Junior football formed 1886, now facing oblivion. Where did it all go wrong?

[Garret Deasy]

We already have an active thread on the future of junior football with discussions on the various leagues, pyramids, and in the current state of chaos and confusion trying to work out how it will all look and what role if any the junior game and the SJFA will have when the dust settles. 

This thread is to look at where the junior game has gone wrong in the past, where were mistakes made or even where were no decisions made when they should have been and indeed who are those responsible, currently and previously. In other words, where did it all go wrong?

Why did the junior game not move with the times? How effective was the leadership of the junior game in establishing itself as something different from the senior game? And who within the leadership tried to do something different than what had been done for 50 years?  Did they really work to deliver what was best for the clubs generally or did they just concentrate on what was best for themselves or their own club?

"It's better to have tried and failed than to live life wondering what would've happened if I had tried."

Junior football was formed in 1886 with a  rich history.  412 clubs entering the junior Cup in 1922. Democratically run, clubs traditionally owned by their supporters, electing volunteers to run the clubs, Regional committees elected by clubs and an elected management committee to oversea it all. All this will soon disappear, perhaps totally but at the very least will become increasingly irrelevant.  The current position is a sad betrayal of the hard work and enthusiasm put into the junior game by so many for over a hundred years.

 

 

[Hillonearth]

For the majority of us who support a football club as opposed to a grade of football, very little will change.

The very fact that it's seen as a shock to the system that many clubs will no longer play under a banner that probably should have been renamed decades ago thanks to the confusion it causes proves that it's probably been preserved in aspic for too long as it is.

It's just evolution - for most clubs, very little will actually change on the surface except the governing body.

And that's probably no bad thing.

[Glenconner]

Could start with the Seniors becoming a closed shop in the 1890s and go from there. 

[Hillonearth]

6 hours ago, Glenconner said:

Could start with the Seniors becoming a closed shop in the 1890s and go from there. 

That probably was a starting point - my team formed in 1884 as juniors, went senior for a few years and then went back - there was a lot more fluidity until the advent of the Scottish League, when protectionism set in with the baffling and often corrupt re-election process alluded to earlier, and it became tougher for teams to move between grades which eventually fossilised

With senior, junior, amateur and welfare existing in parallel but never meeting and having no flow between them, we've essentially preserved a Victorian structure in place until almost the third decade of the 21st  century, which makes it all the more remarkable that there still are a minority who are bent out of shape about reforming  things.

 

[Mr.Albert]

Junior football origins have close links to the mining industry especially in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, and Edinburgh.

Most villages had a pit so they also had a football team which brought these small villages together.     It is no coincidence that with the demise and closure of the pits Junior football started to decline. When my team Royal Albert started out in 1878 they were a senior team,     They didn't join the Juniors till 1928, but even then there were still plenty of Junior teams in the Lanarkshire area,   Coalburn,  Burnbank, Newarthill, Carfin, to name a few,  

But as time has went on these teams have died out,  lack of interest, financial reasons.

Junior football as a working mans game has always reflected what is happening in that area  and is still doing so now,     young people not interested in either coming to the games or actually helping their local team,  to many other things to do.    But that is the same not only for the Juniors but for senior teams as well.

Most teams who have a council owned pitch are fighting all the times with the local council,  to maintain and invest in their pitches but that is not a priority for the Council,   and even clubs who have their own pitch find it difficult not only financially but they don't have enough people to help run the club.

It is still the best value for money of any football the Juniors but as the cycle is on a downward trend just now it will come back round again, but how many teams will be here to see it.

Some clubs have only themselves to blame by paying players monies they cant afford to chase glory, and if it doesn't come then they end up on the brink of going out the game.  Money is no sure thing for success,  clubs should be looking at the bigger picture.

Some clubs now have went back to the community and tried to get the community involved the likes of Gartcairn,   St.Rochs, Blackburn, and more and that seems to work for them, so this may be the way forward.

If we wait for Hampden to do anything there will be no clubs left, if you ook at boys , youths and especially womans football there money being pumped into them, Junior football is the forgotten child so we must try and do it ourselves.

