Agree that Schools competitions need an overhaul now that the split season has come in.
Pushing competitions back a week or two in some cases.
Again though, if a couple of exceptional players have a 3 games in a week for the overall good of all competitions then that’s the way it has to be.
It worked fine before 2015 when they started messing everything up
Happens with U20/21 football in Wexford quite often too that it spills over into the new year. Although in one respect it would’ve been enjoyable to be 22 playing an U21 match and not be breaking any rules or regulations. Not just confined to Wexford though, I remember O’ Dempseys in Laois winning a B U21 a few years back in the month of January too. The new split season probably should alleviate that issue to be fair to it but it doesn’t shorten the bleak winter in rural areas cc @peddlerscross.
4 cones was all a coach really needed
Yes.
The gas thing I see fairly often is when the pitches are being set up for a 15 a side under 9 game that the mentors will guess 4 perimeter lines marked by cones instead of leveraging off two of the marked lines that are already there.
The 4 perimeter lines would be as bent as a nine Bob note.
I’ve noticed that myself. And they’ll put down about 25 cones to do it as well!
And then refereeing without a whistle.
Did you ever come across a cunt opposition manager who walked onto the field and refereed alongside you?
No.
But I handed a cunt the whistle one night and told him to do it.
His star man was a flat track bully. Didn’t like it when one of our average joes flattened him.
Play on and let the ball go next time like a good lad.
He didn’t take the whistle but if he stays with those chaps they’ll make fuck all progress.
The 2 or 3 exceptional lads plus common sense theory doesn’t work.
The misery of young lads having adult managers (that can’t manage jack shit) putting pressure on them to fill teams for league games and practice matches.
Fuck me the thoughts of it.
I started to ref a game one day at U9 level, and after 30 seconds I realised I had a bollocks out beside me co reffing. I was stunned for a bit and didnt do anything, as I wasnt sure what his game was. But after a while when he had actually tried overrule me and told his kids different to what I said, I stopped the game, and told him I’d look forward to him reffing the return fixture and I’d bring paper to take notes. I knew if I offered him the whistle he’d take it and I wouldnt give the fucker the pleasure of taking over refereeing it.
had a woman one time for an U8 girls game, where it was in the main part a load of girls running around in circles throwing and trying unsuccessfully to kick a ball, go out to our mentor reffing at half time and told him if he wasnt going to ref it properly then not to bother at all. He was just letting things go and not blowing frees. She took over and started blowing for every free. Worst thing was, her team was worse than ours so by calling the technical fouls, our girls ended up hammering them. I knew what we were in for before the game. Our girls were picking daisys and doing cartwheels waiting for them to take the field. She had them warming up doing sprints between the 21 and 45 and all the usual heel flicks and squats etc a senior team would do.
We had a wagon like that recently too. She asked could an older lad go in goals so we could have 5 v 5 out the field (we had 6). I said no problem, but then the lad in goals who was 9 at least, kept running out and tackling our lads, i suggested to her that maybe he should stay in goals and she took the hump and started blowing fouls against our lads for the rest of the match.
Praise your own team. Say nothing to ref or other side or their sideline.
The tricky one is where a kid starts walloping another kid or does something dangerous and somebody has to intervene physically to stop it.
Ah thats gas. You can go on with any fancy shite you like, but first and foremost, they need to get the ball into their hand first, worry about the rest after that. We need to change the steps to 5 though, it would make my “drive for 5” steps mantra a lot more legal at nursery level.
Ah you see it all though at underage coaching. There’s war stories everywhere, its a minefield.
I walked into a trap like this one day with another team. They had greater numbers so they offered us goalies to make up 2 6 aside games, we’d only the 10 on the day and they had 20+. They swapped in and out the goalies over the course of the games. The goalies became progressively worse (they didnt start great) and by the end they couldnt stop laughing or puck a bullocks hole. I knew I was done, but didnt want to change it until the end of the game. Lesson learned.
We’ve a neighbouring club who’s pitch has a massive hill at one end but reasonably flat at the other end.
They always set up pitches down the hill either side of the main goals. They also just happen to ensure they are playing down the hill in all games.
They laughed when I suggested they setup on the pitches on the flat end.
I’d say they got the weekend out of that one 
Do you not swap ends at half time?
Read that this morning, some thought provoking stuff in it.