Summer Football (Junior Level)

[right_said_steve]

2 minutes ago, peasy23 said:

Yep, it's nice to watch a game in decent weather but for me there are still too many cons that outweigh the pros. Four biggest problems for me are:

1. Pitch maintainance: Quite simply, grass doesn't grow in the winter and if you are looking to start the season in March then playing surfaces are never going to be of a high standard.

2. Cancellations: if the season is set to finish in November, how are games that are postponed late in the season fitted in when only a handful of clubs have lights?

3. Midweek games: One argument that is made for summer football is that you will pick up neutrals in the summer, but ask any club treasurer and they will tell you that it isn't the case at the moment as midweek crowds will almost certainly be the worst of the season. Yes, you can argue that often games in May can be meaningless league matches, and don't start me on the Sectional, but we've had plenty of games that did count for something that had smaller crowds than we would expect on a Saturday.

4. Holidays: Yes, whole towns don't shut down for 2 weeks like they used to, but there is still a 6/7 week period when the schools are off when a lot of players, fans and officials alike will have to take their main holiday of the year. I know we occasionally lose the odd player here and there through the season just now, but we've never been faced with potentially losing a handful at a time which could happen when the schools are off.

cheers, very valid points. 

 

 

[peasy23]

And to add just another point, every second year you have a Euro Champs or World Cup to contend with which depending on where they are being played will clash with matches.

[right_said_steve]

11 minutes ago, peasy23 said:

And to add just another point, every second year you have a Euro Champs or World Cup to contend with which depending on where they are being played will clash with matches.

not sure how often fixtures would clash with kick off times etc but again another decent point. 

couldn't teams use these fixtures to entice more punters down to social clubs and then onto watch a game.  

how many kids are regularly attending junior games? is there going to be a "next generation"? 

[Hillonearth]

40 minutes ago, right_said_steve said:

not sure how often fixtures would clash with kick off times etc but again another decent point. 

couldn't teams use these fixtures to entice more punters down to social clubs and then onto watch a game.  

how many kids are regularly attending junior games? is there going to be a "next generation"? 

I think someone on every Junior committee at some point has had the idea to distribute free tickets to local schools and thought it stunningly original!

It never works either.

Encouraging kids to come to games isn't the real issue - the real "lost generation" are those between 25 and 40 who have grown up since the advent of Sky Sports, and while still count themselves as football fans have got out of the habit of actually going to live games. We all know some guy at work that plans his weekend round mid-table shite in the EPL...

Some clubs are going out of their way to target this demographic, but others don't have the means or the nous to do so - those are the ones you fear for the long-term future of.

[energyzone]

I think someone on every Junior committee at some point has had the idea to distribute free tickets to local schools and thought it stunningly original!
It never works either.
Encouraging kids to come to games isn't the real issue - the real "lost generation" are those between 25 and 40 who have grown up since the advent of Sky Sports, and while still count themselves as football fans have got out of the habit of actually going to live games. We all know some guy at work that plans his weekend round mid-table shite in the EPL...
Some clubs are going out of their way to target this demographic, but others don't have the means or the nous to do so - those are the ones you fear for the long-term future of.

I don't know anyone aged between 25-40 who isn't busy with kids or work at the weekends. It's not a lost generation, it's just modern life.

[Cancellara]

Another thing is most committee people work.Trying to get a pitch ready and all the other things that need doing in just over an hour is a pain if it's a 6:30pm ko.Most people work till 5pm then have to get home.get ready.catch a quick bite.Midweek football is a nightmare

[cmontheloknow]

I have a personal aversion to midweek games - there was a time at Pollok that the first three non 'top table' committee men/women to turn up for a midweek game would be handed a float and stuck onto a gate until half-time as the rota wasn't applied for midweek matches (lack of certain availability). Midweek = pain in the arse and a crap attendance too. You have to remember that the lack of floodlights means kicking off pre 7pm more often than not, sometimes 6.30pm if it's a cup tie with penalties potentially.

[Cyclizine]

League of Ireland seem to manage okay.

League of Ireland clubs have money to spend on their pitches, though, and an incentive to do it as they can lose their licences. Only the two senior divisions in Ireland play summer, the intermediate and junior leagues still play classic winter season.