[parkcircus]

Failure to attract new customers is the main demise of the game.

Football is a form of paid entertainment and competition for eyeballs and gate money increases all the time. The working man that gave the wife the pay poke and went on a 3 day bender are gone. 

Parents don’t want their kids running about falling down, crumbling grounds with broken and rusty metal sticking out everywhere, In fact I’m surprised they let players play at some of the grounds let alone charge fans to get in. Families are now were the Saturday money is and if clubs don’t start to cater to them they’ll lose more fans to sofaplays, swimming and cinemas etc

 

[Kilbowie Benches]

The fact that we have a guy in the West in his 80s doing the fixtures tells you all you need to know.

[Jason King]

Not moving with the times is the main cause of decline, in terms of ground improvements etc, a lot of clubs are paying the price for example of not investing in floodlights decades ago which would allow games to be played at different times. Its utterly disgraceful that we watch a level of football where clubs can choose not to play under lights.

But probably the biggest problem over the last 20 years or so has been the arrival of the Saturday televised game with a 12:15 or 12:30 kick off. Why spend £5 or £6 going to watch a Junior game when you can stay in the pub and have some drinks inside whilst watching for example Man Utd v Arsenal or Wolves v Millwall or even Hearts v Motherwell.

[peasy23]

Not moving with the times is the main cause of decline, in terms of ground improvements etc, a lot of clubs are paying the price for example of not investing in floodlights decades ago which would allow games to be played at different times. Its utterly disgraceful that we watch a level of football where clubs can choose not to play under lights.
But probably the biggest problem over the last 20 years or so has been the arrival of the Saturday televised game with a 12:15 or 12:30 kick off. Why spend £5 or £6 going to watch a Junior game when you can stay in the pub and have some drinks inside whilst watching for example Man Utd v Arsenal or Wolves v Millwall or even Hearts v Motherwell.

You can probably trace it back even further to the advent of all day Saturday opening. Lot of our older guys would tell you that they used to go to the pub on a Saturday, and when they got kicked out at 2.30 they would head to a game.

[Burnie_man]

There’s a whole host of reasons why Junior football finds itself where it is, much of which has been covered on the other thread. One rarely mentioned is the lack of development or maintenance of facilities in the good times where money went into the pockets of players (or elsewhere) instead, and a lack of compulsion from the SJFA to improve.

Look at the Highland League and what they have to offer, these clubs are no bigger or better than the traditional big to medium size Junior clubs, but they all have seated stands, many have additional cover and terracing, they all have floodlights and decent toilets. They provide good basic facilities for your entry fee, and of course the floodlights allow for a workable fixture list.

Very few grounds in the Juniors compare and as said above, if you can’t provide even the basics for your £5/£6, people will spend their money elsewhere, or as someone else said, put it towards a Sky subscription.

[Glenconner]

Certainly wouldn't attack the top Junior sides of the past for there being a glass ceiling imposed by the Seniors club. Are folks seriously saying a Petershill or an Irvine Meadow in the 1950s would have said no thank you to a playoff with whoever to join the Seniors. Would a 1950s Petershill or Irvine Meadow have said no thank you to playing in the big Scottish Cup? Thanks anyway lads but we're playing home and away against the Roch in the League Cup section. The glass ceiling should have been removed decades ago.

Blame lies entirely with the Senior clubs of the past.

[Burnie_man]

Certainly wouldn't attack the top Junior sides of the past for there being a glass ceiling imposed by the Seniors club. Are folks seriously saying a Petershill or an Irvine Meadow in the 1950s would have said no thank you to a playoff with whoever to join the Seniors. Would a 1950s Petershill or Irvine Meadow have said no thank you to playing in the big Scottish Cup? Thanks anyway lads but we're playing home and away against the Roch in the League Cup section. The glass ceiling should have been removed decades ago.
Blame lies entirely with the Senior clubs of the past.

Didn't Irvine Meadow turn down the offer of a Scottish League place in 1974 (when the Junior game was still quite healthy) and we ended up with Meadowbank Thistle instead?

