We had a hugely encouraging turnout in Dunganny last week (February 12) for our first Club Football Pathway Manager meeting of the year.
Club Pathway Managers listened as Academy Head Coach Paul Garrigan talked through the 2025 Club Football Pathway Policies and Plan updates while Football Performance Lead Daithi McCabe brought all in attendance up to speed on the roll out of the Club Football Athletic Development Pathway for the year ahead.
The Club Pathway programme is the Coaching Pathway structure used in the county to deliver the Meath football Coaching curriculum. The curriculum is the same programme used by the Meath Development squads, overseen and formulated by a Coaching task force and managed by the Academy Head Coach Paul Garrigan.
The programme ensures that the football education, language and sessions are the same as that delivered in the Academy. The goal is that the Club and Academy curriculum are broadly the same composition if not in execution.
Each club has its own policies and football plan to deliver on the ethos of the Club Pathway. The intent of the Pathway is to target the retention of as many footballers as possible, help them to reach their full potential, including playing for Meath, and to be a footballer for as long as they can.
The Pathway emphasises different county and club policies, including carefully curating the games programme, differentiating between:
Participation/Retention
The participation objective is to ensure that the playing base if as broad as possible, with as many footballers playing as possible, from the nursery to the lifelong casual footballer.
Development
The development objective is to help players to improve and to reach their potential. Development structures can be counter intuitive, because although players will always want to win on the pitch, development structures prioritise the long term which can mean results are secondary to development.
Performance
A performance environment is focused on competing and optimal performance on the pitch, however, as a player centred approach remains the priority.
With support from their respective C&G Games Development Coordinator, each club has its own individual Club Pathway Plan, using a standard template, but tailored to their specific needs by the Club Pathway Manager in conjunction with Executive Committees and Club coaches.
The Club plans include a Demographics Analysis of their respective catchment areas which highlights trends and insights around current and projected future playing numbers and will help support evidence-based decision making by clubs when it comes to planning for the years ahead.
In addition, Club Coaching Sessions plans for Under 13, Under 15, Under 17 and Under 19 teams are provided on a weekly basis via the TeamBuildr app. These include Game Based activities and Athletic Development sessions plus much more.
Every football club in the county has been provided with 5 TeamBuildr licences to enable their coaches to access this material.
We look forward to working closely with all Football Pathway Managers in the year ahead as we aim to support our Clubs to maximise their Participation, Development and Performance ambitions.