Summer football in Scotland occurs, it's the standard in the north for amateur and welfare clubs. It's short seasons though. A full fixture list at the moment is July to May minimum, i.e. 10 months. A summer season would be February to November at best! There would need to be a massive cut in games to play a classic March to October summer season.

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 hours ago, peasy23 said:

Yep, it's nice to watch a game in decent weather but for me there are still too many cons that outweigh the pros. Four biggest problems for me are:

1. Pitch maintainance: Quite simply, grass doesn't grow in the winter 

If yours starts growing the groundsman will be in high demand.

[lokforever]

It can be quite hectic for some clubs in the latter part of the season. When Shotts won the cup in 2011-2012 they played 25 games from 7th April to 13th June. 16 league and 9 cup games.

April - 7,15,21, 23,25,28,30

May - 2,5,7,9,12,14,15,19,21,27(cup final) 29,31

June - 2,4,6,9,11,13.

[parkcircus]

5 hours ago, cmontheloknow said:

Just a few other issues beyond those already mentioned - volume of games, player and supporter holidays... something that just does not happen in the SPFL at any level is players buggering off to somewhere hot and sunny instead of playing for their club. Imagine the scenario in the Best of East Ayrshire Summer Super League on July 7th - Talbot vs Cumnock and one (or both) clubs have 4 or 5 players away, sunning themselves with their families. 

Edit I see Peasy has beat me to it!

Like Johnstone Burgh at Xmas, all their players were on holiday

[lang]

It can be quite hectic for some clubs in the latter part of the season. When Shotts won the cup in 2011-2012 they played 25 games from 7th April to 13th June. 16 league and 9 cup games.

April - 7,15,21, 23,25,28,30

May - 2,5,7,9,12,14,15,19,21,27(cup final) 29,31

June - 2,4,6,9,11,13.

You're getting value for those facts today[emoji38]

[dt17]

I'd be all for summer football. Training throughout winter knowing that you might not have a game for over 2 months is brutal.

 

Not easy for the clubs as well who've got wages to pay without having any home games/gate money.  Even when the pitches are playable a lot of them are like swamps. Summer football would be much more enjoyable for players & fans alike (IMO). I think the crowds would drastically increase as well as they don't have top level Scottish football to compete with.

[cmontheloknow]

2 hours ago, dt17 said:

I'd be all for summer football. Training throughout winter knowing that you might not have a game for over 2 months is brutal.

 

Not easy for the clubs as well who've got wages to pay without having any home games/gate money.  Even when the pitches are playable a lot of them are like swamps. Summer football would be much more enjoyable for players & fans alike (IMO). I think the crowds would drastically increase as well.

On what evidence when just now clubs record their worst gates of the season in midweek games? Guaranteed Pollok's worst home gates of the season are midweek. It happens year in, year out.

[dt17]

3 minutes ago, cmontheloknow said:

Om whate evidence when just now clubs record their worst gates of the season in midweek games? Guaranteed Pollok's worst home gates of the season are midweek. It happens year in, year out.

 

Well considering the weather so far this year it's hardly surprising that crowds are down is it? I'd hazard a guess that during the summer when the weather is fairly decent and there's no other football to compete with (Champions League etc) then you'd get punters going to the juniors.

 

You wouldn't have 2+ months of no football over winter either and teams having to play 3 games per week for around 2 months as well. Just look at the league tables now - some teams have almost played their full fixture list so far and some haven't even played half. So effectively you've got teams who have an advantage (purely because they play on 3G/4G) compared to others who cram fixtures in towards the end of the season.

[cmontheloknow]

11 minutes ago, dt17 said:

 

Well considering the weather so far this year it's hardly surprising that crowds are down is it? I'd hazard a guess that during the summer when the weather is fairly decent and there's no other football to compete with (Champions League etc) then you'd get punters going to the juniors.

 

You wouldn't have 2+ months of no football over winter either and teams having to play 3 games per week for around 2 months as well. Just look at the league tables now - some teams have almost played their full fixture list so far and some haven't even played half. So effectively you've got teams who have an advantage (purely because they play on 3G/4G) compared to others who cram fixtures in towards the end of the season.

