CCC to press ahead with plans for normal season

THE Louth CCC has begun planning for a ‘normal’ season in the wake of last Wednesday’s vote to rescind proposals for an new senior football championship.

After narrowly passing a motion to create a new senior competition that would include amalgamated teams, clubs voted overwhelmingly in favour of returning to the status quo at a special county board meeting in Darver last Wednesday night.

The final vote was 41-7, from a possible 54, which surpassed the two-third majority required to rescind Westerns’ now infamous motion.

While the idea to introduce an amalgamated competition was welcomed in many quarters, the scope of work required to make it happen in 2019 was a major concern for county board officials, both in terms of fixture-planning and the make-up of the proposed amalgamations.

The almost inevitable down-grading of the existing senior football championship is also thought to have been a major factor in the U-turn, with existing senior clubs particularly unhappy with the fact that the winners of the new competition would represent Louth in Leinster.

Club officials were also concerned about the proposed fixture schedule that accompanied the motion, although the CCC would not have been bound by that plan.

The fixture body has pencilled in a full round of subsidiary competition fixtures for the weekend after next and the all-county leagues are due to start on the weekend of 29 March.

However, last week’s vote may not be the end of the amalgamation debate.

Many clubs and supporters liked the idea of amalgamated teams entering the senior championship, but it would now seem the way forward may be to incorporate any new structure into the existing senior championship.

Such a plan would pose different problems, but fixture scheduling would again be a major stumblin block as it would mean divorcing the senior grade from the intermediate and junior championships on the master fixture schedule.