Waterford Promoted

[NeverFeltBetter]

Congratulations to them, a long time coming, or so it seems.

[redarmyfaction]

Ya,congrats to Waterford, with a bit of luck we might get to play them next year.

[ger121]

Was always a good away trip and a nice ground. Welcome back!

[Nesta99]

Congratulations Waterford. Took some time including trawling through player registrations to get up. But done on the park now and adds to the regional spread.

[trevy]

Great to be looking forward to Premier division football next year after 10 years in the first division. There were some dark times there struggling to survive but this makes it worthwhile.
The fans are back now but for the few hundred who stuck with the club when we were near bottom of first division it's a great weekend. Next Friday night will be a big celebration at the RSC.

[Ezeikial]

Congratulations a brilliant achievement. The big challenge now is to consolidate and stay in the top division next season - no easy feat.

[White Horse]

Well done Waterford.

Big off season ahead, a 10 team premier division will be very tough for teams coming up.

However, first enjoy winning the division.

[ForzaForth]

Best of luck to Waterford. Great club with great fans and one of the friendliest grounds to visit. Lack of contest for play-off places killed the First Division this year. Hopefully, Wexford will be in the fight to make it a South-East double next year.

[disgruntled]

Welcome back Waterford.
Great to have another regional club in the Premier Div.

[WoodquayBoy]

Congrats to Waterford, an awful long time to be out of the top flight

[pineapple stu]

Sure they're a brand new club; fair dues to them getting promoted in their first year of existence. :)

[oriel]

If Limerick thought it was going to be tough coming up to a 12 team league, this will be nothing compared to what Waterford can expect in a ten team league.

Good achievement getting promoted though, but surely they will need at least 6 new players to come straight into the first team? Be a good trip mind, and two away trips also i'd imagine if the FAI go with 2 home and 2 away as opposed to the dreadful mooted idea of top 5/bottom 5 rubbish.

Looking forward to heading down for the away trip next season, might be a good option for one of the stay overs we do for each season. Only been to Waterford away once, cup QF in 1986, Kilkohan Park, we lost, long old trip home, I still remember the attendance as it was easy to, 5,454 !

[NeverFeltBetter]

Drogheda were champions the last time Waterford were in the top tier. How things change.

[Bluelivesmatter]

Delighted for Waterford and great crowd in RSC against Longford. So as long as Limerick stay up and Cobh come up next year we will have four teams from Munster in a ten team division :)

[trevy]

Great crowd of 2547 to see the Blues get the first division trophy on Friday night. It was the first time for many younger fans to see Waterford win a trophy. Lee Power the owner says they will go full time next season and aim for European football.

[placid casual]

I think Waterford should walk before they can run.
Owner's saying they are aiming for Europe is not generally a good business model in the LOI.

Anyways congrats on the promotion and best if luck for next season.
You will definitely need to strengthen to stay in the division, but if there's money there, you could get some of Bray's cast offs( I am assuming)

[NeverFeltBetter]

Great crowd of 2547 to see the Blues get the first division trophy on Friday night. It was the first time for many younger fans to see Waterford win a trophy. Lee Power the owner says they will go full time next season and aim for European football.

What we are, you shall be.

[ger121]

Glad to see Waterford back. Will be a good addition to the Premier next season.

[pineapple stu]

Lee Power the owner says they will go full time next season and aim for European football.
Well that can't possibly go wrong

[trevy]

😁 Main aim should be stay up as a few first division teams have gone straight down in recent years. The club has been transformed this season since he took over and the under 17 team won the Mark Farren Cup final yesterday to add to the feelgood factor at the moment.

[outspoken]

Wasn't impressed by Waterford this season, certainly didn't walk it like limerick done. They need plenty of big signings if they are to stay up which I'm sure they will manage to pull of as well. Would put good money on Bolger being a blue next season. One thing Waterford do already have in their ranks is two of the best strikers in the country, will be a huge advantage next season

[pineapple stu]

One thing Waterford do already have in their ranks is two of the best strikers in the country, will be a huge advantage next season
You should work for Sky, you know that?

You have a real habit of being really certain things are the best ever when in fact you're talking nonsense.

46 goals in 27 games - four of them against an Athlone side trying to concede goals - does not point to having two of the best forwards in the country. I'd say the three Premier Division teams to outscore them all have better strikers for starters. And then there's the two First Division players outscored the Waterford duo as well.

