Juniors v womens football

[garrellburn]

Looking at the publicity and coverage being given to womans football over the past few months it has now totally eclipsed the junior game here in Scotland. It would have been hard to forecast that this would be the case even just a couple of years ago. Where has it all gone wrong? It is all falling apart with more than a quarter of clubs already gone and looking like the west will soon follow suit. OK, the clubs will still exist and playing one another, at least in some sort of regional league setup but the excitement of away days to Aberdeen or Tayside or the east clubs has gone.

Maybe I'm duplicating another thread with over 16000 posts here but why have we allowed this to happen, internal squabbling has chased away the big sponsors and to a certain extent the almost total domination of our flagship tournament by one club has taken away much of the excitement. Certainly not blaming them, they are just doing what all other clubs should be aspiring to, but in a better way, I wonder what will be said at the upcoming AGM concerning our future, do we have one?

[AlanCamelonfan]

2 minutes ago, garrellburn said:

Looking at the publicity and coverage being given to womans football over the past few months it has now totally eclipsed the junior game here in Scotland. It would have been hard to forecast that this would be the case even just a couple of years ago. Where has it all gone wrong? It is all falling apart with more than a quarter of clubs already gone and looking like the west will soon follow suit. OK, the clubs will still exist and playing one another, at least in some sort of regional league setup but the excitement of away days to Aberdeen or Tayside or the east clubs has gone.

Maybe I'm duplicating another thread with over 16000 posts here but why have we allowed this to happen, internal squabbling has chased away the big sponsors and to a certain extent the almost total domination of our flagship tournament by one club has taken away much of the excitement. Certainly not blaming them, they are just doing what all other clubs should be aspiring to, but in a better way, I wonder what will be said at the upcoming AGM concerning our future, do we have one?

Inability to change has been the key problem. A lot of what was done in the EOSFL regarding scheduling and not letting the JUnior cup nacker a season. The Juniors became the drunk uncle you only see at funerals and weddings.

In the same breath in my opinion teams that went like Linlithgow Rose and Sauchie for me didn't embrace the change and it was evident on the field why they didn't deliver. Sauchie scraped into Premier League. Linlithgow thought games like ormiston were easy or a waste of time. Where as Camelon, Broxburn and others embraced the change and got on with it. We were very succesful but got our season done by 18th May. No the EOSFL isn't perfect we do not live in a perfect world. But they are trying to make the best of it. The Junior game is on the retreat and try to defend its place which is in the past and is protecting one man. Their is no difference between a Junior game and a game in EOSFL. Camelon vs Linlithgow or Broxburn or whoever was the same game in the Juniors as it was in EOSFL.

One thing is for sure the game will be stronger if the clubs moved across and we had a fully functioning pyramid. Yes it has flaws but a lot less than the Junior game.

[ThemightyHERTHA]

There's no doubt that the lowland league has gave junior clubs a right challenge when it comes to signing players and lots of ex senior players would go  junior but now the LL league is snapping up lots of quality players. 

Don't know if the West juniors should be aiming to go to a pyramid and go up against the LL league or not but they're definitely snapping up players who would otherwise be going to top West of Scotland junior clubs. 

[Tartan Tammy 1297]

7 minutes ago, ThemightyHERTHA said:

There's no doubt that the lowland league has gave junior clubs a right challenge when it comes to signing players and lots of ex senior players would go  junior but now the LL league is snapping up lots of quality players. 

Don't know if the West juniors should be aiming to go to a pyramid and go up against the LL league or not but they're definitely snapping up players who would otherwise be going to top West of Scotland junior clubs. 

LL league is worth watching with the perchance off picking off some off there players a lot off them are well paid just look at Darren O Dea going to East Kilbride to become boss

And ex senior guys like Humphries travelling up from Preston to play for them.

