Potential New EL Teams

[student]

The thread on re-election to the first division got me thinking about potential areas/clubs for new EL clubs. Kildare Countys recent addition has been a success and they are certainly a positive addition to the league. With good community backing there is certainly a few potential areas/clubs who could also be an addition to the league.

Mullingar currently have two teams competing separately in the Under 21 EL which would suggest the potential is there.
The Kerry League and Mayo League have also got teams at EL under 21 level and perhaps places such as Tralee/Killarney or Castlebar might have the population to be able to sustain a local team.

The Wexford league are making great strides at underage level under the astute guidance of Mick Wallace.

And perhaps other towns/citys such as Ennis, Cavan and or in Tipp (in Thurles/Roscrea or Nenagh) would have the potential as well.

Also with the growing population of Dublin satelite towns there could be the potential for an EL team in the likes of Navan, Naas, Maynooth and Wicklow Town.

Obviously forming an EL team from scratch would be no easy task, and huge work and investment would be required. But it would be great to see the EL diversify a little (especially with there being only ten teams in Division one).

[kdjaC]

Tipp would be ideal

I would prefer more teams outside Dublin too many inside atm.
And large towns would be a plus.


kdjac

[Réiteoir]

The rebirth of Thurles Town?

[Poor Student]

Tipp would be ideal

I would prefer more teams outside Dublin too many inside atm.
And large towns would be a plus.


kdjac

The percentage of the amount of Dublin teams in the eL and the percentage of population living in Dublin are roughly the same. There is not too much clubs from Dublin.

[centre mid]

The simple fact of the matter is that there are no clubs who could come up from the intermediate or junior leagues and survive financially, on the pitch there is probably 4 -5 clubs who could hold there own, but couldnt get crowds and facilities together.

The only way they could do it would be to ground share with an EL club - e.g say rockmount came out and shared the cross with cork or something - even then what sort of crowds would they get?

[hamish]

Portlaoise FC might be an option. Rosleighan Park has the potential to be developed, the town itself is big with a well populated hinterland, good central location in Ireland and good roads nearby, plenty of industry and potential sponsors, easy ground to get to on the Tullamore road, they also drew a good crowd against Home Farm in the Cup a few years ago.

Mullingar Town have a huge and excellent pitch, stand, needs terracing, dressing rooms have been improved/rebuilt (I think) and Dalton Park is fairly easy to get to but housing estate around ground would make parking a problem.

Mullingar Athletic's Gainstown ground is fantastic but the main pitch, while enclosed, has no stand or terracing so work to be done there. Gainstown is a few miles from the actual town but accessible enough from the Dublin Galway road.

Despite what the Mayo lads told me on another thread, still think there might be potential for a Mayo side in future years - hope so anyway as they are fantastically well organised and progressive up there.

Meant to mention Tullamore's Terry Adams Park. Haven't seen it for about six years but they were adding new pitches around then. Ground/pitch is enclosed with a kind of stand but no terracing and parking would be a problem given the road it's on. Town is big though with a populated hinterland and Tullamore's easy to get to for visiting fans. Lot of work to be done to bring ground up to LOI standard but certainly not impossible.

[kdjaC]

The percentage of the amount of Dublin teams in the eL and the percentage of population living in Dublin are roughly the same. There is not too much clubs from Dublin.


There should be only 4, the others dont bring anything to the league.

kdjac

[Poor Student]

There should be only 4, the others dont bring anything to the league.

kdjac

I wouldnt go that far about Shamrock Rovers. :eek:

[superfrank]

Arklow Town in the LSL have a fairly decent stadium, alot like Whitehall. They even have turnstiles. I don't think there are any seats but their stand could hold a few thousand. And Arklow's a big enough town too, I think it's about 12-15,000. Also, it's outside Dublin.

There you go. A Kerry team would be another worthy mention but Tralee Dynamos are the only ones I've heard of that I'm sure are from Kerry.

[superfrank]

There should be only 4, the others dont bring anything to the league.

kdjac
What 4?

[hamish]

Arklow Town in the LSL hace a fairly decent stadium, alot like Whitehall. They even have turnstiles. I don't think there are any seats but their stand could hold a few thousand. And Arklow's a big enough town too, I think it's about 12-15,000. Also, it's outside Dublin.

There you go. A Kerry team would be another worthy mention but Tralee Dynamos are the only ones I've heard of that I'm sure are from Kerry.

Forgot about Arklow Town and I think it's only a matter of time befure Kerry has a LOI team and Wexford too.

