters in east Galway I'd wonder is that the back drop here.

*a good friend moved to Athenry in about 2003 and I visited a few times so I would be aware of growth of town. 2 years ago on a cycle from west Waterford to Wesport I stopped in a petrol station in Athenry. The lad on till looked familiar until I realised it was Eugene Cloonan; we had a grand chat about cycling/gaa and injury! It reminded me how great GAA is and how accessible and humble a lot of its stars are

Buer · 08-05-2018 8:50am

Choochtown wrote: »

Why go to Paul Kimmage?

You seem far more concerned that the article was published than the actual content. That's a problem in itself.

The issue here isn't that someone spoke to the SI (and we don't know who went to them whether it was parents, a disgruntled club member, a member of the public etc.) or that someone who is unfit to be coaching children was named in the media. This is all deflection and whataboutery that fails to acknowledge the major problem.

The issue is the complete disregard shown by a major club for the guidelines their organisation has set out for the mentoring of children and compounded by their attempt to muddy the waters and undermine the complainants. There's a good reason why the club has been suspended from juvenile competition.

slegs · 08-05-2018 9:20am

WHL wrote: »

I’m involved in soccer while my young lad plays soccer and GAA. Why is it being insinuated that this is anti-GAA. If everything reported is true, the club are in the wrong. The GAA have investigated and suspended the club from juvenile activity until they sort it out. Is this not positive. I don’t know of any soccer, rugby or any other club suspended in a similar manner by their parent association. It’s not about whether the U10 player or the U12 coach and club secretary are right. It’s about an U10 player having a grievance and whether the club were willing to investigate properly.
I think that the GAA were slow to react but they have done the right thing - and I have no evidence that other sporting organisations would do the right thing in similar circumstances. Fair dues to the GAA

Spot on. Well done GAA for dealing with a club that quite clearly thought the policies and procedures around issues like this didn’t apply to them.

I didn’t think I would see the day when GAA central would intervene in this kind of affair. This is a big step forward.

ccmp · 08-05-2018 9:39am

slegs wrote: »

WHL wrote: »

I’m involved in soccer while my young lad plays soccer and GAA. Why is it being insinuated that this is anti-GAA. If everything reported is true, the club are in the wrong. The GAA have investigated and suspended the club from juvenile activity until they sort it out. Is this not positive. I don’t know of any soccer, rugby or any other club suspended in a similar manner by their parent association. It’s not about whether the U10 player or the U12 coach and club secretary are right. It’s about an U10 player having a grievance and whether the club were willing to investigate properly.
I think that the GAA were slow to react but they have done the right thing - and I have no evidence that other sporting organisations would do the right thing in similar circumstances. Fair dues to the GAA

Spot on. Well done GAA for dealing with a club that quite clearly thought the policies and procedures around issues like this didn’t apply to them.

I didn’t think I would see the day when GAA central would intervene in this kind of affair. This is a big step forward.

While acknowledging that there is more to this story than what is articulated in this article, I agree with the sentiment above. It's great to see central GAA dealing with this rather than brushing it under the carpet. A step forward in my eyes.

blanch152 · 08-05-2018 10:23am

Choochtown wrote: »

What campaign? What "village idiots"?

More innuendo.

One of the most sinister aspects of the article was the meeting arranged with other parents following the first hearing. After being admonished to keep the complaint confidential, the Club executive called all parents to a meeting and told them about it.

That is absolutely astonishing and I cannot see how any of them can remain in place. It is a disgraceful way to behave in an issue affecting the welfare of children.

nice_guy80 · 08-05-2018 10:31am

Connected to this is a huge reason why so many fellas are put off going into teaching

Having to deal with parents who are just waiting for the chance to stir things

Guy:Incognito · 08-05-2018 10:32am

Peatys wrote: »

The club say that the complainants were invited.

Well that would have been better so. They could have been made stand at the front of the room to be laugh at in person and told hold the club is in the right and would be circling the wagons around the people involved. I supposed at least they'd have known all the people were going to show up at the next hearing.

Guy:Incognito · 08-05-2018 10:39am

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Connected to this is a huge reason why so many fellas are put off going into teaching

Having to deal with parents who are just waiting for the chance to stir things

If your 11 year old son told you a man, not his teacher, but say a board member of the school, was in a room alone with him, giving out to him and intimidating him, would you be fine with that and tell him he must have done something wrong?