Waterford have won the league more on their defence than their attack.

[Martinho II]

You should work for Sky, you know that?

You have a real habit of being really certain things are the best ever when in fact you're talking nonsense.

46 goals in 27 games - four of them against an Athlone side trying to concede goals - does not point to having two of the best forwards in the country. I'd say the three Premier Division teams to outscore them all have better strikers for starters. And then there's the two First Division players outscored the Waterford duo as well.

Waterford have won the league more on their defence than their attack.

ie Kenny Browne.

[total hoofball]

23 goals between O'Sullivan and McDaid won't worry any Premier Division team, any decent striker with the top team in this appalling first division would be hitting a minimum of 20 goals themselves

Lee Power has already confirmed Waterford will be going full time next season so the finance looks like it will be there to compete and strengthen in the Premier next season because they need too if it's to last longer than one season

[Nah Nah Nah Nah]

Wasn't impressed by Waterford this season, certainly didn't walk it like limerick done. They need plenty of big signings if they are to stay up which I'm sure they will manage to pull of as well. Would put good money on Bolger being a blue next season. One thing Waterford do already have in their ranks is two of the best strikers in the country, will be a huge advantage next season

Have they got 2 new strikers coming in next season?

[sbgawa]

Jeez if the Waterford strikers are that good Kieran Marty waters must be Ronaldo in disguise playing for cabo....isnt he top scorer ??

[Pablo Escobar]

I don't know a lot about McDaid, but I do know about O'Sullivan. We've missed him at the tail end of this season. He creates so much out of very little. He might not be a prolific scorer, but he's well up there. If only we could shave 3/4 years off of him and sign him back!

[nr637]

Will Waterford get a First Division Trophy for winning the league at Cobh tomorrow night and will Cobh get anything for finishing second?
&
Anyone know what the prize money for the First Division is?

[gufcfan]

Anyone know what the prize money for the First Division is?Premier Division prize-money: €371,500
Premier Division affiliation fees: €204,000 (€17,000 x 12)

Champions: €110,000
Runners-up: €55,000
3rd: €35,000
4th: €25,000
5th: €21,000
6th €19.500
7th: €18,500
8th: €18,000
9th: €18,000
10th: €17,500
11th: €17,000
12th: €17,000

First Division prize-money: €104,000
First Division affiliation fees: €64,000 (€8,000 x 8)

Champions: €30,000
Runners-up: €17,500
3rd: €12,000
4th: €10,500
5th: €9,500
6th: €8,500
7th: €8,000
8th: €8,000

[trevy]

Waterford already got their trophy at the RSC last Friday and the Cobh game is not on until next Saturday 7 October.
Most Waterford fans are very surprised that not only did Davy McDaid get in the first division team of the season ahead of Mark O'Sullivan but he also got nominated for first division player of the year. Most fans wouldn't have had him in our top 3 players this season. I saw half our games this season and he did play well at times and scored some nice goals but we had better, more consistent players than him.

[Martinho II]

Will Waterford get a First Division Trophy for winning the league at Cobh tomorrow night and will Cobh get anything for finishing second?
&
Anyone know what the prize money for the First Division is?

I found it shocking that Waterford game v us didnt even feature in the Cork City game last Monday. think thats very unfair. I know it was on the RTE news at 6 on Saturday but what about the highlights package in the goals roundup?

[Partizan]

I found it shocking that Waterford game v us didnt even feature in the Cork City game last Monday. think thats very unfair. I know it was on the RTE news at 6 on Saturday but what about the highlights package in the goals roundup?

Welcome to the First Division. So glad that will be gone from next Saturday evening, hopefully for a long, long time.

[Mr A]

If the money dries up suddenly there could be worse fates than being back in the first division..

[nr637]

Poor Cobh Ramblers, nothing to play for most of their season, finished 2nd fairly easily. The competition for second was never really a challenge, it was down to whoever had the best form. Ramblers did just enough to achieve this even though they can afford to loose the last 3/4 games. Not very attractive to the fan!
The FAI should have had some form of play-off involving the relegation teams and the first division runners up to keep the interest for the fans.

But when did the FAI consider what the fans want, thank god for the Senior International team and the leagues can be forgotten about by the hierarchy!

