Clare District Soccer League

At the Delegate meeting in West County, Michael Turner of O’Neill’s Sports and
Seamus Hayes of the Clare Champion announced sponsorship of the Team of the month award
to commence in Feb 08. O’Neill Sports will present winning team with a set of polo shirts
& 6 training footballs. The Clare Champion will present a plaque to mark the occasion. It
is planned to run the awards Feb to June.

Prego Menswear Clare Junior Cup draw.
Youths & U17 Cup draws.

Results of recent survey on www.claresoccer.net:

Should we have mid-season break in December & January?
Yes	80.40%
No	19.60%
When would you like the soccer season to start?
May	17.85%
June	5.40%
July	8.90%
August	58.95%
September	8.90%
Should the Clare League move to summer soccer?
Yes	28.57%
No	71.43%
Are you a current player in the Clare league?
Yes	78.60%
No	21.4%
Are you actively involved with a club in the Clare league?
Yes	92.90%
No	7.10%

Selection of comments from the survey:

I feel the league does all it can in the running of the league but weather has been a problem in the last few years prolonging the season to 10 or 11 months. I also feel lack of youths teams will affect the numbers we have playing junior football in the next few years. We have tried and failed with youths/U17 teams for the past 2/3 years. Interest does not seem to be there. Maybe we need to abolish playstations and skateboards in the county!!!!!

I personally feel summer soccer will not work, Gaa is number 1 for a lot of players in Clare, to try and play football at the same time as Gaa would fail

I feel the Oscar traynor set up needs to be corrected. A manager should be chosen with the backing of all clubs who put forward players for a trial period and then the best players are selected. It should be an honour to represent your county and not a joke as it feels like now. Introduce suspensions for players who fail to attend Clare matches/trials etc..

The Standard of soccer being played even in the lower divisions has improved a great deal in the last few years

We have had a break in December and January from the bad weather so it doesn’t matter. If played in summer then the problem would arise of the gaa players not playing soccer which would lead to some teams not being able to field teams.

Overall I think the Clare League is in a healthy state, with facilities and pitches continuing to improve. I would like to see the personal hearings for players in front of a discipline committee rather than the league taking the word of the referee. The current process of writing a letter from the players club is not efficient. Other than that keep up the good work

Clare soccer has a lot of potential and I seriously believe that moving to summer soccer will prove to stabilize all divisions. More time to train, no matches called off due to bad weather.

Committee seem to be working hard to get the views of all people involved in Clare soccer..well done

Are there any Youth & Junior football coaching courses planned for Clare this year? Preferably in the first half of the year.

Making progress. Facilities improving every year, need to be more competitive and place more emphasis on FAI and Munster competitions, starting at u11 right the way up to Junior!

Summer soccer would destroy our club fullstop.......

Move to a Summer League. No point playing at the moment ruining pitches.

All B Teams Need to play and Stay in a B Team League. To Play in the Premier Division in 2 Years Time - Sides Must have - Good Playing Surface - Changing Facilities - Dugouts - Nominated Linesperson – etc

Not enough is done to promote school boys football or to attract young players by the league and not enough refs. In limerick they have a big awards night for schoolboys sponsored by the limerick leader.

I believe there needs to be a review of the season structure, but I am not 100% sure about summer soccer, I ticked yes but I believe a debate should take place on the issue. The season (due to the weather and cup games) is now usually from Aug-early Oct and then March to end of April. Effectively we end up with a raft of evening games in an effort to cram in the season, this causes an imbalance between teams having played 15 games and others with 9/10. This usually happens because a team has had a cup run and looses ground on other teams, An idea would be to hold the Shield throughout the season on the weekends when these teams have cup games, hence the amount of games played in the league by each team would remain closer...this is just an idea and I expect it would have its own problems. Does this problem occur in the premier since the shield was eradicated? Surely by playing league games in Aug it would help ease the congestion at the end of the season and provide some teams with something (Shield final) to play for at the end of the season.

Delighted with the website, it is great. Mid season break would be a good idea because waiting until Saturdays for any cancellations (which normally happen) is too much. Players should be able to plan their weekends too.

Two or three months break at xmas/new year would probably not be feasible for most clubs.

Should bring in an Under 20 or 21 League as there's so many lads just stopping playing after youths.
Should take a leaf out of the gaa's book with the Under21 after Minor to develop players more for junior.