Doubtfull anybody like that would travel up here to play for us even if the English trains coming up travelled on our line

I don't want to knock woman's game good on them watched the Glasgow City train at Glasgow green and played with a few ex Scotland players and they were great to have around and a good laugh

 

Proud they got to the world cup

[glensmad]

2 minutes ago, Tartan Tammy 1297 said:

...just look at Darren O Dea going to East Kilbride to become boss

Darren O'Dea hasn't gone to East Kilbride FC to become boss.

He is only a player, while at the same time being a youth coach at Motherwell.

Edited June 10, 2019 by glensmad

[Tartan Tammy 1297]

2 minutes ago, glensmad said:

Darren O'Dea hasn't gone to East Kilbride FC to become boss.

He is only a player, while at the same time being a youth coach at Motherwell.

Boss or not he will still be in a big wad off notes

[Black & Red Socks]

1 hour ago, garrellburn said:

I wonder what will be said at the upcoming AGM concerning our future, do we have one?

In answer to this specific point, I really can't see that the Juniors in their present form have any sort of bright future at all. It may take a little time yet, but if they remain on the outside of the pyramid looking in then they will eventually die of a thousand cuts - players being lost to the Senior game, Sponsors being lost to the Senior game, media exposure becoming even less than it already is. The East Region has all but become a glorified amateur set-up - or is certainly about to - the North Region has just about always been such, other than a handful of teams, and seem happy to continue to be so while the West Region have been lead down the garden path by a campaign of misinformation that promised something that was palpably never going to happen. There really won't be many more opportunities left to get off a fast sinking ship.

Those clubs below the HL/LL dividing line in the East with any embers of ambition still burning - if, indeed, there are any left - really have to move to the EoSFL while those north of the line need to join forces with the North Region to become a feeder to the Highland League. Clubs of any serious ambition in the West should be seriously considering the formation of a WoSFL.....continuing to wait for the SJFA to negotiate what they have failed to negotiate to this point is a fools game.

For clubs who are happy just as they are, and I do understand that there are many, acceptance that the Juniors will, in the fullness of time, become merely an anachronism viewed in much the same way as the amateur grade is and based almost entirely in the west with a few outliers elsewhere is perhaps a future with which they are happy and they are absolutely entitled to view matters in this way.

[Marten]

The issue is right to be discussed, as attention for the juniors is fading away, especially outside the west (most specifically Ayrshire). I've been to a fair number of east games this season and the attendances are generally very poor compared to what they used to be, with the League Cup final yesterday being an exception.

However, I don't think it should be compared to women's football. As the women's game is growing fast, it's inevitable they will overtake the juniors in terms of media attention, even if the junior game would still have been the same as say 15 years ago. That can only be a good thing as it will encourage more women/girls to start playing football.

[Darvel legend]

Aye here we go the good old lowland league nonsense again played in front of 3 men and a dog , right good stuff 

[AlanCamelonfan]

9 minutes ago, Darvel legend said:

Aye here we go the good old lowland league nonsense again played in front of 3 men and a dog , right good stuff 

It's where players want to play it's where sponsors want to go. A lot of junior clubs play in front of 3 men and a dog.  The junior game as it is dieing

[Jason King]

12 minutes ago, Darvel legend said:

Aye here we go the good old lowland league nonsense again played in front of 3 men and a dog , right good stuff 

Thats roughly one man and a dog more than are watching the Juniors.

Clubs and fans with their heads in the sand are killing the game at Junior level, the better players are migrating to the LL and have been doing so for several years. With the East now in place in the pyramid we'll be seeing more and more quality Junior players sod off to play for the likes of Linlithgow and Bo'ness at a higher level.

Its the 21st century now and Junior football stopped evolving sometime in the 18th and is dying before your eyes but you just make yourself feel good by slagging off clubs that have embraced progression and the future. Over time the current LL will evolve as the EoS clubs move upwards and onwards whilst clubs like Darvel are reduced to the Ammies as their lack of foresight has killed their current level.