[Sliogán Dóite]

Also with the growing population of Dublin satelite towns there could be the potential for an EL team in the likes of Navan, Naas, Maynooth and Wicklow Town.

I heard before Kildare County was originally meant to be Newbridge Town but they were only allowed in if they represented the whole of Kildare, therefore Naas and Maynooth couldn't get in.

[Dodge]

Not 100% true. The people behind the move were from newbridge Town but they changed the name to Kildare county for 2 reasons. One was for marketing reasons, hoping to get the whole county behind them. The other, more important, reason was they didn't want to destroy what they had built up at Intermediate level. They saw what happened to St. Francis and St. james gate when they left the league and didn't want to have to start again if the eL tem didn't work out initially. Sensible thinking IMO

[De Town]

What 4?
I'd say he is talking about Shels, Bohs, Pats and Rovers

[Xlex]

It's an idea Longford had some time ago, change from Longford Town to simply Longford. IMO any new club in rural Ireland should either choose something which applys to the county or something different altogether, eg. Finn Harps.Honestly don't know if I'd be as mad about LTFC if Granard was the county town and LTFC were known as GFC...

People in some counties feel marginalised enough with out feeling inclined to support newbridge town over a Kildare County side.

[hamish]

Not 100% true. The people behind the move were from newbridge Town but they changed the name to Kildare county for 2 reasons. One was for marketing reasons, hoping to get the whole county behind them. The other, more important, reason was they didn't want to destroy what they had built up at Intermediate level. They saw what happened to St. Francis and St. james gate when they left the league and didn't want to have to start again if the eL tem didn't work out initially. Sensible thinking IMO

Thanks for that explanation Dodge. I always thought the Kildare League was kind of behind Kildare County with Newbridge Town playing an important role.

Doesn't the u21 Kildare County side play their home games in Castle Villa, Kildare, Athy etc?? That's how I got the impression that the League was involved.

Great to see my dad's county in the LOI, whatever the set up.

[Gerrit]

Kerry has the potential, Wexford, Cavan town's surely big enough for a new team. Maybe Ennis as well, what's their population ?

[Buller]

Tralee, Population was 25,000 in 2003
Wexford, Population was 20,000 in 2003
Not that big!

[hamish]

Kerry has the potential, Wexford, Cavan town's surely big enough for a new team. Maybe Ennis as well, what's their population ?

Couldn't find the population on any Ennis website but I think it's around 15,000.

[superfrank]

Tralee, Population was 25,000 in 2003
Wexford, Population was 20,000 in 2003
Not that big!
Drogheda's not that big but they have a decent team. Besides if you want teams from outside Dublin then there's not exactly alot of big towns to choose from.

And if you had a team in Tralee, doubtless you'd get fans from Killarney as well. It's only 20 miles down the road.

[jorge]

Wayside Celtic would survive very well footballwise but unfortunately havent the facilities.

[crc]

I got a list of town and city populations from the CSO website (http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/vol11_entire.pdf). The population figures are for urban areas, not for administrative boundaries. They are a rough guide of the potential ability to support a club, but Longford, Cobh and Monaghan prove you can run a club on quite small populations. Ballybofey-Stranorlar is a bit different as Harps attract fans from all over Donegal (pop. 131,393) and even Strabane (going by the banner at last week's Cork City-Harps game)!

Towns which have an eL club are listed in Bold. The Derry figure is the population of the Derry City Council Local Govt. District.

Greater Dublin - 965,244
Cork - 179,007
Derry - 105,066
Limerick - 83,290
Galway - 63,822
Waterford - 44,669
Dundalk - 30,715
Drogheda - 29,260
Bray - 29,260
Swords - 25,842
Tralee - 20,965
Ennis - 20,904
Kilkenny - 19,831
Sligo - 18,998
An Uaimh - 18,212
Carlow - 17,492
Naas - 17,209
Wexford - 16,386
Clonmel - 16,202
Droichead Nua - 15,826
Athlone - 15,242
Celbridge - 15,127
Mullingar - 14,719
Letterkenny - 14,429
Leixlip - 14,375
Malahide - 13,316
Killarney - 12,732
Portlaoise - 11,374
Greystones - 11,436
Castlebar - 10,775
Carrigaline - 10,435
Tullamore - 10,591
Balbriggan - 9,731
Maynooth - 9,618
Arklow - 9,495
Cobh - 9,332
Ballina - 9,185
Wicklow - 8,861
Skerries - 8,676
Enniscorthy - 8,504
Mallow - 8,519
Shannon - 8,118
Portmarnock - 8,197
Tramore - 7,858
Midleton - 7,529
Longford - 7,128
Dungarvan - 7,095
Thurles - 7,088
Rush - 6,363
Youghal - 6,332
New Ross - 6,226
Nenagh - 6,169
----------[5 towns]------------
Monaghan - 5,693
----------[27 towns]-----------
Ballybofey-Stranorlar - 3,423

