BY MATTHEW HURLEY
BEARA GAA Secretary Joe Blake is warning that clubs in the division will face a major challenge to survive if proposed changes to the minor age-grade are given the green light.
In the ongoing debate about whether the minor age for football and hurling should return to U18, from its current U17, Adrigole clubman Blake insists clubs in Beara will be under threat if, as has been proposed, U18s will then not be allowed to play in adult competitions.
He warns it could, potentially, have detrimental effects for rural GAA clubs.
‘If the new proposals are brought in, 18 year olds would not be allowed to play adult football with their clubs. You have a total separation. As a 17 year old, you can’t play adult football now. The proposal is to bring this to U18,’ Blake explained on the Star Sport Podcast.
There are six clubs in Beara. Castletownbere. Blake’s own club Adrigole. Urhan. Garnish. Glengariff. Bere Island. The division recently won the county U19 Premier 1 title with 24 players. Even with that victory, Blake was worried about the player numbers.
‘That panel was spread across four age grades. We had two U16s playing. That’s four (players) per club in four age grades. That’s one per year per club. That’s on average. Some had more, some had less,’ Blake explained.
For a division already tight on numbers, the proposed decoupling would mean that a footballer or hurler playing at minor grade cannot play in the senior/adult grade in the same year. This will cause big problems in Beara.
‘We used to have five underage clubs, now we have three. My own club and Glengarriff form for Caha Óg, Garnish and Bere Island have put their players in with Castletownbere and then you have Urhan. Already, you can see the effects of depopulation and migration that’s taking place in the Beara peninsula,’ Blake says.
‘This will have an effect down the road at adult level. If this proposal preventing U18s playing senior was to come in, it would only speed up the process. Jim Hanley, one of our Beara delegates, said at a board meeting, it’s a death by a thousand cuts and this is another cut. It will have a big effect on players.’
The problem, Blake explains, stems from falling numbers in schools in Beara.
‘There were 24 children that started in primary schools, feeding into Beara Community School. I did my Leaving Cert in 1998 and there were 450 pupils in Beara Community School,’ Blake explained.
‘If you have six years of 24 children starting, you’d have less than 150 children. That’s going to have a knock-on effect. One of the principals said people outside Beara don’t know what we’re facing down here. In years to come, Beara will struggle to have a team, never mind the clubs.’
Some might wonder how an U18 can play minor and senior competitions simultaneously. Blake has suggestions.
‘If you could play minor championship and league games on Wednesday nights and then play adult on the weekends. Where the big problem is, there’s a lot of teams in the city with big numbers. They’re speaking about U18s not getting games and that there’s a big drop-off rate,’ the Beara GAA secretary said.
‘If you look back before, there used to be the non-exam leagues, competitions for players not doing Leaving Cert, and it meant clubs could still play games without their Leaving Certs.
‘You could have leagues for players not playing adult football. If you look at the rural clubs, once a player turns 18, he goes training and possibly playing with his adult team while in the suburbs, that might not necessarily be the case.’
