Clubs to be denied access to their best young players, according to leaked Tyrone training schedule

To be a fly on the wall at Garvaghey on February 6th.

That is when club managers and coaches are invited along to Tyrone’s state of the art centre of excellence to discuss the new training schedule in place for the Tyrone Academy members.

We reckon there are going to be a lot of queries. First and foremost is likely to be: “When will we have access to our best 16-18-year-olds?”

The existence of Under-17 and U-18 tournaments will exacerbate issues this year but an email sent to the clubs, and published here by SportsJOE, suggests they are getting the thin end of the wedge in the Red Hand county.

Without a provincial title in five years, Tyrone are clearly gunning for the minor grade this year as they let clubs know they will be requiring their U-17 and U-18 county players for three sessions each week – two on the field, Mondays and Thursdays, plus a weekend gym session.

If these development squads are also playing a game each week that will see them on county duty four days each week.

The whole email is below.

FAO Club managers and youth officers

We wish you all a happy new year. Tyrone Academy would like to convey to you and your club our best wishes for the season that lies ahead. No doubt some of your teams have already started to prepare diligently and we would like to ensure that Tyrone Academy teams work closely and in cooperation with your clubs. We wish to convey our sincere thanks and appreciation to all of you for the great support and encouragement that Tyrone Academy has received in recent years. Tyrone Academy is working hard with players and coaches from all clubs to improve playing standards for all players, so that players return to your clubs with a positive experience. 
2017 is going to be a difficult year generally as both the under 17s and 18 county teams both have fully fledged competitions. The demand on club players is therefore going to be more than normal and we wish to work with clubs to mitigate as far as possible the effects of running two squads for what is a one off occurrence due to the change in age rules for minors. Our county minor squad aim to have pitch sessions on Mondays  and Thursdays with a gym session on Saturday morning and to avoid disruption the under 17 squad will mirror this schedule. Currently the under 17 squad has players representing two or more teams and to avoid unnecessary pressure being applied on players, we want to work closely and in cooperation with clubs and schools to manage the training loads. 

We wish to ensure that clubs, parents and players can communicate effectively with ourselves where there are concerns so that these can be dealt with before the concern becomes a bigger problem. We cannot function effectively without your goodwill, support and cooperation. We reinforce to players that your club is of paramount importance – a player begins with the club and ends with the club and that is one of the reasons we insist that players wear their club jersey to training. Players have full access to their training programmes which enables club managers / coaches to see what they are doing. 

We are happy to provide answers to questions clubs may have and in order to facilitate this process, we are having an open training session whereby club managers can attend and the managers of both the under 17 and 18 teams will be in attendance to answer any queries you may have. The session will take place on Monday 6th Feb in Garvaghey and everyone is invited along to discuss any concerns you may have. In addition to that the players will have the contact details for both sets of management who will be happy to take your call and resolve any issues. 
We look forward to working with you throughout the year and we would invite you to contact us at any time and thank you for your ongoing support.

Tyrone Academy.

At time of publication Tyrone had no comment on the email.

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10