Whilst catching up on my Twitter timeline this morning I came across a very interesting conversation between Tantallon Victoria and Victoria Croftfoot who both ply their trade in the SSMAFL. The discussion began with the much talked about struggle for clubs and how we can all survive in the game. Both clubs were in agreement that changes must be made and between them both they came up with the utterly brilliant idea of teams sharing pitches which are used as training facilities. With so many teams struggling to get decent numbers at training and the outrageous rise and rise of booking costs this idea could be the difference between surviving and folding.
My take on it would be that if two teams got together and agreed a training night or nights, then they could take a booking for half of a park or a third of a park and train together on it. You would double your training numbers, double your intake of funds and probably most importantly double the number of coaches. Drills and sessions could be planned with a good bit of structure between both clubs and you would know you were going to have guaranteed good numbers to put together a really quality session.
So for example if Tantallon Vics had 17 coming to the session and Victoria Croftfoot had only 9 for a Wednesday session it would mean 26 players on half a park with a handful of coaches. If each player payed £5 to train, then that’s £130 to play with for your booking. You could have a half pitch for an hour and a half. If both teams have their maximum numbers for training then even better. Funds will increase and can be kept aside for future weeks and could possibly be used for increasing your training time or adding an extra night into your week. It would also be good to add a competitive edge to your training with a short training match at the end of your session between both clubs.
There are so many benefits in doing this and so many different things you can do with your training session. Teams don’t have to look at it as a merger or be too proud to ask the question to other clubs. We all need to do what is best for our clubs to keep them alive. Credit to both teams for having the foresight to think of this.
There are certain areas all over the country that are heavily populated with teams. Surely this idea is a no brainer for them on so many levels.
Food for thought
The Gaffer
The Gaffers View 
Hi Carlo here manager of Victoria croftfoot , this is something I feel is a no brainer ! Example 3 weeks ago we had 7 for training I cancelled it which cost £50 from our funds ! As an amateur team we don’t have loads of cash so this was a bug bearer of mine , Wednesday there at Toryglen we had 19 bodies !!! So inconsistency is always a factor for training which affects costs for good or bad . If teams came to agreement to choose a suitable night the 2 teams are winners even if they had 7 players each we train !! Plus pitch is paid , if there’s more we’ll both teams financially gain and no one looses , we have a booking on Wednesday night 7-8 pm at Toryglen £50 per hour , the pitch is big enough for players to train then break into small sided games , for me it’s the way forward because if we stay still the game will slowly go downwards , as we know clubs are falling by the wayside on a regular basis and this needs to stop . Just my thoughts cheers
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