It’s April, the clocks have moved forward an hour and, in Northern Ireland football terms, that marks a particularly significant time in the season below the Irish League.
It’s a point that is largely defined by catching up. That’s to say that in the Northern Amateur Football League, Ballymena and Provincial Intermediate League and Mid-Ulster Football League, clubs with games in hand are bidding to make up the numbers in a congested window.
It’s also a stage in the calendar for debate, namely regarding the structure of the leagues and whether success in some departments consequentially leads to a hindrance in others.
Let’s take the Amateur League as a case study for this piece. Crumlin Star, who are fourth-placed in the Premier Division, have played 15 games – that’s SEVEN in hand on Immaculata, who are second and are seven points better off, and five on league leaders East Belfast, who have 16 points on their Marrowbone rivals.
Why? Well, Star featured in the Steel and Sons Cup Final, are in the Intermediate Cup decider for a second season in a row where they incidentally will face Falls Road club Immaculata, reached the Fifth Round of the Irish Cup and hit the semi-finals of the Border Cup before Christmas.
A cup-dominated agenda means that come the business end, those who participate in the knock-outs and perform well often find themselves in an uphill battle in the league come the climax.
20 per cent of Ardoyne outfit Star’s league games to date were played on August 15 or before. That equates to 12 Premier Division outings in eight months since – that’s quite staggering.
East Belfast, meanwhile, opted not to enter the Irish Cup in 2023/24, sparing them from the four preliminary rounds clubs below the top two tiers of the Irish League are obliged to play in before the last-32 at the turn of the year.
The Inverary institution have played 20 league matches and won 17 of them. Did not playing Irish Cup football benefit them? Granted, they didn’t go as far in the cups as Star did, and how they would have done in the prestigious competition this year is but a hypothetical, so that argument has cause for debate, but you can see why some would stake the claim that it did.
The Premier Division is structured in the same way as the readjusted Premier Intermediate League; 14 teams, home and away, 26 matches, no split.
The difference is the irregularity.
Let’s look lower down the league. Rosario, in ninth, have played 23; a place below them, Derriaghy CC – semi-finals of the Clarence Cup, semi-finals of the Steel Cup, last-16 of the Intermediate Cup, Fourth Round of the Irish Cup – have, wait for it, NINE games in hand as we sit in mid-April. 12 still games to play, almost half their total in such a crammed space of time.
Bear in mind, by the way, that the Clarence Cup kicks into gear after the turn of the year. It’s not like all the cups start at the same time either, and given that merely three substitutes can be named for league matches at this level, clubs don’t really have the licence to make changes unless they’re wholesale.
And while all three title races in the Premiership, Championship and PIL are making for compelling viewing and could twist one way or the other, it seems that all these games in hand have taken the sting out of this one. Rotation and game management on the part of bosses is surely a factor for that.
By all means, take in an Amateur League game when you get a chance. It’s a product in a healthy place in terms of calibre and talent – all-Amateur Steel and Sons and Intermediate Cup line-ups this term stand testament to that – but NAFL chiefs will always be backed by punters, players, managers and officials to make it even better, and it can be made even better.
Finding a way to amend the structure and put more focus on the league at this stage would do just that.
To have teams playing catch-up on so grand a scale season in, season out is purely not sustainable not to mention lacking melodrama – a fix-up is for the greater good.
Featured image from Paul Harvey Photography.
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