Jardine outlines reasons for protracted season

FERMANAGH and Western League chairman Neil Jardine said that there were a number of exceptional factors which resulted in the local football season running into the final days of May.

Inclement weather, success of F&W teams in the Junior Cup, protests and appeals were just some of the reasons why Division One wasn’t completed until Tuesday evening, according to the chairman.

Jardine was responding to comments made by Ryan Campbell following NFC Kesh’s final game of the season against Tummery Athletic.

Following a 3-1 defeat at Crawford’s Lane, which ended his team’s hopes of winning the Mercer League for the first time, player-manager Campbell said “it’s an absolute disgrace” that Kesh’s season had dragged on so long.

While Campbell was satisfied that his players had run Tummery and Enniskillen Rangers close, he was far from happy that their season had lasted nine months. Including pre-season training, he said that his players had been on the go for 11 months.

The Castlederg native has urged the local governing body to take steps to shorten the season.

“I’m glad it is finally over. I think the league is madness. It needs restructured or looked at because a league starting at the second week of August and not finishing until the start of June is complete madness,” he said.

“It’s an absolute disgrace to ask any team or any bunch of players to go 11 months almost.

“It was a good season on our behalf; we did better than we did last year and we pushed well. It came down to fine margins.

“But from another point of view, it was very frustrating that the league has gone on this long.”

As well as giving reasons for the season not being completed until the last days of May, Jardine said that with Division One returning to 12 teams for the first time since Covid he was hopeful that the situation would improve going forward.

“Unfortunately the league and our fixtures secretary cannot control the vagaries of the climate in Tyrone or Fermanagh, otherwise there would be no issue in completing the fixtures by the end of April,” said the chairman.

“The fixtures are fairly allocated and there will inevitably be a case where one team has completed more games than a rival and they have to wait to complete that particular match.

“When you factor in seven of the last sixteen teams in the Junior Cup came from our league and four made the quarter final, two semi-finalists and the eventual winners and the added delay for the various protests and appeals it is not difficult to see how delays happen.

“Further to this you had the Dergview Reserves/NFC Kesh situation in the Mulhern Cup which affected a number of league matches and three of the semi-finalists also reached the quarter-finals of the Junior, all adding to a backlog.

“Next season there will be two less league matches as Division 1 returns to 12 teams for the first time since the 2019/20 season. The league will commence on Saturday 17th August and there is the option for mid-week fixtures but clubs have previously voted against this.

“There is a notice of motion before the AGM to publish a complete set of fixtures for the season and it is the league’s intention to do this; this will not alleviate any possible delays, in fact it removes the element of flexibility afforded to the fixtures secretary to re-arrange fixtures to suit requests for free weeks and around further rounds of the Junior Cup.”