No Friday feeling for Celtic over late fixture notice
Castlebar Celtic manager Stevie Gavin, left, was critical of the Mayo League's scheduling notice for their Friday night encounter with Ballinrobe Town.
Castlebar Celtic manager Stevie Gavin has hit out at the Mayo Football League for failing to give the club adequate notice that their game against Ballinrobe Town would be scheduled for last (Friday) night.
Celtic beat Ballinrobe in a comfortable 4-0 win with winger Paul Walsh netting a brace. However, manager Stevie Gavin said following the game that there were told about the date and time of the match at too late a stage, forcing many of his players to miss the game because of college or work commitments.
“We learned about the Friday kickoff four days beforehand, which is not ideal. I understand we need to have Friday kickoffs due to referee availability but when you have students and people with work shifts, you need to give more notice,” Gavin told the Western People.
“We are 100% behind Friday evening games but you need to give clubs 7-10 days’ notice. We had six who were unavailable and then we have others who would be put in a hard place with their employer trying to get the time off to play and that is unfair on amateur players.” He said he would like to see the Mayo Football League look at this situation and ensure there is no repeat.
“Myself and Dec (Flynn, assistant coach) were also trying to finish up work early to make this game and we managed it this evening but it is hard to do with four days’ notice,” he said.
“We would like the Mayo League to look at that. We can’t find out on Sunday night that there’s going to be a game Friday night.” “The solution is to give us 10 days’ notice. I don’t think we’re asking for anything too outrageous.” Gavin’s opposite number in the Ballinrobe dugout Chris McGauley said his team had no issues with the scheduling of the fixture but understood where the Celtic management was coming from.
“The way I look at it is that some Saturday’s you won’t have certain players available, some Sunday’s you won’t have certain players available,” said McGauley.
“I think games like these are nice occasions, how often would you get to come to play Celtic under the lights? There was a good crowd here and it is a good advertisement for the league.” “I can understand that when you have people at college or work it can be difficult but it didn’t cause us any major problems. We had one player that was delayed coming in from college and we knew that well in advance and so we planned without him this time.”