I didn't say anything about this year - I said every year the worst crowds recorded are those in midweek. That's not unique to Pollok. There is no guarantee the weather is good in summer- July can be as wet as March. At Pollok you can see an increase of about 30/40% from midweek to a saturday.

I do agree the winter wipeout is a problem but it is not all down to the weather - major cuplrits are the Junior Cup (which blocks any advancement of fixtures - and if you are unlucky and draw a team playing on a poor surface you're out of action for weeks on end - in the Seniors, such games would be put into midweek to avoid disrupting the saturday games - and teams playing on poor, badly maintained surfaces.

IF the Junior Cup was not scheduled between say mid Nov and late Feb, the amount of games being postponed would fall - regional secretaries have more freedom to give games to clubs to get them on, or for local fixtures to be reversed.

Badly maintained pitches won't disappear with summer football - it actually may be worse as there will be less 'downtime' for them to recover as to get in the kind of fixtures we have here, they'll have to be playing most midweeks from mid April to early September.

One point few have an answer to... games get postponed in late summer and autumn. Those games would need rearranged. Cup ties would see league games need rearranging. When do these get pencilled in for? Do we keep extending the season? What if there's a bad November and games roll into December / January? It could end up being a farce.  As noted up the thread, LOI are only in a summer calendar at the national level and these clubs also have lights to get games played at the back end of the season.

[Glenconner]

3 hours ago, lokforever said:

It can be quite hectic for some clubs in the latter part of the season. When Shotts won the cup in 2011-2012 they played 25 games from 7th April to 13th June. 16 league and 9 cup games.

April - 7,15,21, 23,25,28,30

May - 2,5,7,9,12,14,15,19,21,27(cup final) 29,31

June - 2,4,6,9,11,13.

e-mailed to Wishaw.

[lokforever]

A wee add on to the Shotts games.

16 wins (including 4 penalty shoot-outs) 3 draws and 5 defeats, the 25th april league at cumbernauld game was abandoned (i think at half time score 2v1 to Cumbernauld)

with Shotts winning the replayed game 3v1 on  the 6th June.

 

[right_said_steve]

10 hours ago, cmontheloknow said:

I didn't say anything about this year - I said every year the worst crowds recorded are those in midweek. That's not unique to Pollok. There is no guarantee the weather is good in summer- July can be as wet as March. At Pollok you can see an increase of about 30/40% from midweek to a saturday.

I do agree the winter wipeout is a problem but it is not all down to the weather - major cuplrits are the Junior Cup (which blocks any advancement of fixtures - and if you are unlucky and draw a team playing on a poor surface you're out of action for weeks on end - in the Seniors, such games would be put into midweek to avoid disrupting the saturday games - and teams playing on poor, badly maintained surfaces.

IF the Junior Cup was not scheduled between say mid Nov and late Feb, the amount of games being postponed would fall - regional secretaries have more freedom to give games to clubs to get them on, or for local fixtures to be reversed.

Badly maintained pitches won't disappear with summer football - it actually may be worse as there will be less 'downtime' for them to recover as to get in the kind of fixtures we have here, they'll have to be playing most midweeks from mid April to early September.

One point few have an answer to... games get postponed in late summer and autumn. Those games would need rearranged. Cup ties would see league games need rearranging. When do these get pencilled in for? Do we keep extending the season? What if there's a bad November and games roll into December / January? It could end up being a farce.  As noted up the thread, LOI are only in a summer calendar at the national level and these clubs also have lights to get games played at the back end of the season.

maybe because at the moment the midweek fixtures are shoehorned in to make up for lost fixtures attendances aren't that great. 

if a summer season was introduced would there be as much a need for so many cups as well? 

not sure how you would cope with postponed fixtures, possibly try and have more games played earlier on in the season when the weather/daylight is more kind? 

what's the chances of a BBC ALBA picking up more rounds of the scottish cup if the ties are played in the summer when there's no other domestic football on, bringing more cash in? 

[right_said_steve]

14 hours ago, lokforever said:

It can be quite hectic for some clubs in the latter part of the season. When Shotts won the cup in 2011-2012 they played 25 games from 7th April to 13th June. 16 league and 9 cup games.

April - 7,15,21, 23,25,28,30

May - 2,5,7,9,12,14,15,19,21,27(cup final) 29,31

June - 2,4,6,9,11,13.

that is some amount of games lol