2025 Pre-Season Competitions and Friendlies

[Buckett]

Longford 0-6 Galway Utd

Longford unable to update FAI Connect for some reason

[Another Bohemia]

0-5 to Bohs in Athlone. Completely different team to yesterday's 0-5 win vs Longford. Cornwall, Clarke, Rhys Brennan, Devoy(p) and Mousset with the goals. Mousset also won the peno.

[Jack B]

Pat's 4-0 UCD in Richmond. Hoare, Keena, Kavanagh and Palmer with the goals.

UCD played some tidy stuff at times and have a few lads with good physical attributes, but ultimately didn't get much going outside of their own half of the pitch. Pat's played in patches, one or two performances were a bit off but that's what pre-season is for I suppose. On the other side of that Keena looks particularly sharp, beauty of a finish but even outside of that he looks fully settled going into this season.

[Shinkicker]

0-5 to Bohs in Athlone. Completely different team to yesterday's 0-5 win vs Longford. Cornwall, Clarke, Rhys Brennan, Devoy(p) and Mousset with the goals. Mousset also won the peno.
I just think it's good we are scoring goals, hopefully it will continue. Hopefully Mousset will realize he can be a big fish in a little pond and has the opportunity to become a cult hero, a Georgie Kelly of sorts.

[outspoken]

Longford 0-6 Galway Utd

Longford unable to update FAI Connect for some reason

And Galway couldn't be holed putting their team up on it

[Comic Book Guy]

Cobh Ramblers v Cork City, Munster Cup Quarter Final, Friday 07/02/2025 @ 19.45 in Cobh.

May see full teams for this as the league starts on the 14th!

Worth a visit!

Great win for Ramblers tonight, showed great character to come back. I reckon around 1,300 at it.
As an aside Cathal O'Sullivan was the stand out player, an absolute baller

[2 Year Contract]

Pat's 4-0 UCD in Richmond. Hoare, Keena, Kavanagh and Palmer with the goals.

UCD played some tidy stuff at times and have a few lads with good physical attributes, but ultimately didn't get much going outside of their own half of the pitch. Pat's played in patches, one or two performances were a bit off but that's what pre-season is for I suppose. On the other side of that Keena looks particularly sharp, beauty of a finish but even outside of that he looks fully settled going into this season.

Agree on UCD, they�re a much bigger team than the usual small/skinny type UCD teams, which comes with the territory of having the youngest squad in the league every year I guess. Some decent players in there, I don�t think they�ll win the league but they should make the playoffs

[Another Bohemia]

I just think it's good we are scoring goals, hopefully it will continue. Hopefully Mousset will realize he can be a big fish in a little pond and has the opportunity to become a cult hero, a Georgie Kelly of sorts.

What's better is we were scoring goals without a striker for the first few games. A striker is a necessity for most styles of play but other players should be contributing with goals as well. I believe Rooney was our top goal scorer w/ 8 in all comps last year but he had a few penos in there. I think we didn't just have a striker problem but we had an overall goal problem all of last season.

[trevy]

Waterford beat Treaty United 4 2 last night in Munster senior cup. Waterford had a strong team out. All the goals came in the 2nd half with 3 of Waterfords goals coming from corners taken by Conan Noonan.
Around 400 there on a cold night.

[2 Year Contract]

Pats beat Athlone 3-1 at Abbotstown today. Mix of squad players and u20s played. Goals from Matty O'Hara, Billy Hayes and Tom Grivosti for Pats, with Jay McClelland missing a peno. Kyle Robinson with a well taken goal for Athlone. Kian Leavy was among the rest of the squad watching, but he was in a protective boot which doesn�t look promising that he�ll be available for a number of weeks I'd say

[Jack B]

Jay McClelland missing a peno.

This has absolutely stunned me.

[joey B]

Sligo Rovers 4-0 Finn Harps

[outspoken]

Interesting to see how Premier Division clubs were struggling in the early weeks of pre season against FD sides but there's been some right hammerings in the final set of friendlies.

[Neish]

Interesting to see how Premier Division clubs were struggling in the early weeks of pre season against FD sides but there's been some right hammerings in the final set of friendlies.

