Lizard??

[cornish leg end]

Hearing stories today that lizard have now withdrawn from the league? Any truth in this? 

[bighairydave]

1 hour ago, cornish leg end said:

Hearing stories today that lizard have now withdrawn from the league? Any truth in this? 

Yes it is true, the league gave emailed clubs to announce so from the club.

[cornish leg end]

2 hours ago, bighairydave said:

Yes it is true, the league gave emailed clubs to announce so from the club.

Such a shame to lose another team. Won’t be the last this season though. 

[Terry Stephens]

Sorry to hear this, hope they can get a team together for Trelawney league. Logistics probably played a part, being further South.

[We Two]

2 hours ago, Terry Stephens said:

Logistics probably played a part, being further South.

Have to agree with that Terry and having spoken to several club committee members in different leagues in Cornwall, i appears that many of the players do little or nothing to support the survival of the clubs they play for.
We wouldn't dare suggest that this is the case with Lizard as we know nothing about them, but we will quote the criteria invoked with a junior club in North West England.
A section of the club that ran the 16 & under team found difficulty in getting players or parents to support the functions that were aimed at financing the junior teams existence and were in danger of becoming unpaid child minders.
A donation of at least £1  ( this was in the 1970s ) was demanded if you failed to support your teams fundraising efforts, or nothing to pay if support ws given which had a double pronged beneficial effect because those who didn't support the cause paid up, and those who did ensured that most events were well supported and viable.
That club that was in serious danger of folding, is still in existence some 50 years later and even have their own minibus to travel up and down the motorway.
Just goes to show what the power of support can achieve..

Best of luck to Lizard by the way!

[Pitty]

36 minutes ago, We Two said:

Have to agree with that Terry and having spoken to several club committee members in different leagues in Cornwall, i appears that many of the players do little or nothing to support the survival of the clubs they play for.
We wouldn't dare suggest that this is the case with Lizard as we know nothing about them, but we will quote the criteria invoked with a junior club in North West England.
A section of the club that ran the 16 & under team found difficulty in getting players or parents to support the functions that were aimed at financing the junior teams existence and were in danger of becoming unpaid child minders.
A donation of at least £1  ( this was in the 1970s ) was demanded if you failed to support your teams fundraising efforts, or nothing to pay if support ws given which had a double pronged beneficial effect because those who didn't support the cause paid up, and those who did ensured that most events were well supported and viable.
That club that was in serious danger of folding, is still in existence some 50 years later and even have their own minibus to travel up and down the motorway.
Just goes to show what the power of support can achieve..

Best of luck to Lizard by the way!

It’s a good point on support for the financial side but I think the major issue at the moment is lack of players. If a side doesn’t have at least 15+ (20 preferable) registered at the start of a season per team it’s going to be an issue. The worrying thing is it’s not clear where the players are going as it’s very rare to see a side turn up for a game with a full bench of 5 so it’s not as if 1 team is sucking in loads of players creating huge squads I turned up to countless combo games last season where the bench is only 1 or 2 or even a bare 11. It’s not sustainable when injuries, suspensions and other things outside of football affecting availability start getting in the way. 
unfortunately I don’t think their is any major cure for this and it will undoubtedly get worse. 
Combo down to only 14 teams now from the heady days of 20 only 4 years ago - Not good!

[Terry Stephens]

Ive read on here Neil that a lot of so called Junior clubs have a second and sometimes a third team , that surely is another drain on the first team, for numbers available to play?.Yeah i get it that  everyone wants a game, but to the detrement of club or clubs involved

[Pitty]

18 minutes ago, Terry Stephens said:

Ive read on here Neil that a lot of so called Junior clubs have a second and sometimes a third team , that surely is another drain on the first team, for numbers available to play?.Yeah i get it that  everyone wants a game, but to the detrement of club or clubs involved

Is grassroots footballs aim not to get as many players playing as possible?

It used to be standard for a club to have 2 teams or even 3 which is what my own club had up until 2010. In my experience teams within clubs seem to be more independent of each other these days, The time of players striving to work hard and get noticed by the manager of the team above seem to have gone and now players are happy just to stay within 1 squad and are ‘reluctant’ to move up or down. This can cause issues if the first team are struggling and call on players to play from the lower team as firstly players are relucant to move and secondly their can be issues when returning to the reserves if the team are exceeding the higher league player rule (2). As a club you can try to enforce a policy to ‘persuade’ players to shift but then you are faced with the possibility of losing a player completely - Total minefield that the UN probably couldn’t solve.

[fenman]

This attitude of " I want to play with my mates and to hell with the other team " is detrimental to the grass roots game . One other problem , and its a bizarre one , which leaves me open to ridicule , but  has caused problems for clubs within my own league ,is . Many young players always look at the other grass being greener , they hear about other leagues and are told that that particular league is better and the standard higher . As a result they badger their club committee to leave their  "safe league " and transfer to another league . Unfortunatly many young people have no sense of geography , they don't think of the location of many of the opposing clubs in their new league . The season starts and they suddenly find that their second game is away  and entails a 100 mile round trip and the 4th game is away with a 50 mile round trip , and so on . So suddenly their  2 to 2 and a half hour Saturday afternoon turns into a marathon half day  every so often . As a result they call off due to a tight work schedule and the club's in a muddle .

