Sunday Tribune article on City

[patsh]

There was quite a big article on City in the Trib today.
Big picture of a sunny and crowded Cross, some quotes from Lennox and Dolan, and a bit about "Brian", they meant Peter, Cotter. It was really all about how City are using the UEFA Licencing to improve and further the club and how the whole league should see what a good thing it is.
It was a very positive piece, how not everything about the eL is negative.
Maybe all my complaining about their negative coverage is working! ;)
I'll post the article, if I can download the whole paper without interruption.
(The Tribune has a bizarre online edition, you have to download the whole paper to see any of it ! :rolleyes: )

[A face]

I still will never buy it (for foot.ie anyway) .... the amount of bad press we get from that paper is unreal and all onsided. At times you'd think they had a campaign aganist the league.

Who wrote that article ?

[Pablo]

Just read that article. Very worrying indeed.

City come accross well as a club that are embrasing the licensing concept and although they have passed 4 of the 5 headings you need to gain a license, by far the biggest one has been failed-The Cross

According to direct quote from the city board including Lennox, IT WILL TAKE 1 MILLION EURO FOR TURNERS CROSS TO BE UP TO SCRATCH.

I tell you what. if its 100% accurate we are in trouble. but other clubs must be much worse off.

other papers quote UEFA as saying although the domestic season may be ok-european participation is in doubt if there are no licenses fo the teams that have qualified

[tiktok]

It was a very good article.

The journo said his goal was to demistify the Licencing process and he did a good job, city's main problen is the cross and the fact that the club doesn't own it adds to the problem.

I wouldn't worry too much about that million euro price. much of the work that needs to be done is on the shed end, and will already be covered by the development plans when the shed will be knocked. Lennox said he was putting 200,000 of his own cash into the project and he clarely expects a great deal of help from the powers that be.

I thought it was a very positive article that reflected well on the club and those involved in it.

[SÓC]

Well done to Patsh for getting them to get up off their arse and well done to the Tribune for doing it:)

[tiktok]

Originally posted by patsh
Maybe all my complaining about their negative coverage is working![/SIZE]

i reckon we should be complimenting them on a decent article too in the hope that they keep it up

editorial@tribune.ie

[pete]

Tribune in City Article Shocker! Must say i'm amazed to hear a sizable artile on eL football let alone City.

:eek:

[eoinh]

Tribune.......spots..........leopards

[Pablo]

The question still needs to be asked....will we get a license? the article would suggest close but no cigar

[A face]

Originally posted by tiktok
i reckon we should be complimenting them on a decent article too in the hope that they keep it up

editorial@tribune.ie


Can someone post up the article before we so anything rash !! :)

[patsh]

I would post the article, as I have a subscription to the Tribune "Digital " edition, but because of the way they put their paper on the Internet, I can't.
To get the article, I would have to download the entire paper, which at over 15 MBs would take about 1 1/2 to 2 hours over my sh*tty dialup connection.
It also has to be said that the Tribune has been giving quite a lot of coverage to the eL lately. Articles on Barry Ryan, Jimmy McGeough, the attack on the eL by Cooper, a very fine article a week or two later in response to Cooper, and the fact that so many rich business men put money into UK soccer while ignoring soccer here at home.
I felt the article yesterday was a very positive piece, showed City as a club who were progressive, wanted to do the right things and are a club with a bright future.

I'll bring the article to the Shed at the first home game...;)
btw, I have complained when I felt I should, and complimented when it was deserved.

[A face]

Originally posted by patsh
subscription to the Tribune "Digital " edition.[/SIZE]



Would you have an auld address for that or do i need to register .... use up some of the college bandwidth.

[pete]

Originally posted by patsh
To get the article, I would have to download the entire paper, which at over 15 MBs would take about 1 1/2 to 2 hours over my sh*tty dialup connection.[/SIZE]

Sure no hurry, anytime in the next week will do. ;)

[tiktok]

Originally posted by patsh
I...........a very fine article a week or two later in response to Cooper, and the fact that so many rich business men put money into UK soccer while ignoring soccer here at home........[/SIZE]

I missed that patsh, was that in recently, I'll have to go hunting in the recycling bin if it was in the last couple if weeks.

[eoinh]

to ask if this meant a change of policy towards the eircom league. The answer didnt seem to suggest so :rolleyes:

"I would like to think that the relaunch of the paper has given us the opportunity to cover all sports better across the board.
"

Regards,
Philip Lanigan,
Sports editor


i dont think ill be buying the paper.

[tiktok]

I emailed Philip Lanagan and asked him to send it to me by email for a read, I hope he (or the journalist who wrote the piece, Malachy Clerkin) won't object to my posting it here in full, it hopefully will help sell a few extra copies of the paper for them.
IMO it's a good article, and as I said before, a few letters to editorial@tribune.ie might keep them printing EL news.

