It’s really sad, rural Ireland is sadly declining, some towns worse than others.
Problem is players in these towns and townlands, clubs are merging at underage to field teams.
In Dublin it’s almost impossible to set up a new a new club, your talking close to 10 mill the price of land for a playing field and facilities in Dublin, I know one club in South Dublin quoted more - it’s impossible.
You get kids then sucked into the Super Clubs, I was up at Ballyboden recently and close to 4000 underage kids pass through the doors either training or playing over a weekend. The participation is great, but you can see how that number get lost to the game playing fir the one club - how do ever you make Senior with the lads you played growing up.
County board have bought two sites on the North and South side and are going to build clusters of pitches for clubs either side of the Liffey, hopefully that helps the clubs or new clubs to set up as the City expands.
The County team them selves despite all their success in recent years doesn’t even have a centre of excellence - it’s to expensive.
