Football league in U-turn over junior match results
Wednesday 12th October 2011, 11:10AM BST.
A junior football league in Shropshire which stopped publishing match results in order to avoid embarrassing the children has made a U-turn on the decision.
The Telford Junior League, which has more than 2,000 players from clubs in Telford, north Shropshire and Bridgnorth, came under fire for listing all results as 1-0 wins or 1-1 draws.
The league claimed to be keeping to Football Association guidelines in withholding the true scores from its matches to spare the blushes of players aged between nine and 16.
Now it has agreed to go back to giving proper results on its website after the FA said it had no rules requiring scores to be changed.
Shropshire Football Association said: “Following a meeting between the league management committee and Shropshire FA vice-chairman David Simpson, it has been recommended to the league by the Shropshire FA that in the interim, before a meeting of the league management and member clubs to discuss future policy of reporting results, the correct scores be reported.”
Keith Davies, from the league, said: “We were trialling this and looking at it for the development of football. We talked to the clubs before we started it but we are holding a meeting on Sunday evening where things will be decided.”
A spokesman for the FA said: “Across all age groups, there are no rules, sanctions or FA guidelines which indicate that the final score should be changed.”
A parent, who complained about the scores being withheld, welcomed the move.
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How unusual, a victory for common sense.
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This is typical of the Telford Junior league….making rules up to go along before doing such things surely these descisions should be made by league members and not by individuals on the committee..
common sense prevailed but what next ??
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I have never read anything so stupid in all my life.
Whatever next stopping goals from more than 25 yards because the goalkeeper should have saved it, pure embarrassing to let one in from that distance.
Own goals wouldn’t be allowed this is political correctness gone mad. Kids must not be allowed to taste defeat at any cost.
What about all the theory subjects at school are these rules going to affect them too!.
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Yet again the Telford junior league making things up as they go along..
Common sense prevails
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Now why doesnt the u turn surprise us members of league….
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Until next year when the FA say no league tables for U8-U12. Just wait for the parents to start moaning again. Lets DEVELOP the players
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FAO Football Coach,
I am afraid you are misguided!
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Well who ever you Guy’s are that made the decision to go down this silly road in the first place.
I trust that you now realize that you are now the laughing stock of the whole country now the media has the story.
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Adetheshades (amongst others), you are ranting pointlessly and off topic. This was never anything to do with defeat not being allowed, it was about whether the world really needs to know via the media that, say, Rangers Under 10s beat United Under 10s 15-0 (or whatever).
Junior results are often distorted by factors like strength, size and some clubs hoovering up the best players. In those circumstances, I’d argue that the games themselves are actually fairly pointless – for winners, losers, referees, everybody.
Still, you can all rest easy for now. We’ll go on prizing the publishing of results above all else (such as skill development) at the youngest ages, the bigger players who can’t trap a bag of cement but can knock littler ones out of the way will go on being the heroes, those dismissed as too small will drift out of the game and in another 10-15 years time, we’ll still wonder why Spain, Holland etc can play football properly while our national team still have to rely on players who can’t find a team-mate with a basic 10 yard pass.
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what about the poor little lad/girl that scores 5 or 6 goals have they thought about how dissapointed they will be for not getting recognised as scoring that many…JOKERS
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The Telford Junior league should concentrate more on getting each division of an equal standard instead of some of the mismatches there have been, which in turn would result in some of the games being closer
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