Countywise

Just a thought... In some of the Gaelic sports (eg hurling and GAA) there is a club competition but also a seperate tournament for county teams. I wonder if this set-up would be succesful in football. For example replacing the League Cup by a County tournament. There's the risk that county Dublin would dominate as they got 6 clubs to select from but it could maybe stir up interest in soccer in the counties without EL team, and once the interest of the audience is growing you're just a step away from forming a club to join the EL... Commercially there'd be probably good interest in a cup for county teams. Final could be at Lansdowne Road, with the exception of county Dublin reaching the final as a neutral venue would be required for the final.

Interesting Idea - Logistical Nightmare

The fundamental problem here is that football is an urban sport, whilst GAA (through it's very strong parish-roots structure) has traditionally been a more rural sport. Therefore - attempting to structure football on a county basis just wouldn't work, in my opinion, as it's the antithesis of how the sport is normally structured.

Also - the key problem our league has is image - not structural. Tinkering around with how the teams are formulated wouldn't stop anyone from supporting Celtic or Man U instead, and wouldn't magically see the hordes beating a path to soccer grounds. It would merely be the proverbial case of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Finally - there's no tradition of County-level teams, so I can't see people getting that excited about them anyway. Would Dundalk and Drogheda fans really unite behind 'County Louth FC' for example...? I don't believe they would.

We've bigger problems in the EL to be worrying about as well to be honest, rather than diverting resources and energy towards an idea that I think just wouldn't work. Apologies if this sounds very negative.

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Also - the key problem our league has is image - not structural.

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Very true, but where is the enthusiasim from the powers that be, what marketing does the EL get ( apart form clubs themselves ), when the governing body do not even bother to update their website yet advertise it as the place to get the latest info on your local Eircom club, you wonder

An inter-county competition was instituted in 1953/54. Tthe only source I could locate on this tournament asserts that the cup was scrapped after a single season; I'm convinced it was contested twice more.

Galway defeated Westmeath in the inaugural final. Other confirmed participants were Offaly, Dublin and Waterford (all of whom were eliminated by Westmeath.)

Lads .... what is need to improve the image of the game here and get people to game etc. is an hour long magazine programme and an hour long highlights programme. And i honestly believe neither will happen (with any great effect) unless the clubs and fans pressure and lobby for change ..... there is no way on this earth it will happen any other way .... FACT !!

I agree ... tinkering with the league cup etc. is not going to help in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Gerrit

Just a thought... In some of the Gaelic sports (eg hurling and GAA) there is a club competition but also a seperate tournament for county teams. I wonder if this set-up would be succesful in football. For example replacing the League Cup by a County tournament. There's the risk that county Dublin would dominate as they got 6 clubs to select from but it could maybe stir up interest in soccer in the counties without EL team, and once the interest of the audience is growing you're just a step away from forming a club to join the EL... Commercially there'd be probably good interest in a cup for county teams. Final could be at Lansdowne Road, with the exception of county Dublin reaching the final as a neutral venue would be required for the final.

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:D :D :D

How would you select a County Dublin team? If you tried, it would almost certainly infringe players contracts with separate clubs, and so couldn't work. Even if you found your way around that, where would all the Dublin players come from? Shels and Bohs obviously, instead of UCD or Home Farm. Thankfully, it can't and won't happen.

This is a joke thread, Gerrit. :eek: :D

'Would Dundalk and Drogheda fans really unite behind 'County Louth FC' for example...?'

I would 100% not follow it if they did and wouldn't even bother to pay in out of curiosity to see what the buzz is (even though i go to other matches as a neutral)

Whatever the perception of football being an urban sport. Would you lot get Tuesday's star or look at RTE 2 and check Aertel from page 540 and see the massive number of clubs and teams that represent every townland, village, street, factory all over the country. It's huge and growing so fast that local leagues/clubs are struggling to get administrators, referees, coaches etc to cope with the growing demand.
There are about 2000 Primary Schools involved in football in some way or other and around 540 second level schools - many if not most from non "traditional" football areas. Some of the co-ed schools would have loads of teams, boys and girls at various age levels.
The standards in Dublin, Limerick, Cork etc are higher but the real growth of the game has been in the Ireland outside the major urban centres.

Now, the problem is how to convert all that enthusiasm and participation in junior and under age levels into support for a new, say, county club.

Jum Rhatigan of Kilkenny City told me that club gets only a tiny amount of support from the players who play in the Kilkenny and District League, whether they have one or two local players or not.

In my Athlone days, even when there were six or seven locals on the first team, there was no massive increase in attendances, except when we were on a winning run.

Sometimes I can't make fans out though. We used to have DDSL games for Athlone Town's u17 under lights and got bigger crowds than some of our LOI matches. That team was pretty succesful (Ray Kelly and co were on it) so maybe it was the fact that they were locals winning was the reason the support was good.

