Paul Rouse: How can Gaelic football's lower tiers develop if they don’t feel valued?
Stephen Curry in action for Waterford in Division 4 of the National Football League. Picture: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Klopp was speaking in December 2018. Earlier that year, Liverpool had been beaten 3-1 by Real Madrid in the Champions League final. That defeat marked the fifth defeat in six major finals of teams managed by Klopp.
Now, Klopp could not be considered by any stretch of the imagination, to have “failed” at that point in his career. He had previously won two Bundesliga titles with Borussia Dortmund.
And he was plainly making huge strides with Liverpool. His desire to win with Liverpool was immense. The pressure within the club to win a Premier League title after nearly three decades without finishing as the best team in England was great.
But, back in December 2018, it seemed still as if that was an enormously difficult prospect, given the residual strength of Manchester City and the episodic power of Chelsea.
Klopp’s way of looking at things – captured in Jonathan Harding’s brilliant book , which examines the philosophy of coaching in Germany – was set out with clarity: “Make the best of it. That is how I learn life and a little bit in football…. If I’m not as smart as Einstein, should I not even try a little bit because I will never be him?”
This, of course, should not be mistaken for the absence of a desire to win. Klopp is a ferocious competitor; his passion and his effort is dedicated ultimately to the pursuit of success. He understands that for all the homage that is paid to “the process”, nothing defines the career of a manager quite like results.
Over the next nine weeks, the success and failure of counties in the National Football League will be revealed in the stark reality of the tables of results that are produced late on Saturday afternoons.
These tables will reveal the looming prospects of promotion and relegation, as February turns to March. There is no hiding from those tables and the fact that many contests will be close will emphasise just how narrow is the margin between being deemed to have “failed” or not.
The closeness of many of matches will bring the inevitable claim that the league is a brilliant competition because it puts teams in competition with ones who are operating at more or less the same level.
It is hard to argue against this, at least on one level. Especially in Division One, there is a quality to the football – and ordinarily a competitiveness to it – that appears to bear this out.
That these are the teams that usually enjoy long runs in the championship, and the limelight that flows from that, is presented as further evidence of the merit of the league.
But if you flip the perspective and look at the league from the bottom-up, the picture is a lot more complicated.
The current system in the league was started in 2008, with four divisions set up.
In Division 4 in 2008 were Offaly, Tipperary, Antrim, Waterford, Wicklow, Clare, Carlow, London, Kilkenny.
The great success of the group are Clare, who have managed to establish themselves as a serious Division 2 team. They are, however, the great exception. It is true that Offaly are competing in Division 2 this year. But this is the first time that Offaly have made it beyond Divisions 3 and 4 since the new league was established in 2008.
As for the rest of the teams: Kilkenny simply withdrew from league football, but for this year’s league Tipperary, Antrim, Waterford, London and Carlow are again in Division 4.
Back in that 2008 League, Leitrim and Sligo were relegated from Division 3. They, too, are back in Division 4 for the 2022 season.
Basically, then, by the time the leagues were properly bedded in by 2009, six of the eight teams who are now in Division 4 were already competing at that level.
There are other teams – notably Wicklow and Limerick – who had spent a lot of time in Division 4 over the past 14 years, occasionally escaping but almost always dropping back in again quickly. That may be changing, but the evidence is yet to be conclusive either ways.
There are always anomalies, of course. Teams fall from heights to Division 4, but they immediately escape back up the divisions. Derry were there two years ago, but are now favourites to be promoted to Division 1.
This year Cavan and Tipperary are in Division 4. Just three seasons ago, Cavan were competing in Division 1 and Tipperary in Division 2. Both are heavily fancied to take the two promotion spots out of Division 4 this year, not least because they won their respective provincial championships in 2020.
The essential question here is a simple one: is the National Football League structure working for those counties who spend almost all of their Spring months in Division 4?
Is it enough to say that they are “competing at their own level” and to think that it is fine?
It is clear that the GAA is going to revise its championship structure in the coming weeks in a way that will be great for the stronger counties and potentially will allow the televising of more high-quality matches.
The answer for weaker counties appears to simply be to give them the opportunity to “compete at their own level” in championship as in league.
Whenever this answer is queried, the dismissive attitude is usually to say that a Division 4 county gets its house in order, then it can climb the ranks and progress over time.
But the evidence is clear that that almost never happens, that some counties can’t get out of Division 4 for any meaningful length of time and can never get beyond Division 3.
What is the plan for these counties beyond hooshing them off into the Tailteann Cup to confirm their status in championship as in league? Or is it an irrelevant question?
Back in Germany – as Jonathan Harding reveals in ‘Mensch’ – the mindset that is taken to coaching by the very best coaches is predicated on developing the human being and not just the player.
At the core of this approach is the importance of making a person feel valued. That is, as every educator knows, what sits at the core of all teaching. How can you develop if you don’t feel valued?