You may regard my comments as  far fetched , but within my own league here in Norfolk we have seen this many times . Also from a club secretary's point of view I can say that many of my players had  no idea where a village more that 5 miles away was , and I had to find a post code for their sat navs .

And we think as a race we are getting clever ?

 

[cornish leg end]

The biggest problem now is that football for youngsters starts at 5 now by the time they get to playing adult football at 16 they have already played 11 years of football. The novelty for younger players has worn off a lot go off to college and uni now they go into work. It’s a loss of interest when they get to that age. This is a vicious circle now. I remember 10 years ago combo was arguably the most competitive league in Cornwall. No easy games no matter who you played. I personally don’t think there’s a way of fixing this now and local football will only go down the pan more. 

[cornishteddyboy]

Saw an advert the other day for an under 8 youth side looking for EXPERIENCED players. 

[Darin Morse]

Yawn....so it's the fault of children that an adult club can't find eleven players? We hear that children these days stay inside on their phones, never play in the streets and are a general pain in the whatsit etc, yet when they join an organised sporting activity run by qualified volunteers it's still wrong! Apparently, in the halcyon days of yore, children would kick a ball about from dawn till dusk before going on to play many years for their village side. How come the novelty didn't wear off for them? Could the problem be more that lacklustre "training", the drinking and smoking culture and certain pre-historic attitudes are a massive turn off?

[Brianmooreshead]

20 hours ago, cornish leg end said:

The biggest problem now is that football for youngsters starts at 5 now by the time they get to playing adult football at 16 they have already played 11 years of football. The novelty for younger players has worn off a lot go off to college and uni now they go into work. It’s a loss of interest when they get to that age. This is a vicious circle now. I remember 10 years ago combo was arguably the most competitive league in Cornwall. No easy games no matter who you played. I personally don’t think there’s a way of fixing this now and local football will only go down the pan more. 

I couldn't agree more. My son started at Cubs at 6, then played right up to U/16 as well as schools and representative side. He stopped playing at 17. Said he didn't enjoy it enough. At that age I'd only played two seasons of organised football. I couldn't wait for Saturdays to come around. Of the 14 / 15 lads in his youth team only three play regularly as adults

1 hour ago, Darin Morse said:

Yawn....so it's the fault of children that an adult club can't find eleven players? We hear that children these days stay inside on their phones, never play in the streets and are a general pain in the whatsit etc, yet when they join an organised sporting activity run by qualified volunteers it's still wrong! Apparently, in the halcyon days of yore, children would kick a ball about from dawn till dusk before going on to play many years for their village side. How come the novelty didn't wear off for them? Could the problem be more that lacklustre "training", the drinking and smoking culture and certain pre-historic attitudes are a massive turn off?

I don't think that kids are a general pain, nor do all stay inside on their phones, but it's undeniable that there are so many more pastimes and pursuits available to children ( and indeed everyone ) than there were then. We kicked a ball around night and day where I lived because there wasn't much else to do. Not sure what you mean by the prehistoric attitudes and the drinking / smoking culture. Kids may drink at a younger age these days because so much is targeted at them but thankfully I think smokings on the decrease

[Terry Stephens]

Bit late for you then Paul!

[cornish leg end]

1 hour ago, Darin Morse said:

Yawn....so it's the fault of children that an adult club can't find eleven players? We hear that children these days stay inside on their phones, never play in the streets and are a general pain in the whatsit etc, yet when they join an organised sporting activity run by qualified volunteers it's still wrong! Apparently, in the halcyon days of yore, children would kick a ball about from dawn till dusk before going on to play many years for their village side. How come the novelty didn't wear off for them? Could the problem be more that lacklustre "training", the drinking and smoking culture and certain pre-historic attitudes are a massive turn off?

What a stupid reply from someone who put alot of time into youth football many years ago. No one said it’s the kids fault! The fact they already play 10/11 years before they get to mens football means that they lose interested after a long time of playing already. 

[6times]

On 02/08/2022 at 13:32, Pitty said:

It’s a good point on support for the financial side but I think the major issue at the moment is lack of players. If a side doesn’t have at least 15+ (20 preferable) registered at the start of a season per team it’s going to be an issue. The worrying thing is it’s not clear where the players are going as it’s very rare to see a side turn up for a game with a full bench of 5 so it’s not as if 1 team is sucking in loads of players creating huge squads I turned up to countless combo games last season where the bench is only 1 or 2 or even a bare 11. It’s not sustainable when injuries, suspensions and other things outside of football affecting availability start getting in the way. 
unfortunately I don’t think their is any major cure for this and it will undoubtedly get worse. 
Combo down to only 14 teams now from the heady days of 20 only 4 years ago - Not good!

Hopefully with all this league restructuring next summer the combination league gets scrapped as you say down every year , no point in it since the formation of the st pirans league .