TBH I never read too much into pre-season results, often teams used them to give game time to trialists many of who don't get signed

[Nah Nah Nah Nah]

Sligo Rovers 4-0 Finn Harps

I think we�ll struggle this season but Harps looked awful. Have ye many to come in?

[joey B]

I think we�ll struggle this season but Harps looked awful. Have ye many to come in?

I don�t think we�ll be adding much more,we�re going to be bad this season and could finish rock bottom�..

[Martinho II]

I don�t think we�ll be adding much more,we�re going to be bad this season and could finish rock bottom�..

Totally disgaree Joey B we have the lowest 1st division budget this season and after the last two seasons when we finished 3rd from bottom and then 2nd from bottom Im fearing the worst for ourselves. No season buildup until last few days on club site noone seems to know wot direction club wants to go in. And as for the huge delay in releasing a home jersey compared to the season before dont get me started...

[Zico]

Maybe not specific to this thread, but while on the point of first division budgets. Any ideas as to what a typical first division budget for say a mid table side would be - split between wages / expenses and other 1st team running costs? I would guess wages / expenses in the range of �200k and another �150k on team running costs. Certainly can�t see clubs generating more than �300k-�400k income per year based on gates of 700-800 or so.. just curious if anyone has knowledge or opinion on it??

[thebronze14]

I think we�ll struggle this season but Harps looked awful. Have ye many to come in?

Yeah we were chronic. Only really Cawley to come back in. Sligo knocked it around nicely but could have been 7 or 8. We are light at the back and have no punch at all going forward. Success definitely not replaced. I don't want to be overly negative but it's between ourselves, Kerry and Longford at the bottom unless one of the rest like Treaty or Wexford have a total nightmare

[legendz]

Cork City v Celtic hosted by Cork GAA sounds like it is to maximise profits for Cork GAA.

[2 Year Contract]

Cork City v Celtic hosted by Cork GAA sounds like it is to maximise profits for Cork GAA.
I saw that there will be a pre-sale of tickets for season ticket holders of Celtic, Cork City FC and Cork GAA so it does certainly seem like Cork GAA will get a nice slice of the pie too. Fair enough though given it�s their ground

[oldfan]

They were hardly giving the ground for free!!

[Nesta99]

Cork City v Celtic hosted by Cork GAA sounds like it is to maximise profits for Cork GAA.

The organising promotion company wont be left short either! Celtic have a set fee, was about 100k 2008 so ages ago and im not sure that was a 1st team guarantee.

[2 Year Contract]

Ticket prices for that from the Celtic website:


SOUTH STAND LOWER



Adults - �45
Child - �25
Family (Two adults & two children) - �115

SOUTH STAND UPPER



Adults - �35
Child - �20

EAST TERRANCE (BLACKROCK END)



Adults - �28
Child - �18



Hefty enough prices for a friendly at 6pm on a Tuesday which is bizarre kickoff time to agree on. It was �35/�20 tickets for Celtic vs Wolves at 2pm on a Saturday in the Aviva which only sold 28k. Maybe there�ll be more interest from the Cork public. I saw something on Twitter saying Cork GAA will make between �150-200k if it sells out

[2 Year Contract]

Just looking at FAI Connect and noticed that after Dundalk were awarded a walkover in the LSC Quarter Final because North End United couldn�t field a team, North End played a game 5 games later, one of 7 games since they were due to play Dundalk in March. Bohs beat Usher Celtic 2-0 in April in one of the other Quarters, while Pats vs Drogheda and St Mochta's vs Athlone haven�t even been fixed a date yet. Why did the LFA enforce a walkover for North End rather than just rescheduling the fixture, considering a set date for the games to go ahead by clearly isn�t being enforced? Not that anything with the organisation of the LSC should make any sense or have any consistency that is :D just another oddity I noticed

[culloty82]

That rarest of beasts, a mid-season friendly (World Cup qualifying window), as Bohs announce that Schalke will visit Dalymount on October 11th:

https://bohemians.ie/bohemians-to-host-german-giants-schalke-in-friendly-on-saturday-october-11th/

[sbgawa]

That rarest of beasts, a mid-season friendly (World Cup qualifying window), as Bohs announce that Schalke will visit Dalymount on October 11th:

https://bohemians.ie/bohemians-to-host-german-giants-schalke-in-friendly-on-saturday-october-11th/

Youd have thought Bohs would have made it an away trip to give the fans a European experience :)

[placid casual]

"Oh what a night, watching Rovers on a Thursday night...."