[Ginaro]

3 hours ago, garrellburn said:

Looking at the publicity and coverage being given to womans football over the past few months it has now totally eclipsed the junior game here in Scotland. It would have been hard to forecast that this would be the case even just a couple of years ago. Where has it all gone wrong? It is all falling apart with more than a quarter of clubs already gone and looking like the west will soon follow suit. OK, the clubs will still exist and playing one another, at least in some sort of regional league setup but the excitement of away days to Aberdeen or Tayside or the east clubs has gone.

You say that as if a separate men's football system and governing body - its popularity mostly confined to the west of Scotland - should somehow be getting more coverage than the women's team which is representing the entire country at their first world cup. 

4 minutes ago, Darvel legend said:

Aye here we go the good old lowland league nonsense again played in front of 3 men and a dog , right good stuff 

Look forward to seeing your attendance figures being posted next season.

[santheman]

Yawn!!!!!!!!!

[dreggin]

1 hour ago, Darvel legend said:

Aye here we go the good old lowland league nonsense again played in front of 3 men and a dog , right good stuff 

More than Darvel had 5 years ago and now they have got better changing rooms than Rangers and Celtic now

 

[santheman]

1 hour ago, gogsy said:

Time for your bed then Auld Yin, get the Horlicks out and the stairlift up to bed.

It's much better reading Groundhog Day on here

It'll be at least another 20 years before I'm at the Horlicks stage.

[dreggin]

wrong post

Edited June 10, 2019 by dreggin
Was talking about someone else

[garrellburn]

The question is, will womens football ever attract the sort of audience that junior football still does for a number of clubs. I mean actually turning up at ordinary league matches, rather than highly publicised representative games with thousands of free tickets handed out? Absolutely nothing against women playing the game but would you rather watch it week in, week out, unless you have a personal connection to those playing, or a junior game with football being played the old fashioned way which for me, and I'm sure many others, is its main attraction. We had Cumbernauld Ladies team playing at our ground for 5 or 6 years, they were the top Scottish ladies team at the time and they had virtually no followers other than friends and family, even their Scottish cup final at Forthbank only attracted a few hundred spectators.  Juniour football is still a great product, as they say nowadays, but the marketing of it is almost non existant.

Edited June 10, 2019 by garrellburn

[FairWeatherFan]

5 minutes ago, garrellburn said:

The question is, will womens football ever attract the sort of audience that junior football still does for a number of clubs. I mean actually turning up at ordinary league matches, rather than highly publicised representative games with thousands of free tickets handed out? Absolutely nothing against women playing the game but would you rather watch it week in, week out, unless you have a personal connection to those playing, or a junior game with football being played the old fashioned way which for me, and I'm sure many others, is its main attraction. We had Cumbernauld Ladies team playing at our ground for 5 or 6 years, they were the top Scottish ladies team at the time and they had virtually no followers other than friends and family, even their Scottish cup final at Forthbank only attracted a few hundred spectators.  Juniour football is still a great product, as they say nowadays, but the marketing of it is almost non existant.

An advantage women's football will have over the likes of Junior football is links with the bigger professional football clubs in Scotland.

It's going to get better investment and marketing opportunities than junior football. That should eventually see a higher return on attendances.

[Shite state of affairs]

Can’t compare women’s football with juniors.

The reason women’s football is developing rapidly is because investment is starting to trickle into it, and it allows more professionalism.

The only reason women’s football was getting less coverage or attention is literally because of structural sexism - women’s football was banned here *because it was too popular*, and the men saw it as a threat.

Thankfully now people are realising the immense growth potential of this and other women’s sports.

If anything, Junior clubs with ambition could be exploring opportunities to set up a women’s team, and establish themselves as a top-flight club in the women’s game sooner than they can do so in the men’s. The former being useful in helping towards the latter, through greater brand recognition.

[Town Crier]

7 hours ago, Darvel legend said:

Aye here we go the good old lowland league nonsense again played in front of 3 men and a dog , right good stuff 

We played Dalbeattie a few years back in pre-season ...it was 3 dugs and a man.....