The Sunday Tribune,
Demistifying UEFA Licencing
by Malachy Clerkin

To begin, a health warning of sorts. This isn't
sexy. It isn't glamorous and it isn't fun. It's
the UEFA Club Licensing System. Specifically,
it's the story of how one club, Cork City, sat
down and went about gaining their licence. What
they did, how they did it, how far along the road
they got and how, in the end, they came up short
of achieving the Premier Division Licence
standard and ended up as one of the 20 National
League clubs to be awarded a B Licence. If you
feel like bailing out now, that's okay, nobody's
going to think ill of you.

It'll be worth your while hanging in there,
though, for rarely has there been a process more
in need of demystifying. While it's true that
taken as a whole, setting about achieving the
required standards was a massive undertaking for
the clubs, it was still a process that, at its
heart, boiled down to doing an awful lot of small
things. And few clubs in the country can have
made as wholehearted an effort to get them done
as Cork have or come as close to making the grade.

Of the five criteria (see panel) Cork City
achieved the A Standard in three ñ Sporting,
Personnel & Administration and Legal. A fourth,
Financial, was only missed out on because of
confusion over the naming of the club's holding
company, a problem which has since been
rectified. It was with the fifth criterium,
Infrastructure, that the club had problems,
namely that Turner's Cross is the best part of
e1m-worth of work short of the required standard.
Which makes you shudder to think just how much it
will take to get the country's other grounds up
to scratch.

John Flynn is a local accountant and the club's
financial controller. Where some clubs groaned
and grumbled at having the licensing issue
foisted upon them in September 2002, Flynn says
Cork City embraced it. "We actually found it very
useful. We had been working away at improving the
club anyway and then along came the FAI and
basically gave us this handbook to work from. The
best thing about it is that it's like a complete
audit of the club and everything is in black and
white. You're either right or you're wrong. You
either have the right turnstiles in place or you
don't. You either have adequate floodlighting or
you don't. You either have an adequate amount of
stewards on match days who are fully-trained and
qualified or you don't."

In the beginning, they found that they were
already doing a fair amount of what the two-inch
thick handbook decreed they should. They just
hadn't set things in official stone. An example
was the role of a man called Brian Cotter. Cotter
is a lifer. Been about the place for years. Never
had any official title or role at the club but if
a book of lotto tickets needed selling or a trip
away needed organising, he was your man. On match
days, he would help out around the ground, making
sure there were enough stewards with enough
jackets and enough turnstile-operators and so on.

As part of the Administration & Personnel
criterium, the club needed to appoint an Event
Controller, someone whose specific job it would
be to organise and co-ordinate everything on a
match day and someone to whose attention all the
others working at the ground could bring
problems. Cotter was pretty much doing that
anyway, so after he was sent away to do a course
and earn a certificate, his role was made
official. Twenty-six stewards did likewise and
there are more in the pipeline.

Other problems weren't so easily got around. The
turnstiles at one end of the Turner's Cross have
been there since just after the beginning of time
and need to be replaced if the licence is to be
issued. The problem with that, however, is that
the club have applied for planning permission to
tear down that whole end of the ground and
rebuild it. That permission, if granted, is
likely to come through within the next year or
so. It simply made no sense to incur the cost of
replacing the turnstiles only to have them ripped
out within a year. As Jerry Harris, the head of
their Licencing Committee, put it, ìThere's no
point in even filling in a crack in the footpath
before we do the whole thing altogether.î

Cork City also suffer from the fact that they
don't own Turner's Cross, the Munster Football
Association do. Hence, they have to get
permission from their landlords before they so
much as change a bulb in the floodlights (another
thing they need to do, by the by the wattage
needs to be higher for European competition). One
of the stadium shortcomings was the lack of hot
water and hand-dryers in the toilets and although
there was a club member ready and willing to
install the hot taps himself, the club couldn't
sanction it.

Brian Lennox is the club chairman and from the
earliest days of the licensing process, he
welcomed the idea of setting the bar higher than
an Irish football club had ever set it before. He
worries, however, just how realistic a goal it is
for the smaller rural clubs, considering the
hoops his, urban, well-supported club has had to
jump through.

"It strikes you most when you go away to Europe
just how behind the times we are here," he says.
"In terms of stadiums, in terms of organisation,
in terms of everything. This is the perfect way
for us to catch up. I'd be worried that some
clubs who wouldn't be playing in European
competition don't realise just how big a job they
have on their hands."

