Two thirds of Cavan club players believe commitment levels too high

Almost two thirds of club footballers in Cavan believe the levels of commitment required to play club football are too high at present, a survey of club footballers conducted by The Anglo-Celt this week suggests.

In total, 320 respondents completed the online questionnaire, which was distributed privately among club footballers and covered a range of questions including players’ views on a return to competitive action in the midst of the current pandemic.

Players also gave their thoughts on amalgamations, the minimum number of weeks teams should be permitted before returning to training and whether they were members of the CPA among other topics, all of which will be published in this Wednesday’s Anglo-Celt print edition.

One of the most striking findings, however, was that almost two thirds of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “commitment levels in club football are too high”, with only eight of the 320 respondents (2.5%) strongly disagreeing.

The breakdown for that question was as follows: 86 (26.8%) strongly agreed that commitment levels were too high, 119 (37.2%) agreed, 107 (33.4%) disagreed and eight (2.5%) strongly disagreed.

Arguably the most surprising response came to the question of how players viewed the standard of club football in the county. Given that Cavan clubs have failed to win even one match in the Ulster senior club competition for nine of the last 10 years and the county has won just one Ulster club title on the field of play in any grade (Ballinagh’s IFC success in 2006) since 2002, it is commonly felt that the standard of club football is low.

This was accepted as fact in Peter Quinn’s commission into Cavan football some years ago, with numerous remedies, including reducing the number of clubs and introducing amalgamations, proposed in that report.

However, based on the findings of this survey, club footballers in Cavan view the standard reasonably favourably.

A total of 191 respondents (59.7%) indicated that they felt the standard was ‘average’. A further 79 (24.7%) viewed it as ‘quite strong’, with five (1.6%) ticking ‘very strong’, 38 (11.9%) voting for ‘poor’ and just seven (2.2%) saying the standard of club football was ‘very poor’.

In total, 48.75% of the 320 respondents to the Anglo-Celt survey – which represents approximately one quarter of adult club footballers – play for senior clubs, with 28.1% from intermediate clubs and 23.1% from junior ranks.

See this week’s print edition for full findings.