Soccer: Are there too many cups on the Mayo League dresser?

On Thursday evening last, Ballyheane were unable to fulfil their away fixture at Castlebar Celtic in the Westaro Cup, due to unavailability of players.

At a first glance, this is a shocking situation for a club who won back–to back league titles, a couple of years ago. How could a side like Ballyheane, one of the top clubs in the county, be unable to send out a team? A closer look, however, reveals a different problem facing squads with ‘B’ teams.

‘B’ Teams, were introduced to provide football to players who wanted to play, but mightn’t always get a game, if there was only an ‘A’ team. Rather than lose these players to other teams or sports, clubs entered a second team into the league. Which was a great idea.

The Mayo League not only runs a league competition for its teams, but it also runs divisional cups, amongst others. There’s the Westaro Cup, the Tuohy Cup, the Tonra Cup, the McDonnell Cup. There’s the Calor Super Cup, the Premier Cup, then there’s the FAI Junior Cup and the Connacht Cup. I’m sure I have some cup left out.

There’s more cups in Mayo football, than you would find in a country house on the morning of The Stations.

The rule for league competitions within the county is that ‘A’ players cannot play for the ‘B’ team, but ‘B’ players can play for the ‘A’ team. It is advantageous for teams to keep their ‘A’ team squads small, and register as many as possible, as ‘B’ players. That gives them the maximum interchangeability between their teams. Which, again, on the surface, is sensible.

Except when it comes to the cups.

Under Mayo League rules, if a player plays in one divisional cup, he is cup-tied for all other divisional cup games, for that season. Ballyheane found themselves without an adequate cohort of eligible players for their trip to Castlebar, last week. They were without several ‘A’ players due to work, holiday and exam commitments. Fair enough. Their available ‘B’ players were cup tied, The Mayo News was told, when we enquired about the missed fixture.

The only missing piece of the jigsaw however, is, they only played one Tuohy Cup game this season – that being the cup competition their ‘B’ team plays in. Coincidentally, that was against Celtic’s ‘B’ team, and they played fourteen players on that day, when you include subs-a game they lost 2-0.

I don’t know how many registered players Ballyheane have but with fourteen cup tied and “several” away, you’d think they could still manage enough for the trip to Celtic, last Thursday, but it seems not.

Incidentally, the fine for failure to field a team in a cup competition is €100 – which seems good value.

To the neutral, there seems to be an awful lot of cup competitions in Mayo football, and with Mayo FC’s entry to the Airtricity League of Ireland looking more and more imminent, (they’ve even put the dug outs on the opposite side at Umbro Park,) you’d wonder if the weekends these competitions take up in the busy fixture calendar, might be better spent preparing elite players for the bigger league. Especially after the unexpected success of the Oscar Traynor team, this year.