Sport

Enda McGinley: Dropout: pressing need for fixtures calendar and competition structure across club and county that is fit for purpose

The GAA Player Pathway identifies the different Stages and Phases of development players progress through. Graphic illustration from GAA.ie.
The GAA Player Pathway identifies the different Stages and Phases of development players progress through. Graphic illustration from GAA.ie. The GAA Player Pathway identifies the different Stages and Phases of development players progress through. Graphic illustration from GAA.ie.

Dropout is a key issue within GAA at the moment and a key driver behind new proposals looking at a complete overhaul of the underage competition grades.

With the GAA having presented these changes as essentially a done thing, many county boards are already looking at what may be the best options for incorporating them.

Yet for me, given they have not been passed at Congress, I am still looking for the ‘why’ behind such fundamental changes that carry their own risks.

Dropout is when a player stops playing a sport. It is something that is seen the world over, across every sport and has been much studied.

It is important not just from the health of a sporting organisation but for a society.

Sports participation has been shown to have a massively positive impact on a whole myriad of population and individual factors.

Consequently sports participation in our young people is to be encouraged and dropout avoided.

One of the key targets is the drop in participation across the underage ranks.

In GAA, participation peaks at around 10-11years of age and then begins a general decline right.

This reflects the international picture where a decline of 20-30 per cent year on year between children and adult participation is seen.

Regarding GAA, for me there are three key groups, the child dropping out, the 18-19-year-old walking away or the senior player lost in their early-mid-twenties.

A key aspect at the childhood age is the concept of ‘fun’, with research repeatedly finding it the most common area in research for children stopping their participation with a sport.

In GAA, the fact that numbers appear to start dropping at the same time as competitive football starts at U13-14 has led to the belief that the increased competitiveness is linked with dropout and this certainly would tie with the concept of decreased ‘fun’.

However ‘fun’ covers all manner of things for different children and I would imagine that it would also be the most common reason given for playing the games in those that continue their involvement.

Perhaps the dropout is reflective of the natural progression for some children gaining other interests and leaving childhood things behind them or trying things out and finding it just wasn’t really for them?

Similar to many children, my wee lad clarifies any time there are games on whether it is a tournament or ‘just a blitz’.

Despite my frequent advice that the only thing that counts is playing football and enjoying himself and the fact that blitz and tournament seem interchangeable terms to me, these children at eight years of age know, and want, the difference.

I think ensuring fun and inclusiveness is key at the younger underage levels but a natural progression into competitive action is still needed.

Maybe by incorporating some days out when the children can just enjoy being part of the club or by incorporating skill tests and measureable goals so that sense of attainment and achievement can be nurtured regardless of results on the pitch or position on the team may be avenues to keep more involved.

As with children moving naturally away from the sport, at 18-19 years old, a whole new world is opening up for a young person and will act as a significant pull away from their previous interests.

For those that love the sport, the change won’t matter, they will keep at it and embrace the higher demands of being a senior club footballer with relish, for others, it is the right time for them to step away and begin a new chapter.

This will always be a natural dropout phase.

The players with minimal interest will move away. The top players will quickly be incorporated into their senior ranks within one to two years.

For the rest there is the prospect of four to five years of reserve type football which is to an even worse degree than senior club football bereft of any real regularity or quality in terms of its competition structure.

When there are so many other competing interests it is not hard to see why many might lose faith.

If we create a situation where the final year of proper underage competitions is Under 17, then for most the gap in terms of ability and physicality becomes even greater.

The risk of players thinking they’ll take a ‘year out’ as they concentrate on exams or enjoy university life would be significant; a perfect avenue for potentially increased numbers dropping out.

The loss of senior players is an area where GAA diverges from the rest.

An ESRI report in 2013 identified the dropout rate in this group as an astonishing 75 per cent.

This is not something regularly seen in other sports where the trend is that if a person has continued from child to adult participation then they tend to stay involved.

For clubs to put in so much work at recruiting and developing underage players, this is a critical area of concern.

A study into this very issue by the Naomh Eoin Bosco club in Newry in 2012 showed that while ‘enjoyment/loss of interest’ was third among 12 different reasons for dropping out, it was behind moving away from home and injuries.

Again, it’s worth pointing out that the primary reason of those interviewed for continuing to play the game was self-fulfilment, i.e. the very thing where a person or team challenges themselves to be the best they can be.

So while the level at which clubs are currently training is a factor putting some players off, it is also a factor keeping many involved.

At senior level, if we really want to chase those that walk away, the creation of a recreational participation avenue may assist but this will raise all sorts of issues when it comes to costs and insurance issues for clubs still trying to achieve success with their senior teams.

Perhaps most pressing and no less current, is the need for a fixtures calendar and competition structure across club and county that is fit for purpose.

Even when looking at dropout, we can see the proposals from the fixtures work group are perhaps the most important work within the GAA.

It is frustrating then to see these proposals being leapfrogged by the passing of the second tier Championship and now by the proposals for a re-drawing of our underage competitions both of which will have direct impact on the fixture calendar yet are much less important to be got right.

In an ominous turn, we have this week seen the Club Players Association walking away from the fixtures work group feeling that they were having no influence and that things are simply being handed down from above.

Dropout is an important issue and one which we should always look to limit yet as ever in the GAA at present the discussion reverts back to the fixtures issue.