"I mean, we've spent a massive amount of time on
this, whatever about the money we've put into it.
We know the ground isn't up to the standards
needed, but we're addressing that. I'm putting
e200,000 of my own money into it and if we get
the rest from the government then I'm sure we'll
get it done. But how some of the smaller clubs up
the country are going to manage it, I have no
idea."

For now, Cork City are a club moving in the right
direction at least. They've just hired a new
commercial manager and are signing new
sponsorship deals seemingly at every turn.
O'Neill's are making their new kit, their jerseys
not only have Nissan emblazoned across the front
but sponsors on the sleeves as well. There is an
awareness about the place that gaining the
licence will make the club more attractive for
both investors and supporters. And as manager Pat
Dolan says, that's what every club is ultimately
after.

"You hear a lot of complaining about this
licensing issue," he says. "And that's just lazy.
This isn't some huge punishment being landed on
the clubs, this is a great opportunity for us to
make football in this country an industry that
can sustain itself. It's a framework we can all
learn from. And okay, we haven't quite made it
this time around but we'll get there. We tried
and we'll keep trying."

[Snatch]

Very good article. Well done Tribune and Lennox in particular. Where would we be without him?

Does anybody know offhand what exactltly is deficient about the Cross? Is it simply a matter of replacing the Shed and other small improvements such as putting hand dryers?

Improved floodlighting will be a great improvement in my opinion. Around the centre circle always seems a little dark. Does anybody know when this will happen?

[eoinh]

ok i take it back - if the articles were as good as that every week i would buy it. Some papers just go out to bash the league every week others just to give praise. whats needed is the truth - hard hitting and informative.

its interesting but in scotland for instance Hearts wont get a license because of their pitch. Also Motherwell, Dundee and Livingston wouldnt get one either due to them being in administration.
Dunfermline have a plastic pitch -surely they are not allowed?

Its not just us you know.

[SÓC]

Never mind them, Arsenal, Juve, Lazio and Roma wont get them unless they do serious work on their stadia.

Arsenal and Juve are moving so they'll get away with it. Lazio and Romas stadium wouldnt pass.

The Millenium Stadium might not even pass. It takes ages and ages to leave the place after the match, i'd say they wouldnt have enough exits and turnstiles.

Real Madrid might have trouble with their financial side.

[A face]

Originally posted by SÓC
Never mind them, Arsenal, Juve, Lazio and Roma wont get them unless they do serious work on their stadia.

Arsenal and Juve are moving so they'll get away with it. Lazio and Romas stadium wouldnt pass.

The Millenium Stadium might not even pass. It takes ages and ages to leave the place after the match, i'd say they wouldnt have enough exits and turnstiles.

Real Madrid might have trouble with their financial side.


Is this where it becomes a level playing field ???


Hardly ..... The Romas of this world WILL get away with it because they can throw a tantrum etc.


Real Madrid ..... WILL get away with it .... i know it aint fair but they will.


Also ... bearly in mind every single piece of work costs an arm and a leg and the money hasn't been on any of the trees lately with all the bad frost we've been having. :)

[pete]

Good artilce by the Tribune & not just cos its about City. I think irish papers are too quick to buy UK wire service articles as opposed to getting irish written articles.

Seems like City have done an excellent effort at the UEFA licencing if the only area they tripped up on was infrastructure.

I wonder if City/MFA were able to start the redevlopment of the Shed end this year would the rest of the ground be only a small step away from passing.

I think the licencing thing is good for the reasons Lennox listed but i think they should have set intermediate grades this year with a view to getting clubs up to speed in a years time.

Future seems to indicate that clubs that qualify for european competition will be on the fat track & therefore getting a lot more funding than the rest. Seems more important than ever to make europe every season now.

[Macy]

Originally posted by pete
Future seems to indicate that clubs that qualify for european competition will be on the fat track & therefore getting a lot more funding than the rest. Seems more important than ever to make europe every season now.
Surely once the ground is up to scratch, it's up to scratch. The critea is unlikely to change that quickly.... If us, Cork, Bohs and Shels get the grounds right this season, then surely it'll move on to the other teams next season....

[eoinh]

Now that Derry have got their licence they may be looking to throw their weight around. Even arguing for a place in europe.......

http://icderry.icnetwork.co.uk/sport/content_objectid=14007530_method=full_siteid=66002 _headline=--A--Licence-Could-See-Derry-Back-In-Europe-name_page.html


'A' Licence Could See Derry Back In Europe Mar 2 2004




Arthur Duffy Reports


"DERRY CITY Football Club has committed itself wholeheartedly to the implementation of the U.E.F.A. Club Licensing Process and the Licensing Department would view the club as a role model for others to aspire to..." - the words of Mr. Bob Breen, U.E.F.A.'s Licensing Manager for the eircom League in his recommendation that the Brandywell club should be given the Premier Division or "A" Licence following an appeal last week.

