How would you improve grassroots football!?

DesF wrote: »

Heh, the best college team in the country plays in the Premier Division already, UCD.

And yes, they are continually letting players go to other LoI clubs, and beyond. They are great for developing young players. Top class facilities, it's why they are in the Premier, light years ahead of many other clubs in terms of facilities, training etc.

Bohs has some kind of link up with DCU, although I'm unsure as to the extent of it tbh.

UCD are in a college league seperate to the eircom league and the college league doesn't allow players from professional leagues to play. and btw they aren;t the best college team around, the northern teams are.

Bohs do have a link with DCU but it is with DCU sport and not the football in anyway. In DCU there is also a college team and LSL teams but they get very very little from DCU Sport (Another example of politics interfering) although they do have a full time professional coach!!

Colleges are trying to get more involved in attracting younger players with scholarships etc. DCU handed out 3 this year for the first time and have had lots of applicants for next year. I know UCD also run succesful scholarships too. Its a step in the right direction.

Having played with nearly all the big underage teams (Shels, stella, rovers, pats, kevins and joeys) I honestly think the coaching levels are very sub standard at these clubs, more so than others!!!

These clubs are purely in results business at that age already! When i was with rovers they had one of the top coaches in the country and in a few months with him my game grew tremendously but his team played "too much football" and the club hierachy brought in an up'n under coach. We won a few games 1-0 but played no football and got no coaching!.

On the other side I played with Ballyfermot for a season and the club brought in a young coach and we trained 3 times a week, work on technical aspects and played some fantastic football. We didn't always win but all our games improved.

The point being that the clubs themselves are the main reason imo and the idea of removing competition at younger ages would be brilliant i think.

In terms of what the FAI can do, i'd love to see them invest in some more developments on the scale of the AUL. If the FAI could get on board with a local council (Take finglas for example) and built a campus for football with big facilities then nearly all the local teams could be housed in a good set of facilities, rather than kids playing in horse fields with broken glass, pot holes and changing on the sideline!! A simple facility like this would help keep kids interested imo.

agreed the phoenix park would be excellent in terms of location. That would simply never happen though!

Again you're prob right that the idea of FAI and councils working together probably wouldnt happen either. Its a shame though. Councils constantly spout on about wanting to provide facilities, as does the FAI. If the council just provided some land, and they shared the cost it would be do-able.

Unfortunately clubs who have their own land are able to sell up to developers and get good facilities built for them (e.g. Tullamore) whereas clubs who rely on council land are screwed with shabby pitches and/or no clubhouse.

Was out at peamount utd's facilites on Sunday and they are fantastic and it really is the way to go forward. I hear they are coaching the kids properly at a young age, i know several of their underage coaches have uefa b licenses and thats where we need to get too!

DCU is looking into starting an academy also which if can get off the ground will provide a great centre for coaching in the northside area.

I think it's another area of our game in this country that gets over looked (even within the grassroots debate), the junior/intermediate aspect.

There's no point developing a sound underage setup if there's no natural progression for players that dont quite make professionals. Take america for example, they have AMAZING underage setups all across the country but have little or no intermediate leagues for guys around 20-25 who havent made it. It can be a reason why kids give up at 16/17 as they believe their "chance" has gone.

Ok here we have good, full, leagues (LSL,AUL) but I think they get somewhat overlooked by the powers that be. There are some seriously talented players floating around these leagues that for one reason or another just didnt get the chance at a higher level.

I know the FAI have the amateur Ireland side but its a little know fact outside of the actual amateur leagues. I think they could do more to promote the potential still to be had by continuing into the amateur leagues.

Galvasean wrote: »

Heres my plan, we'll all go over to Brazil, use our Irish charm to impregnate their women, then a generation from now we take back all the kids on the grandad rule.

Or we could just head over to Gort, wouldn't cost as much.