[Nesta99]

Minnowism! Singing about playing European football on Thursday nights:rolleyes:

[wonder88]

That is good work from The Bohs, there has been a small but still noticeable number of German fans/groundhoppers attending the Loi grounds in Dublin in recent years, so they would be a target I say. This is not new of course, Galway v Bradford (K Kilbane) and Dundalk v Birmingham when there was a big freeze over in England pre under soil heating, are two games that spring to mind. Any Dundalk fans can say if Trevor Francis played in that game?
Remember that the American Football game is getting 10 million of public money for the game in Croker, so Irish soccer must fight its corner or get left behind.
The question is could these friendlies be scaled up but the International breaks has created a gap in the market, however is there a worthwhile market there?

[2 Year Contract]

Quite a lot of backlash from Schalke fans to the announcement of this fixture on their Twitter. A lot of their fans are very pro-Israel and seemingly aren’t happy that their club are playing Bohs at all given their pro-Palestine stuff. A strange choice of opposition from Bohs, I’d have thought Union Berlin would’ve been the chosen opposition given the friendly between the two in Berlin and their similar political views to bohs

[DCWA]

A first appearance in a long while
and to harp on again. A lot of German clubs are soft on Israel whether because of Jewish populations or war “guilt” (should have well shifted by now) so surprising from Bohs but I doubt they actually care.

[Martinho II]

Didnt know that Schalke got relegated few years back! Wonder is there many Schalke fans living in Ireland or German fans?

[Kiki Balboa]

Quite a lot of backlash from Schalke fans to the announcement of this fixture on their Twitter. A lot of their fans are very pro-Israel and seemingly aren’t happy that their club are playing Bohs at all given their pro-Palestine stuff. A strange choice of opposition from Bohs, I’d have thought Union Berlin would’ve been the chosen opposition given the friendly between the two in Berlin and their similar political views to bohs

I dont think Bohs values transfer onto Union or really German football.

Bohs are hyper commercialised / consumer based, which German football can be quite against.

[holidaysong]

I've two friends who live here that are both German and Bohs fans (members actually). It's an interesting question though, as the club was very different 15 years ago when they started going.

[Shinkicker]

Quite a lot of backlash from Schalke fans to the announcement of this fixture on their Twitter. A lot of their fans are very pro-Israel and seemingly aren’t happy that their club are playing Bohs at all given their pro-Palestine stuff. A strange choice of opposition from Bohs, I’d have thought Union Berlin would’ve been the chosen opposition given the friendly between the two in Berlin and their similar political views to bohs
This would be a case of Bohs showing more interest in football than politics and to have a once giant of German football in Dalymount is great . Not all Shalke fans are pro Israel just as not all Bohs fans are pro Palestine. Don't get me wrong I don't agree with the war in any way, shape or form, I don't support either side. For me it's purely the football side of Bohs I'm interested in.

[Neish]

Quite a lot of backlash from Schalke fans to the announcement of this fixture on their Twitter. A lot of their fans are very pro-Israel and seemingly aren’t happy that their club are playing Bohs at all given their pro-Palestine stuff. A strange choice of opposition from Bohs, I’d have thought Union Berlin would’ve been the chosen opposition given the friendly between the two in Berlin and their similar political views to bohs

There was a group of 5 or 6 Schalke fans at a Harps home game back in May or June, was chatting to a few of them briefly seem a decent bunch didn't get into politics they couldn't seem to get their head round the fact there was no beer on sale on the ground asked by 3 of them on separate occasions (I do the scanning at one of the gate in Finn Park) one of them thought I was joking when I said no beer

[cl�irseach]

Haha, I think I know exactly who they were!

It'll be a good day out in Dalymount.