Junior Football needs to evolve or it will die

[lang]

It wont die and will evolve so enough of the doom mongering. It will however not happen overnight and serious discussion needs to take place.

but it is dying already. Crowds are droping every year.with no new blood replacing the die hards.

Was at Royal Albert today who maybe had 10 fans(inc committee) at their home game and we only had about 2dozen.

How teams like Albert survive i do not know

[Burnie_man]

Sorry, in what way? When considering the aspect of "a lack of money coming in", then having a winter break - or actually lengthening the existing one, as there aren't games for a fortnight over Christmas and New Year at the moment - clearly isn't a solution. How can you argue otherwise? Clubs would have no money coming in at all.

Ok they could "plan" for it, but they could do that just now and regard matches going ahead as earlier than expected income. EDIT: I appreciate you've previously said you'd ban clubs from training and playing friendlies during the break plus call for them to stop paying players when there are no games, which would reduce outgoings. I don't think the first parts are realistic plus they could do the latter just now.

There is also a second potential downside. If the bad weather hit either side of the break, you'd go even longer with "no money coming in" than would otherwise have happened.

Even as a small illustration, you said break Jan-Feb - most games went ahead today.

At the basic root of the premise I don't think we're really disagreeing with each other, btw... I'm pointing out that the winter break is not really a solution to the "no money coming in" aspect, and I don't see how you can argue with that - you're suggesting having a break, and I'm not saying it couldn't be done.

We probably disagree on the question of scope - you suggest a very long break - and the consideration of the pros v cons, or at least the scale of each. EDIT: As I said above there is actually a short break just now, anyway. More you lengthen it, however, the more you risk causing other issues.

Incidentally, is your 4-5 week closed season exclusive of pre-season? Players would finish one season then be almost straight back into pre-season? Or do you mean 4-5 weeks off, then pre-season, then begin?

If you know you are having an organised winter break, you can plan for "no money coming in", whether that be player contract amendments or whatever. It's not a showstopper although it would need planning.

As for the close season, I'd suggest it takes the form of a break with one pre season week before we kick off the new season. So a Saturday and Tuesday warm up then league games for the first few weeks before Junior Cup.

Same with winter break, maybe allow a 10 day window before action re-commences.