Sure maybe go back to the days of sending him up to the priests house alone to discuss what a bold boy he is in privacy............

ebbsy · 08-05-2018 11:34am

Trasna1 wrote: »

Whataboutery at it's finest.

The two issues here are interlinked. You have a sweary U12 coach where some of the lads didn't want to play for his team. The club executive should have dealt with this coach and told him to tone down his behaviour. It doesn't matter how much of a stalwart, servant or how good of a man he otherwise is.

The failure to deal with the first problem means the second problem presents itself: children trying to tog out for the next level up. It's not made clear why the secretary was so upset at two young lads doing this although I can think of reasons - like perhaps encouraging other players to leave U12, but he handled it terribly. If the club we're unhappy with 11 year olds playing U14, they shouldn't have been let tog out. They should have been brought to their parents and the situation explained to them. And so what if noses were put out of joint.

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is a sports club, nothing more - that perspective should not be lost. That secretary should be thanking his lucky stars that those lads didn't concoct a much more sinister story.

Of course the follow up after the complaints was handled shambolically. Total head in the sand stuff until they had to deal with it. Finally forced to deal with it, they then circled the wagons.

Great point.

The_Honeybadger · 08-05-2018 11:39am

blanch152 wrote: »

One of the most sinister aspects of the article was the meeting arranged with other parents following the first hearing. After being admonished to keep the complaint confidential, the Club executive called all parents to a meeting and told them about it.

That is absolutely astonishing and I cannot see how any of them can remain in place. It is a disgraceful way to behave in an issue affecting the welfare of children.

This is the main part that really gets me too, how on earth could they have thought that this was the correct course of action. It was an absolutely crazy thing to do in the circumstances.

A lot of posters here seem to want to brush this aside as the club simply handling it badly, I think it goes beyond that, it looks like a devious and deliberate attempt to undermine and exact a sort of revenge on the complainants by making them public enemies in the community. The stupidity of the officers in this act is mind boggling.

ebbsy · 08-05-2018 11:40am

Choochtown wrote: »

And what would the complaint to the Gardai be?

I actually agree with you. If there was a genuine complaint then go to the Gardai.

Why go to Paul Kimmage?

Guards or GAA w'ont do anything. Going to Kimmage or dealing with it yourself is the only way.

nice_guy80 · 08-05-2018 12:11pm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

If your 11 year old son told you a man, not his teacher, but say a board member of the school, was in a room alone with him, giving out to him and intimidating him, would you be fine with that and tell him he must have done something wrong?

Sure maybe go back to the days of sending him up to the priests house alone to discuss what a bold boy he is in privacy............

where did I suggest that?
parents listen and retell things to suit their own agendas all the time.

I see it every day of the week

Hitman3000 · 08-05-2018 12:17pm

Interesting how so many here are willing to accuse the parents of having an agenda but have no issue with the behaviour of the club officials.

Ray Bloody Purchase · 08-05-2018 12:37pm

The article itself seemed to be a bit all over the shop. Very poorly written. It seems slightly directionless. Even from this thread there seems to be differences in what people conclude its primary aim is.

nice_guy80 · 08-05-2018 12:41pm

Hitman3000 wrote: »

Interesting how so many here are willing to accuse the parents of having an agenda but have no issue with the behaviour of the club officials.

Never said the parents have an agenda in this case.

I've dealt with parents over alleged incidents in a club before
Where the child said one thing happened or was said and the parent was adamant that it had
When all evidence pointed to the opposite

How many of the parents were prepared to get involved and coach a team?

Tell me how · 08-05-2018 12:44pm

Ray Bloody Purchase wrote: »

The article itself seemed to be a bit all over the shop. Very poorly written. It seems slightly directionless. Even from this thread there seems to be differences in what people conclude its primary aim is.

Those differences are largely coming from biases which posters possess outside of the influence of the article.

The writing style of the article is very much Paul Kimmage. A reference or quote from popular culture, in this case Animal Farm to provide context, chronological narrative mixed with dialog.

Paul would argue that all he is doing is telling a story, he does not claim anyone is right or wrong. We presume he is on the side of the complainants but that is our interpretation as opposed to any direct words.

Under-age training misconduct

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