[sligoman]

Leitrim have great potential for a team in the EL :rolleyes: :D :D

[centre mid]

Looking at those CSO stats, you would think that Carlow would have an EL side, maybe its to close to Kilkenny or something, but big student population and all that

[KR's Post]

They could get a new team and Call themselves ''Dublin Home Farm Everton Fingal City United''.......... Oh wait!!!!!! ;)

[KR's Post]

Looking at those CSO stats, you would think that Carlow would have an EL side, maybe its to close to Kilkenny or something, but big student population and all that
Big student populaton in U.C.D. and they have only a fair few fans!!!

[centre mid]

Yeah but a lot of those students in carlow would probably spend the weekend there, there are a lot more choices in dublin if you want to go and watch EL football, if Carlow had an EL team chances are you would probably get a decent smattering of them

[Speranza]

Despite small attendances at Harps matchs their crowd do tend to come from the entire county and the arsehole of the world Strabane. It would be sensible for Harps to move to Leterkenny imo. Harps fans feel free to correct me but I've heard that Its a town/city which is supposedly the fastest growing in western europe?

New teams representing a whole county would be the best option, if marketed in the right way it should be a sucess.

[superfrank]

Wayside Celtic would survive very well footballwise but unfortunately havent the facilities.
They could ground-share with us, just an idea.

Droichead Nua 15,826
Despite small attendances at Harps matchs their crowd do tend to come from the entire county and the arsehole of the world Strabane. It would be sensible for Harps to move to Leterkenny imo. Harps fans feel free to correct me but I've heard that Its a town/city which is supposedly the fastest growing in western europe?

New teams representing a whole county would be the best option, if marketed in the right way it should be a sucess.
Kildare County are similar to Harps in that respect. And I'm sure many other teams are too. For instance I know people from Greystones, Shankill, Kilpedder and other parts of North Wicklow that go to Bray games. :rolleyes:

[centre mid]

They could ground-share with us, just an idea.

As far as I Know Wayside may be looking to do just that - there own pitch ( the golden ball ) has been sold i think for housing, while i agree that in footballing terms Wayside would hold there own in the 1st Div, i am not sure what support they can draw on tough, the stepaside area is growing and not that far from cabinteely etc, but they are in between Bray and UCD

[Gerrit]

I'd count Swords, Malahide and Bray in as Greater Dublin, as they're in the direct agglomeration.



Just a maybe weird idea but you don't only have to look at numbers of people, also to the groups of people. Dublin may have 6 Eircom League teams already but they all fight for the attention of the average Dubliner and therefor fish in the same pond. With the huge Asian community in Dublin and the growing Islamic community I'm sure an ethnical Asian or Turkish teams would attract good crowds if run decently - they could survive in Dublin without the 6 other teams and the immigrants team having to fish in the same pond.

Take Berlin. They already have Hertha, TeBe Berlin, Dynamo Berlin and Union Berlin as the 'authentic Berliner' clubs. Still Turkiyemspor (currently in 4th division) attract good crowds without speaking of yet another club in a city with already 4 teams.

I'm sure if you'd get Turkiyemspor Dublin it would get good crowds, it would fill in a gap in the marketspace even as I never noticed the immigrant population showing interest in the EL. In a multicultural growing city as Dublin, there's potential I'd say.

[KR's Post]

I'd count Swords, Malahide and Bray in as Greater Dublin, as they're in the direct agglomeration.




Please don't... :rolleyes: We are Wicklow and always will be.


Yeah but a lot of those students in carlow would probably spend the weekend there, there are a lot more choices in dublin if you want to go and watch EL football, if Carlow had an EL team chances are you would probably get a decent smattering of them

Thats true....

[dcfcsteve]

I'd count Swords, Malahide and Bray in as Greater Dublin, as they're in the direct agglomeration.



Just a maybe weird idea but you don't only have to look at numbers of people, also to the groups of people. Dublin may have 6 Eircom League teams already but they all fight for the attention of the average Dubliner and therefor fish in the same pond. With the huge Asian community in Dublin and the growing Islamic community I'm sure an ethnical Asian or Turkish teams would attract good crowds if run decently - they could survive in Dublin without the 6 other teams and the immigrants team having to fish in the same pond.

