Connacht V United

[Napoleon]

My dad, brother and myself all work for connacht and are season ticket holders at united. it sucks that they clash and my dad talked to them about it. they are reviewing the situation so hopefully they will change to sat. it doesnt make any difference to play on sat cause the dogs are on and it would make it easier for people from mayo, sligo etc. to go to the match. i saw that united had a piece in the programme about it, i will leave it on the marketing managers desk just to cop her on.

[exiled_gufc_fan]

My dad, brother and myself all work for connacht and are season ticket holders at united. it sucks that they clash and my dad talked to them about it. they are reviewing the situation so hopefully they will change to sat. it doesnt make any difference to play on sat cause the dogs are on and it would make it easier for people from mayo, sligo etc. to go to the match. i saw that united had a piece in the programme about it, i will leave it on the marketing managers desk just to cop her on.

While the two teams are not ground sharing, they are certainly crowd sharing to a significant degree. Connacht's attendance was down last night, and it makes no sense to have the two teams competing on the same night.

However, they don't necessarily need to switch from Fridays. After all when you consider how it can be arranged for some of the teams that do ground share, then it surely could be arranged that home games don't clash.

So, as the seasons overlap at both ends, Connacht look out for United's last six or seven games and ask for no clashes. Then United do the same for Connacht's last few games when the FAI publish their new season fixtures.

[Patrick Dunne]

Galway United have played our home games on Friday nights for the past
number of years. We are certainly not going to change to accomodate another organisation who have moved in to our traditional time slot.

Connacht rugby are an artifical Dublin City-like entity. They are propped up by the IRFU who send E40,000 per week down from Dublin. Without this, they would collapse.

GUFC is mainly ran by volunteers who put in their own time to make sure the club survives. We are a community club. This is the total antithesis of Connacht, where everyone gets paid to do even the most basic of tasks.

[Latcheko]

You're dead right Patrick.

I've held a United season ticket for 8 years now and a Connacht Rugby one for the last two. And I know plenty of others who support both teams.
This clashing of games is potentially a long term problem. Both teams are losing fans due to the short-sightedness of the Connacht Rugby board.
Connacht should feck off back to Saturdays.

[Terry]

Your very welcome Latcheko to foot.ie. I too am a season ticket holder of GUFC but for only 7 years and I used to frequent a connaught rugby match, but never became a season ticket holder with them. NOW, I will never be seeing another rugby match again, stupid.

[GuisaSaigon]

Connacht should feck off back to Saturdays.

Couldn't agree more, I've only ever attended 1 connacht rugby game, but i have no intention of ever going to a game again after their attempt to muscle in on our Friday night spot.

[Latcheko]

Thanks Terry and hello everyone.
Wasn't John Fallon Connacht's manager for a couple of seasons?
He should go up to The Sportsground and hit someone across the back of the head!:p

[GUISAUltra]

if we keep on playing like we are then i think that they inevitably wont have a choice but to change back to saturdays.if we keep playing the way we are the crowds are gonna get bigger and bigger because as we know galway people love following teams who are doing well. the better we do the more players we'll attract which could inevitably destroy they're friday night games

[Terry]

where will we fit them all?:D Great complaint!

[GalwayFrancis]

we have nothing to fear from the rugby bunch, there was over twice as many in terryland on friday compaired to the sportsground - only Att: 1,687 watched the rugby! theyll soon change to saturdays me thinks

[GUISAUltra]

we've only 2-3 home games left this year so if wecan fill it up for them we should hopefully have our new stand for next season which will help us fit a hell of a lot more people

[Paddyfield]

I've never ever been to a Connacht Rugby match in my life. Damned if I'm going to start now.

[Conor H]

I've never ever been to a Connacht Rugby match in my life. Damned if I'm going to start now.

Ditto.
The egg chasers can get lost trying to force an unnecessary competition on a Friday night for crowds.Well we're winning at the moment!;)

[GUISAUltra]

same as now, i've only ever been in the sportsground for the greyhounds and thats the way its gonna stay

[A Phoenix]

I was never a regular at Connacht matches, but i did go to some. I usually work on Saturday and used to finish early in order to go to their matches. I’ll never go again. I’m sorry I supported their efforts to remain in business some years ago when they were almost shut down.