[Glenconner]

11 minutes ago, Burnie_man said:

 

Didn't Irvine Meadow turn down the offer of a Scottish League place in 1974 (when the Junior game was still quite healthy) and we ended up with Meadowbank Thistle instead?

 

You mean Ferranti Thistle?

[.Stuart.]

The fact that we have a guy in the West in his 80s doing the fixtures tells you all you need to know.

Yeah. Bloody old people.

[Glenconner]

3 minutes ago, .Stuart. said:

Yeah. Bloody old people.

True, most clubs it's the pensioners that keep the thing going.

[kabjo]

We already have an active thread on the future of junior football with discussions on the various leagues, pyramids, and in the current state of chaos and confusion trying to work out how it will all look and what role if any the junior game and the SJFA will have when the dust settles. 
This thread is to look at where the junior game has gone wrong in the past, where were mistakes made or even where were no decisions made when they should have been and indeed who are those responsible, currently and previously. In other words, where did it all go wrong?
Why did the junior game not move with the times? How effective was the leadership of the junior game in establishing itself as something different from the senior game? And who within the leadership tried to do something different than what had been done for 50 years?  Did they really work to deliver what was best for the clubs generally or did they just concentrate on what was best for themselves or their own club?
"It's better to have tried and failed than to live life wondering what would've happened if I had tried."
Junior football was formed in 1886 with a  rich history.  412 clubs entering the junior Cup in 1922. Democratically run, clubs traditionally owned by their supporters, electing volunteers to run the clubs, Regional committees elected by clubs and an elected management committee to oversea it all. All this will soon disappear, perhaps totally but at the very least will become increasingly irrelevant.  The current position is a sad betrayal of the hard work and enthusiasm put into the junior game by so many for over a hundred years.
 
 

Unfortunately it's officials are still in 1886 while many of the clubs have moved forward only to be dragged back to 1886 .

[BS7]

I think the single element that has brought us here was entry to the Scottish cup.

not just because Bonnyrigg have shown to be competitive with championship and Scottish league sides, as well- not to mention the draw to the fans but also:

And probably more importantly, it created a huge amount of interaction between junior clubs and all the other grades.  And the more enlightened junior clubs began to realise that they had infrastructure in place to match the best of the highland league, east seniors.

this meant all the mental barriers in being a ‘junior’ side have evaporated and kelty opened the floodgates.

the sjfa should have realised they were opening Pandora’s box entering the Scottish up, or to use another analogy the genie is out the bottle. There’s no going back from here.

 

[grinderbrokeyourhearts]

Probably a loss of identity in the last 20 years.

Once the Superleague set up arrived it diluted the local rivalries and crowds dwindled after initial interest.

Then the big cup entry arrived, from then it was only a matter of time.

[craigkillie]

56 minutes ago, Glenconner said:

Certainly wouldn't attack the top Junior sides of the past for there being a glass ceiling imposed by the Seniors club. Are folks seriously saying a Petershill or an Irvine Meadow in the 1950s would have said no thank you to a playoff with whoever to join the Seniors. Would a 1950s Petershill or Irvine Meadow have said no thank you to playing in the big Scottish Cup? Thanks anyway lads but we're playing home and away against the Roch in the League Cup section. The glass ceiling should have been removed decades ago.

Blame lies entirely with the Senior clubs of the past.

The Scottish League had vacancies in 1929, 1931, 1966, 1974, 1994, 2000 and 2008, and not a single Junior club applied for any of them.

[Jambo'ness]

I think BS7 has got a point.  Previously junior football was seen as the step between juvenile and senior, a tad simplistic maybe but it was the normal progression.  Junior clubs knew their place and were happy to stay apart.

Then they were enticed to the 'big' Scottish Cup and some clubs have enjoyed their brief flirtations against the seniors.  Funnily enough though, out of the clubs who have had the greatest success in the 'big' Scottish, Auchinleck, Bo'ness, Bonnyrigg, Irvine & Lithgae, only Bonnyrigg are making a move.

Whilst those clubs were mostly happy to take a short-term monetary benefit, other more long-sighted , smaller outfits have seen change as a way to increase revenue.