Mumbles119
Bench Player
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2013
- Messages
- 636
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- Club or Nation
I saw a similar thread to this on another forum, and my club is going through a very similar challenge right now.
If you could share any ideas or your experience when dealing with this challenge, all ideas would be greatly appreciated?
Our club has three Mens senior playing sides, Vets, U18s, a newly starting young Ladies team, and all the kids age groups. Decreasing player numbers have been an issue for us over the last 5 or so years, but this appears to be the case for all clubs across the county (Kent) too.
We struggle to fulfil the 3XV league fixtures, and the 2XV teams can occasionally be under powered due to the more regular 3XV players stepping up. We probably have about 70 regular players, but after researching this a bit, it appears that to successfully run three Mens senior sides, you would need nearer 110 regular players to manage the season comfortably.
We have just changed coaching teams, with last coach not having the best relationship or reputaiton regarding communication and clarity of game plan issues and selection disagreements. So our new coaching team should be one thing that could help.
One of the common issues seems to be Senior 1XV team players retiring at early thirties and not continuing to play. Along with the club environment changing a lot, as previous generation players used to be a bit older and family types, whereas most of our players are young millennial types.
Another issue is our clubhouse; years ago Eurotunnel built the Channel Tunnel over our old knackered little shed of a club, and rebuilt a huge excellent club house with four pitches as a replacement for us. The clubhouse has excellent facilities but is also a heavy chain around the neck of our very limited financial resources. This has led to the clubhouse at times prioritising event sales over club access for player members to get the cash in. As players we have started to book our club out, and run a few player nights which have been successful. But really we need to naturally have more people around as regular members, not just for advertised events.
Any ideas or actions you yourself have successfully taken in your own experience would be very appreciated?
Thank you
If you could share any ideas or your experience when dealing with this challenge, all ideas would be greatly appreciated?
Our club has three Mens senior playing sides, Vets, U18s, a newly starting young Ladies team, and all the kids age groups. Decreasing player numbers have been an issue for us over the last 5 or so years, but this appears to be the case for all clubs across the county (Kent) too.
We struggle to fulfil the 3XV league fixtures, and the 2XV teams can occasionally be under powered due to the more regular 3XV players stepping up. We probably have about 70 regular players, but after researching this a bit, it appears that to successfully run three Mens senior sides, you would need nearer 110 regular players to manage the season comfortably.
We have just changed coaching teams, with last coach not having the best relationship or reputaiton regarding communication and clarity of game plan issues and selection disagreements. So our new coaching team should be one thing that could help.
One of the common issues seems to be Senior 1XV team players retiring at early thirties and not continuing to play. Along with the club environment changing a lot, as previous generation players used to be a bit older and family types, whereas most of our players are young millennial types.
Another issue is our clubhouse; years ago Eurotunnel built the Channel Tunnel over our old knackered little shed of a club, and rebuilt a huge excellent club house with four pitches as a replacement for us. The clubhouse has excellent facilities but is also a heavy chain around the neck of our very limited financial resources. This has led to the clubhouse at times prioritising event sales over club access for player members to get the cash in. As players we have started to book our club out, and run a few player nights which have been successful. But really we need to naturally have more people around as regular members, not just for advertised events.
Any ideas or actions you yourself have successfully taken in your own experience would be very appreciated?
Thank you