[bluemovie]

McDaid underwhelmed this season. Marky was fantastic but his back is in bits so I wouldn't be surprised if he called it a day. And the travelling from Derry might be too much for McDaid with a young family so I could see us starting from scratch up front. I'd say we could get someone from the English or Scottish leagues but Aaron Greene looks a strong possibility too. Browne, Barrett and McClean will give us a strong base with Paul Keegan likely paired with Greg Bolger (unless Cork change his mind). We have fantastic young players coming through that a lot of people mightn't be aware of like Derek Daly and John Martin. I hope we can keep Sander Puri too. A lot of the others are well capable of playing Premier Division but will have to fight for their places with whoever is brought in.

[bluemovie]

Just on the money thing, I know we've all seen clubs go down the swanny but we literally have nothing to lose! It's entirely Lee Power's money and it's real, in-the-bank money....not like property developer money that we all learned just meant greater access to credit. If he ever pulled out overnight, we'd go downhill but we'd still be a lot better off than before he came. He can't sell our assets because we have none!! The ground is leased and guaranteed from the council. The training facilities are superb but belong to WIT. We only own a couple of footballs. Supposedly, he offered €6 million to buy the RSC this year but the council could never sell it. But he has bought land adjacent to it and is negotiating with the council about upgrading the stadium.

One difference between him and some wealthy owners is he's obviously an extremely shrewd businessman. It's in his interest for us to thrive. He has ambitions for doing well with us for what is a relative pittance to him. Europe is a target for him (possibly partly down to having played for Norwich in the San Siro) but would cost him hundreds of millions to achieve at Swindon. He could at least aim for it here for pocket money. If he wants to bring us to a position where he can sell the club for a profit, then that's fine by us! We'd have to be in pretty decent shape for that to happen. Our previous chairman was reasonably wealthy, but not in the same league as Power so it was a labour of love, throwing good money after bad until he had to rein it in eventually. Power definitely has the resources and seems very motivated about it so I'm hopeful. As far as I can see, if he does a Gerry Gannon on it and pulls out overnight, the worst that can happen is we go back to local money, still have the RSC, and at least we've reawakened the interest in the club locally and hooked a few naive young fans who don't know the years of torment they're letting themselves in for!

[gufcfan]

The FAI should have had some form of play-off involving the relegation teams and the first division runners up to keep the interest for the fans.

Relegating 3 teams with relatively little notice was already criminal, before they made the nonsensical decision to do away with the FD playoffs.

Moving things around to make it look like they are doing something, without actually doing anything.

[pineapple stu]

One difference between him and some wealthy owners is he's obviously an extremely shrewd businessman.
Don't necessarily want to put a downer on your post - on the one hand, I don't really know the ins and outs of Power, but on the other hand, an awful lot of what you've said could be applied at lots of other clubs - but I don't think the above bit is true. I think you'd struggle to find a wealthy owner who isn't shrewd.

It's easy to mock, but wealthy businessmen are generally successful (kind of by definition), and that's generally not by accident.

[bluemovie]

What I mean is that he's a businessman rather than a fan. The previous chairman was a fan. He was always going to put in the money just to keep the club alive. That's how I'd view a Brian Lennox (off the top of my head) or plenty of other owners who are fans of their local club. That's not Lee Power's motivation. He wants to drive us on to a level where good money will be coming into the club. While that has its own inherent dangers, I like the idea of him needing the club to be efficient in order to achieve that. Businesses are better run when they are driven like that as opposed to being a hobbyhorse for an owner. I suppose what I'm getting at is that if I won the Euromillions and bought the club, I would invest one way or the other. That doesn't apply for him. He needs the club to be successful to make it worthwhile. The resources needed to get us to that position are fairly minimal for him so I'm confident he'll achieve his aim.

[pineapple stu]

I think the Bray owners are businessmen rather than fans too! :)

[nigel-harps1954]

I think I'd rather if any potential investor in Finn Harps were a fan with a multi-million Euro bank account rather than some businessman with a distant link to the locality.

[osarusan]

Has any business investor ever made money for themselves and left the club in a better position?

[El-Pietro]

Has any business investor ever made money for themselves and left the club in a better position?

Tom Coughlan...? We're better off now than we were before he joined, and we would never havetaken over if he hadn't made such a royal mess of things