And the achievement has presented the local club with a particularly strong hand in the reorganisation of eircom League football.

Having initially been refused the top licence due to a number of technicalities, Derry refused to give up hope and immediately lodged an appeal which was heard by an independent tribunal on Friday last in Dublin.

But before that group actually met to discuss the appeal, the U.E.F.A. licensing manager had submitted his recommendation having checked that the club had addressed the difficulties associated with the initial application.

Mr. Breen's letter concluded: "It is recommended that Derry City's appeal be upheld and that they be awarded a Premier Division Licence."

Not surprisingly, the Derry delegates in Dublin, chairman, Jim Roddy and financial controller, Eamon Crossan, were thrilled when made aware of the situation.

"We had to wait until the independent committee had met, but the league refused to inform us at the conclusion of that meeting," commented Roddy last night.

"In fact, we were officially informed by the F.A.I. Chief Executive, Mr. Fran Rooney, by telephone on our way home from Dublin on Friday night," he added.

Relieved and clearly delighted at the outcome, Roddy was of the belief that the work completed over the past three years had not been in vain.

"Many of the member clubs felt the F.A.I. had set an unattainable target but we've proved that not to be the case. Our club has worked tirelessly in achieving the licence and, I would openly admit, to the detriment of the quality of the team on the park," he added.

However, with Derry the only Irish team to boast an "A" licence, the local club will have a major input into any proposed changes which may take place over the next few days.

Indeed, a certain amount of discussion is expected between the F.A.I. and the clubs before Thursday's meeting to discuss the issue and what format of league will be in place for the forthcoming season.

According to the U.E.F.A. Licensing Department, it has been made clear that the vast majority of clubs within the eircom League have aspired to "B" Licences only and, as such, a Premier Division should not be in place.

From Derry City's point of view, they are the only side with the top licence and, as such, may object to be dragged into a 22 team First Division.

As the only U.E.F.A. licensed Premier Division club, the Brandywell side may well seek compensation should the eircom League decide to switch to a 22 team league for next season.

In addition, only club's holding "A" licences are permitted to play in European football although there is an avenue whereby clubs who have qualified on the field of play and do not have an "A" licence may seek "extraordinary admission" from the governing body.

Derry, therefore, can actually demand to be included in the eircom League's representation in Europe this season - another discussion which, no doubt, will cause no shortage of problematic debate at Merrion Square over the next few days.

With Roddy opting to play his cards close to his chest at the moment regarding what way Derry City will move forward, he will meet with his Board of Directors tomorrow night to discuss what line Derry City will take at Thursday's meeting in Dublin.

[SÓC]

But didnt Derry just get their A licence by effectivly closing half their ground. Christ we could do that too, would take a lot less work just to close the Shed and do redemial work on the rest of the ground and the floodlights but where would that leave us in a few years time.

Im totally open to correction but AFAIK Derry's maxium attendence from now on will be 2,400.

[Schumi]

Derry's floodlights must be up to scratch though and as far as I'm aware, no one else's are so closing part of the ground won't help.

[A face]

Originally posted by Macy
Surely once the ground is up to scratch, it's up to scratch. The critea is unlikely to change that quickly.... If us, Cork, Bohs and Shels get the grounds right this season, then surely it'll move on to the other teams next season....

I would have thought the same ..... infact that is exactly what should happen. If not .... then it is unfair and something else should happen. We cant discriminate against clubs because of table position.

[Éanna]

good article in fairness. I think the way the thing should be dealt with now is that clubs who have things in the pipeline (e.g. City redeveloping the Shed End, Athlone's new stadium) should be awarded licences based on them having completed these developments within a certain timeframe. For example the FAI could give City the A licence and tell them they have 18 months/ 2 years to get that end of the ground up to scratch or they'll be relegated to a B licence. That would a fair and reasonable way of doing things

[paudie]

Good article in the Tribune in fairness. Very informative and gives the impression that the main people in the club actually know what they're doing, which is nice to know.

Big change from the Tribune as they usually barely cover the eL at all and then only in a negative way.

By the way how do Derry expect to get into europe just cos they have an A licence?

Does that mean that if they had been relegated (they nearly were) they would be allowed into the Champ League qualifiers?

Fair dues to them for getting an A licence but there letting it go to their heads a bit.

[eoinh]

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/story.jsp?story=497490

[liamon]

Congrats to the Belfast telegraph on a balanced, well researched article which presented a refreshing summary of the work carried out by Derry, as opposed to clubs such as Cork City.

If only my club had the foresight to close half their ground in order to get an "A" licence. And, don't Derry deserve to be in Europe after the amazing football they played last season. If this was a just world, they would have won the championship.


I presume the article was copied from a fanzine or such?