Take Berlin. They already have Hertha, TeBe Berlin, Dynamo Berlin and Union Berlin as the 'authentic Berliner' clubs. Still Turkiyemspor (currently in 4th division) attract good crowds without speaking of yet another club in a city with already 4 teams.

I'm sure if you'd get Turkiyemspor Dublin it would get good crowds, it would fill in a gap in the marketspace even as I never noticed the immigrant population showing interest in the EL. In a multicultural growing city as Dublin, there's potential I'd say.

Interesting example - but with the possible exception of Sweden, football teams based upon immigrant support tend to be in countries with very very large numbers of immigrants from those groups concerned. Germany has a 9% 'Auslander' (immigrant) population, of which 2 million are Turkish - and that doesn't measure 2nd and 3rd generations ethnic Turks now treated as nationals (even with the fecked-up passport qualification system the Germans have in-place). Within that, certain cities have a huge immigrant population - 25%+ in Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. There's 0ver 120,000 Turkish-born Turks in Berlin alone, and then they'll have 2nd and 3rd generation families.

Meanwhile, neither Ireland nor Dublin have such large immigrant populations in total, let alone from a single country. I don't know what the actual figures are, but I'd be surprised if there were more than 10-15,000 members from any single non-EU community based in Ireland. (e.g. the 2002 census recorded less than 20,000 Muslims in the whole of the island). I don't believe that represents a sufficient potential supporter base from which to make a senior football team financially viable, without doing a Spurs or an Arsenal - and having certain communities each overwhelmingly supporting a different existing EL team. Also - immigrant groups like the Turks will have primary loyalty towards teams in their homeland (e.g. I live in an area of London with 40,000 Portuguese, and the place went mad the night Benfica won the league last month).

Finally - from a personal point of view I'd prefer it for the purposes of social cohesion if those of non-Irish origin supported local sides, regardless of religion or race. Just look at the venom that exists in Scottish football due to the presence of a team from a large immigrant group.

P.S. Sorry Gerrit - I always seem to be disagreeing with you in my posts ! It's nothing personal ! :)

[jorge]

As far as I Know Wayside may be looking to do just that - there own pitch ( the golden ball ) has been sold i think for housing, while i agree that in footballing terms Wayside would hold there own in the 1st Div, i am not sure what support they can draw on tough, the stepaside area is growing and not that far from cabinteely etc, but they are in between Bray and UCD
The area is growing and i would say they would easly get 300-500 people to matches.

[Poor Student]

Meanwhile, neither Ireland nor Dublin have such large immigrant populations in total, let alone from a single country. I don't know what the actual figures are, but I'd be surprised if there were more than 10-15,000 members from any single non-EU community based in Ireland. (e.g. the 2002 census recorded less than 20,000 Muslims in the whole of the island).

I think from the statistics I have read there are 50,000 Polish here.

[4tothefloor]

Harps fans feel free to correct me but I've heard that Its a town/city which is supposedly the fastest growing in western europe?


As far as I know, Newcastle West in Co. Limerick is the new holder of that title. I remember reading an article about it around 3 months ago. Land is being gobbled up by housing estates and the likes of Tesco and Dunnes at a frightening rate. Newcastle West used to have a LoI team in the eighties of course, but I can safely say that they won't be having one again in the future.

I think one team per county is enough. None of the Dublin clubs have a huge support when they should have. Cobh struggle because Cork are the main club down there. I think the FAI should look at the feasibility of starting up teams in Kerry, Tipperary, Clare, Mayo, Offaly, Wexford and Carlow. If there are any other clubs out there, such as Wayside Celtic, that fancy playing at senior level then they could be looked at too. A third division could be run on its own for a year or two, and if successful promotion\relegation between Division 1 could be introduced. You would think that if this was realised, and with an eventual amalgamation with the IL, you would have a very ecxiting league with at least 4 Divisions and huge media coverage.......we can only dream

[Poor Student]

A third division could be run on its own for a year or two, and if successful promotion\relegation between Division 1 could be introduced.

That would definately have to be regionalised. There's no way 10 clubs would sign up to a 3rd tier spread over the country. Given the lowly level and the distances crowds and travel expenses would not make it viable.

[4tothefloor]

That would definately have to be regionalised. There's no way 10 clubs would sign up to a 3rd tier spread over the country. Given the lowly level and the distances crowds and travel expenses would not make it viable.

