Now “Not The Footy Show” has never advocated cheating or breaking the rules, and never would, but we do believe that at times commonsense should prevail.
News reached us on several counts about the ECU Joondalup under 13 football team who had gone all season undefeated, being kicked out of the finals series at the semi final stage due to having an ineligible player, the reserve goalkeeper on the bench.
What transpired was there were doubts over their usual back up goalkeeper being fit to play, so they asked another young lad to come down as cover. The coaches believing that with such a specialist position, you are obviously not going to have lots of people available and that it would be Ok to draft a young keeper in.
ECU Joondalup went on and defeated Swan, and the reserve never made it onto the pitch. A protest was lodged and upheld, and the team many believed were the best in the league were eliminated.
We accept that rules are there to be adhered to and that teams should not be allowed to draft in players from other clubs come the finals series, but surely commonsense should prevail. Boys and girls of thirteen and under just want to play football, they do not understand such rules, and the player in question was in a specialist role and in fact had no influence on the game. Was it therefore right to eliminate a team because of such a decision? We are not so sure it was for the good of the game.
