If I recall correctly a crowd of 363 was posted as being the attendance at the Waterford United game. An average of around 683 for the season. That is DOWN on our relegation season of 2003 and that proves summer soccer has failed at UCD.
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No it doesn't! It's barely down. Fact of the matter is, we draw our biggest crowds from other Dublin teams and they are all doing badly by their respective standards therefore bringing less fans. Also a game against a Waterford in desperate trouble on a Monday night is going to dent the average too. Our season has descended into a relatively meaningless affair with niether relegation or Europe possible. That's probably going to dent the home support a bit too. I think we'd be getting the same crowds in summer or winter soccer.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie -
Poor StudentOriginally posted by Poor Student
We were bottom the entire 2003 season.. how can you not see that we have a problem?Comment
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Afraid Poor Student's correct...
1) Those 2003 attendances were overstated. Everyone was down by about 20% the next season.
2) The crowds for the country games are up. You know as well as I do that we've had crowds under 200 for some games in the past. Now 363 on a Monday evening in a poorly-publicised game is bad?
3) The crowds for the Dublin derbies are down, primarily because Bohs, Pat's and Rovers in particular (Shels to a lesser extent) are struggling this year.
4) We have two more home games to come - both Dublin derbies
5) The 2003 season saw us play everyone twice at home. That equated to 18 home games, eight of which were Dublin derbies. Now we have 16 home games, six of which are Dublin derbies.
A simple look around our home and local away games shows that support is growing. It's still very small, but it's growing nonetheless.Comment
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Pineapple student
So the 2003 crowds were overstated.
But if that is the case your point 3) makes my case for me.
If Dublin Derbies attendances are lower because the clubs are bringing fewer travelling supporters, our averages have to be down because we play so many of those games at home each season in the Premier.
Our own core support may well be on a slight increase, but the overall attendances given falling away supporters attending could still be down.
Surely average crowds would not be affected as much by the number of games per se as the actual number of punters attending them?Comment
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I reckon this is possible, but then there's not a lot we can do about the away support (outside of not increasing ticket prices 50%). It's the home support we have to concentrate on. If our home support is up, you can't really conclude that summer soccer has failed for UCD.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie
The point is that we've a much lower proportion of Dublin derbies this yaer compared to 2003. There's usually a big difference between our crowds for those games and for the other games.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDieComment
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Given that home teams keep 100% of gate receipts I think we canOriginally posted by pineapple stu
Cause at the end of the day the bottom line figure is reduced!
We have only 2 fewer home games this season over 2003 and have been by and large a bit more successful this season, with our League Cup run and reaching the last eight of the FAI Cup !Originally posted by pineapple stuComment
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You can look at it two ways, I suppose. There's that way, and there's looking to improve the UCD support. A team's average crowd doesn't indicate its support. I'd be happy with our crowds this season - even though they may be down a bit - because there are a fair few more UCD jerseys/scarves in the ground now. I don't really see how you can use this to imply that summer soccer has failed us. If anything has failed us (from a gate receipts point of view), it's the big 4 Dublin clubs all being on a bit of a slide.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie
Cup games aren't included. If we have a smaller percentage of Dublin home games - 38% compared to 44% - then our attendance figure is going to drop.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDieComment
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That's partly because the shop is kept open during the game more often than was the case before.....Originally posted by pineapple stu
Summer soccer has failed all the Dublin clubs in fact it has failed everyone this season bar Cork City and Derry City because all clubs bar those two seem to have experienced a drop in support.Originally posted by pineapple stu
Well without wishing to put a damper on things... no Dublin clubs won the League of Ireland championship between 1967 and 1974 and the crowds plummeted not just in Dublin but in the League as a whole. There were a number of other factors at play here too such as UTV and HTV being widely available showing the Big Match highlights show on Sunday afternoons etc, but the lack of success experienced by Dublin Clubs was also a factor.Originally posted by pineapple stuComment
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C'mon CTID, isn't there an obvious reason for that? Who occupies the top two spots and are the only two teams who can win the title? Cork and Derry! Shels are doing far worse than expected this season and are not the storngest supported club. Bohs are doing awful except for a flourishing period in the middle of the season. Add pack Rovers points and they are doing average in what has been a bleak season for them with the deduction. Pats are doing awful and getting worse as the season goes by. Apart from Shels this is the 2nd successive disappointing season for these clubs.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie
I'd consider us more likely to be drawing crowds if we had a few less points actually. Following being knocked out of both cups our season has petered out into meaningless mid table mediocrety. Also consider how strongly we finished in our last season in the premier. We've had not one sustained period of exciting form in the league this season. I'd venture to say summer soccer has had next to no negative effect on our crowds.Comment
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Drumcondra won the League for the last time in 1965 and it wasnt for another 10 years that another Dublin club won the League, Bohs in '75.
But its true with what you said, the crowds did begin to plummet during this period but only from the mid 70's onwards.Comment
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Well let's face it Derry's crowds had gone down so far the only way was up. Cork are suddenly attracting 200,000 to all their home games...Originally posted by Poor Student
Some of your crowds this season have been worryingly small, especially at a time when the club was on it's knees cashflow wise. It was touch and go whether Blues would survive and there seemed to be apathy among some of the Blaa eating faithful as to whether ye had an EL club or not. Which I have to say as someone who has a grá for the city and the club was disappointing.Comment
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Even though the attendances thread here shows (a) the league average compared to 2004 is up about 3 people and (b) Cork are down 15% on last year? (Granted, due to having official attendances now, but you certainly can't assume that Cork are up this year).Originally posted by CollegeTillIDieComment
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A bit misleading. Our remaining two games are against Dublin clubs. If you assume crowds of 1000 for each of those (around the figure for the corresponding games earlier in the season, probably more than that if anything), you get an average of 722 which is a bit healthier.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDieWe're not arrogant, we're just better.Comment
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CTID you are really gonna have to let this go. Summer soccer has NOT failed all the Dublin clubs. Where is the evidence? As was pointed out elsewhere bar Shels the 3 other Dublin clubs are having awful seasons.Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie
I go to all Rovers games home and away and granted while there has not been a huge increase there has not been a decrease either in attendances.
I would equate anyone who wants to go back to the bad old days as being equal to our old board. Heads in the sand living in a dream world.
Do you really want to go back to going to games in the winter with all that entails? The mind numbing cold, ****ing rain, games called off all over the place.
Do you really want to go back to Irish sides getting hammered in the qualifying stages of European competitions?
We give the league administrators dogs abuse and deservedly so but their decision to move to summer football was the best thing ever to happen the league. We need to move on and keep improving with better facililties, better tv coverage, better marketing and with that the attendances will increase.
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