Teams from Kerry, Tipperary, Clare, Mayo, Offaly, Wexford and Carlow, as I mentioned. Most of those are within 2\2.5 hrs of each other. Regionalised divisions wouldn't work because there is no appeal in them. Playing the same, small few teams over and over again doesn't appeal to me, don't know about you! In the long run, travel expenses are part of life in football, so if a side in this third division was to progress, they'd have to live with the expenses. Or just stay in the third division for ever, which defeats the purpose of creating it in the first place. If small parish GAA clubs can afford to play in the All-Ireland club championships, surely a county soccer team can afford to travel a couple of hours every two weeks? Of course it's viable, if the clubs were run properly.

[thecorner]

Wayside Celtic would survive very well footballwise but unfortunately havent the facilities.


looks like ur right..knocked cobh out of the cup tonight

[jorge]

I think they will go far just like Rockmount.Ian Callaghan scored AGAIN the chap should be playing in the EL.

[De Town]

I think they will go far just like Rockmount.
another dangerous non league team will be Cherry Orchard :ball: Watch out for them.

[jorge]

Well i think wayside beat them twice this season in the LSL.So not a bother.

[dcfcsteve]

I think from the statistics I have read there are 50,000 Polish here.

Have just done a Google search and you're right Poor Student. The Polish Embassy estimate 40,000 Poles in the country, though because they don't have to register this is merely an educated guess. 3,000 Polish in Limerick alone.

I've also Googled a few other immigrant groups to check their size in Ireland. The Chinese appear to be the biggest - with an estimated 60,000 spread across the island. However - despite the fact they exist in decent numbers in pretty much every developed nation in the world, and in many cases have done so for up to and over a century, the Chinese as a community have shown no enthusiasm for organising football teams to play at a significant level in any of their host countries. I'd therefore rule them out as a community who could support a senior football team in Ireland.

After the Chinese, the Polish appear to be the only large immigrant community in the country (though I wouldn't describe 40,000 nationals spread across a country of 4million as being significant). I've Googled on Nigerians and got an estimated figure of 20,000 across Ireland - out of a total estimated African population of 30,000. Haven't been able to get any figures on the Portuguese community outside of the North, where they seem to predominate (although I know there are clusters of them in towns with certain industries in the south). There's an estimated 20,000 Romanians in the country (mostly Dublin-based) and a smaller number of Russians, but again not numbers of any significance.

Re the Polish - I'd still say that 40,000 people spread across the island as your absolute maximum target audience isn't a strong enough base of support for a senior football team. Only a percentage of those would be based in the town where the team itself actually played-in, and then within that only a small fraction would actually be interested in supporting the team in any active sense. We'd be talking hundreds here at most I believe, which wouldn't make it viable.

What i think would be interesting, however, would be if an EL team signed a player who was a member of a community that existed in decent numbers in their town. For example - with an estimated 3,000 Poles in Limerick, it would be interesting to see what would happen if Limerick signed a Polish player and actively courted that community as a result. Would it actually help to generate support for that team amongst the immigrant community ?

Is Ndo Nigerian ? If so - have Shels tried to make the Nigerian community aware of this to see if it generates any support ?

[Poor Student]

Btw I was not going along with Gerrit's ethnic suggestion as I think the idea is devisive I was just pointing out we have a lot of Poles. I think we also have about 20k from one of the Baltic states, Latvia I think. Ndo is from Cameroon.

[Gerrit]

At the Shels messageboard there was a suggestion after the Ireland vs China game: buy a decent Chinese player that would actually make the team every week, and maybe part of the 5000 Chinese fans that were at Lansdowne would also come to Tolka Park. Interesting idea IF the Chinese guy would actually play.

In belgium, Genk and later their satellite team Heusden-Zolder hired a Japanese player, and despite the fact that he was on the bench most of the games there were Japanese people in the stadium every single week + the jerseys sold in Japan + Genk made a deal with a Japanese TV station to live broadcast their games in Japan :eek: So commercially seen, the Asian market is something to investigate for sure.

I think 40000 Polish people are a decent number for a club, don't forget some EL teams also attract less than 1000 people every week. Maybe, given the amount of Russian, Latvian and Romanian people here, a cross-border Eastern Europe team could be viable - with a Polish dominance given their numbers.

I also don't think ethnic clubs are a problem, at least it would draw their attention to the EL. Look at Argentina and Australia where at least 30 or 40% of the league clubs have foreign roots (Deportivo Armenia, Espanola, Newell's Old Boys, Portuguesa, Croatia Sydney, Club Italiano, ...). They all attract decent crowds.

