Posted by Antóin on 18/11/2007, 8:42 am, in reply to "Re: Boden Victory"
Unfortunately P, it is their local- the catchment area is too big, only a very small minority of Ballyroan kids would be closer to Wanderers ground in Mount Venus, and that's not very accessible to them. On the other side of the area, a small number of Firhouse kids might live as close to St. Anne's, but Ballyboden's base on the Firhouse Road is closest to all those schools. It's not an ideal situation for all the schools to be feeding into the one club, but as no other club was founded as the area of Knocklyon mushroomed in the 80's and 90's, the fact that the club is based in the parish of Knocklyon and a strong gaelic games tradition developed in the school was the cause of the club's huge growth in intake.
The perception of those outside the area that the club size is based on poaching is largely ignorant of the geographical situation.
Of course a number of children from South -eastern parts of Rathfarnham could be as near to Ballinteer St. John's, but their intake would be mostly from the parish primary schools in Ballinteer, Meadowbrook and Scoil Naithí.
Of course some kids may transfer, and some of them as in my own case have parents who've played for the club themselves and may choose to bring them along, when the alternative is as near, but the reality is that clubs generally are supplied by the primary schools closest and in Boden's case, there's that number of schools.
Precedent in countering that rate of growth would be the development of the Castleknock club in St. Brigid's area, but that never happened when Knocklyon became the most populated primary school in Western Europe within little more than 10 years of being founded...
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