I don’t know what kind of league they play in, where they have 7 home games in a row. I’m sure they could have tried to change a few of the ones that clash with ours and play them during the soccer close season. They didn’t even consider it. I think they think they’re superior to us. At this stage I almost hate them, and kinda like to see them loosing every week. Long may it continue

[Mr A]

Has anyone from GU actually talked to anyone at Connacht Rugby to get their views on this? I think it would be better to seek accomodation with them rather than dismissing them. There may not be many that would attend both, but every body through the stiles counts.

Must admit I was at the Sportsground on Friday night and had a great time. But then I am an Ulsterman! If it hadn't been Ulster that were in town I'd almost certainly have gone to Terryland- it was daft to have them on concurrently.

Incidentally Eddie the Eagle is absolutley brilliant and every team in every code should have one!

[GalwayFrancis]

Has anyone from GU actually talked to anyone at Connacht Rugby to get their views on this? I think it would be better to seek accomodation with them rather than dismissing them. There may not be many that would attend both, but every body through the stiles counts.

Must admit I was at the Sportsground on Friday night and had a great time. But then I am an Ulsterman! If it hadn't been Ulster that were in town I'd almost certainly have gone to Terryland- it was daft to have them on concurrently.

Incidentally Eddie the Eagle is absolutley brilliant and every team in every code should have one!

I dont think anyone contacted them yet, but they should have - Ive never been to a connacht game but id still look out for there scores on aertel and would like to see them doing well, but they should play on saturdays, on days we are playing at home, as friday is gufc night! And how about united getting a mascot like eddie, would really get the crowd going, what happened to the tiger we used to have?

[corbyeire]

no point in saying you hate connaught etc. think dialogue and accomodation the way forward - it is only for 3 home matches - if it hits them in the pocket they are more likely to change anyway

would say id go to a connaught game if i was looking for something to do - but wouldnt go out of my way which is what i do for united!

[Tir Oilean]

what happened to the tiger we used to have?

He became a journalist for a local newspaper and still goes to all the games!

[Mr A]

He became a journalist for a local newspaper and still goes to all the games!

It's so often the way.

[sadloserkid]

Incidentally Eddie the Eagle is absolutley brilliant and every team in every code should have one!

All jokes aside that was actually me last year. :o

[gloryglorygufc]

I've been a regular at the rugby for the past few years, complementing my 25 years in Terryland!
In my view the decision by the rugby crowd to play Friday's was short-sighted and will lose them a huge amount of sporting respect and future support.
I thought the piece in Friday's programme referring to GUFC's support of Connacht rugby when they were going down the drain a few years back was spot on.

It's funny that not only are the blazers p**sing off those who want to support all galway teams who are from town, but they are effectively telling supporters from outside the city (there are rugby fans in Ballinasloe, Clifden, Mayo, Sligo as well) "sorry guys but this suits us so we can get to the committee room for a few snifters and be home for the Late Late & our bedtime". This probably isn't the place for this rant, but it just goes to prove the point that the blazers haven't a notion of listening to us, when they are neglecting their own club support base.

Anyway, as far as this season goes, by my rough calculations, there is only one more clash, the Dundalk game. So not much to be done at this stage.
Expect another full house in two weeks for the championship game!

Come on UNITED

[MyTown]

I think the rugby guys were just mean spirited to go for the Friday evening slot.

Their results have hardly vindicated their decision. Not to get too nerdy about it, rugby and soccer were always divided by social class. Rugby heads were always the sheepskin coats / hip flask types & even when it was a so-called 'amateur' game in Ireland, the rugby network always got the 'cool' jobs and had a much better newtwork for getting themselves fixed up.

That said, I don't see the point in making enemies of them over the remainder of the season, especially when at long last we have something to be genuinely cheerful about.

The reality is that sports supporters in Galway like to go a la carte & as Munster have proved in successive European Rugby cups, people like to be assocaited with success.

There are at least as many in Junior football in Galway as there are rugby types who are less than positive about Galway United - eventhough a lot of them did appear out of the woodwork on Friday night