[Clones Road Cas]

Not meaning to sound bithcy about our neighbours, but cavan has an extremely small population about 6k. The population of the County is about the same as MOnaghans but it is vry spread out. Would be great to have another derby game though

[Troy.McClure]

I hate to burst ye're bubble about Carlow but with summer soccer comes summer exams and summer holidays, so I wouldnt rely on the students. ;)

At a guess Id say that the most likely places for a new eL club would be 1) Mullingar, as they were supposed to be the main rivals for the spot when Kildare got elected in, 2) Wexford, as Wallace obviously wants to get in to the eL act and could build them a lovely stadium. Im sure that he would get Dolan to be their number 1 fan too and elevate their profile, or 3) Tralee as the popularity of soccer there seems to be growing all the time, and Dynamos seem to be holding thier own in the u21 league.

[dcfcsteve]

I think 40000 Polish people are a decent number for a club, don't forget some EL teams also attract less than 1000 people every week. Maybe, given the amount of Russian, Latvian and Romanian people here, a cross-border Eastern Europe team could be viable - with a Polish dominance given their numbers.

Insane idea Gerrit - sorry. Would never work and would appeal to no-one. There is no Eastern European identity.

The 40,000 Poles don't all live in the same town and aren't all interested in football. That's a smaller total potential audience than the Faroe Islands, for example..

The Chinese - and indeed Asians in general - are shockingly fickle when it comes to supporting teams. They chop and change almost on a seasonal basis, and can't be relied upon. For example - Even with a decent-sized Chinese community in Liverpool, and a Chinese player and last season a Chinese sponsor, Everton didn't get any significant increase in the level of active support from the Chinese community in the city (I have 2 friends who work for the club). It gained them a lot of token support in China - but they've probably all switched to Liverpool now since the CL final anyway. Chinese people over here tend not to be big on football - look around you at any games you go to in places with a big Chinese population (e.g. London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow).

Irish people don't even go to EL games - so expecting any other community to flock to the terraces is a bit naive. Again - we have more fundamental issues to solve here. The game in Ireland overall has to be made much more attractive before we could have realistic hopes of any significant numbers of non-Irish taking an interest in it. Dreaming up makey-uppy teams for large towns will also solve nothing. Longford, Monaghan, Bray, Kildare and Derry are all relatively new entrants into the League, and gave it a better regional spread. Yet it's done feck all to the broad level of support and appeal of the game. Again - the fundamental problem with our league is its image - not it's regional footprint...

[Gerrit]

The Chinese - and indeed Asians in general - are shockingly fickle when it comes to supporting teams. They chop and change almost on a seasonal basis, and can't be relied upon. For example - Even with a decent-sized Chinese community in Liverpool, and a Chinese player and last season a Chinese sponsor, Everton didn't get any significant increase in the level of active support from the Chinese community in the city (I have 2 friends who work for the club). It gained them a lot of token support in China - but they've probably all switched to Liverpool now since the CL final anyway. Chinese people over here tend not to be big on football - look around you at any games you go to in places with a big Chinese population (e.g. London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow).


I see your point, but also note that Ireland vs China (a friendly game nota bene) attracted 5000 Chinese fans, so a good representation of the Chinese community went to the stadium to see their team play. It were all Irish-based Chinese people, no one was travelling from China and back for the game. So stating they're not interested at all in sports is also not the complete truth.

And Polish people, though widespread, do care about football, though I notice with the Polish I know that most of them don't follow EL but follow a domestic team (Legia Warsaw and Wisla Krakow seem to be quite popular) via the internet and media. Maybe if they'd have their own team it could fill a gap...

[Countyman]

a word of warning.

County Kildare has the highest population outside of dublin,cork ,limerick & galway and yet our eircom league team only averages 200 in the first division.

It aint about catchment or population. Its all about how the club is put together and run.

KCFC is effectively run by the same people who run the Kildare junior league.
There is a lot of self interest involved and its smothering the potential of the club.

The people that run kildare county are a joke and I would have grave concerns about their being a club in existence in the next few years. From what I heard they are losing money by the bucketload.

Most people I know wont go and watch them because they are perceived to have too many "blow-ins" and "journeymen" who wont die for the shirt if you catch my drift.

With regards the potential for the club our highest crowd was a top of the table first division game against waterford in our first season.

1200 people. Brilliant by first division standards.