You can't compare with the club GAA All Irelands either. The crowds only start growing when the club wins the county championship and you have the knock out stages in the provincial and Irish Finals. These are, if you like, occasions with an O. These clubs get fcuk all for their bread and butter local leagues. A good example is Caltra, down the road from me, who won the All Ireland club last year. They get a man and a dog for games now. Sad but true.

You can't compare, sometimes one off or knock out with the grind of, say, twenty home and twenty away games in a league structure - unless you're winning.

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Would Dundalk and Drogheda fans really unite behind 'County Louth FC' for example...?

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Not a chance.

Something interesting I have always noted around Dundalk is that a football fan will always say they are from Dundalk and a GAA fan will usually say they are from County Louth even if they both live in the exact same location in the town...Anyone notice this elsewhere in the country?

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Originally Posted by holidaysong

Not a chance.

Something interesting I have always noted around Dundalk is that a football fan will always say they are from Dundalk and a GAA fan will usually say they are from County Louth even if they both live in the exact same location in the town...Anyone notice this elsewhere in the country?

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maybe the gaa fans in craptown have just a little bit more self pride than to admit they are from craptown ;) ;)

Well, you could see it this way... Drogheda and Dundalk are rivals, so are Cork and Shels, so are Bohs and Rovers, so are Galway and Sligo... But when Ireland plays they all unite to support the national team. The same as country pride, you have a more local identity as well. If a Drogheda and Dundalk fan can both support Ireland when playing another country, why wouldn't they be able to both support County Louth when playing another county ?

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Originally Posted by Gerrit

Well, you could see it this way... Drogheda and Dundalk are rivals, so are Cork and Shels, so are Bohs and Rovers, so are Galway and Sligo... But when Ireland plays they all unite to support the national team. The same as country pride, you have a more local identity as well. If a Drogheda and Dundalk fan can both support Ireland when playing another country, why wouldn't they be able to both support County Louth when playing another county ?

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doesn't compare at all.

with apologies to ardee and dunleer, and any village in the county, a louth fc is basically drogs and craptown uniting. outside the two towns, it is mainly gaa country anyway, so any support would have to come from two direct rivals, wheras with ireland we are supporting along with an awful lot of other club's supporters (plus loads of people who dont support eL), none of which is a specific rivalry like it is with craptown

It would work in Dublin where the players come from a larger number of clubs. But not in Louth where the desire to have a county team would be cancelled out by the rivalry between the two clubs.

It could give football a boost in counties that for the moment don't have an EL team. If Cavan would play Dublin (with 'famous' players from the Dublin EL clubs) lot of Cavan citizens may be attracted to football because some more or less famous players would visit a local team, whereas now the Cavan clubs only play other amateur teams with no known faces at all.

Same example for other non-EL counties such as Wexford, Kerry, ...

Maybe an all-Ireland county competition could also work, though not sure if Linfield and Glens fans would suddenly unite behind a county team.

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Originally Posted by Gerrit

Maybe an all-Ireland county competition could also work, though not sure if Linfield and Glens fans would suddenly unite behind a county team.

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In fairness I have met northerners that didn't even know what county they lived in when i asked them. They don't use counties for administration like we do and don't have a sense of county pride (although even I don't have one of those).

Isn't Belfast in county Antrim ? I was wrong at first and thought it was Down, but I seem to recognise the Antrim shield on several spots in Belfast. It would make sense to make Belfast a seperate county like Dublin.

Yes it is in Antrim however the Down border is close. As for making it a county what would Sinn Féin do with all their "32 Counties!" T-shirts?

There is no need to make it a county because a lot of northerners just don't know or care what county they live in.

I think a county tournament for football just would not work.

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Originally Posted by holidaysong

In fairness I have met northerners that didn't even know what county they lived in when i asked them. They don't use counties for administration like we do and don't have a sense of county pride (although even I don't have one of those).

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I don't know who you've spoken to, but I lived in the north for 15 years and that wouldn't have been true for anyone that I knew. Most private and comercial letters still include the County on the address - I remember BT seemed to insist on putting 'COUNTY LONDONDERRY' in capital letters on the front of every phone bill!

Before Derry City left (were forced to leave) the IL, themselves and Coleraine would have been known as 'county rivals'. There is also the County Antrim Shield, which I think is still ongoing.
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As for Gerrit's idea, I don't think it would work. I do, however, think that any new clubs added to the eL should represent the whole county they come from (Co. Kerry, Co. Mayo, etc..) in the same way that Kildare County did. (This was discussed in another thread).

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Originally Posted by holidaysong

There is no need to make it a county because a lot of northerners just don't know or care what county they live in.

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Nonesense. At the very least Nationalists are catholics aware of what county they're from - we have the GAA up north as well you know....

The rest of the population don't live on the moon either, and with the odd idiot exception would know what county they're from. Even in England - where there is no sense of county pride outside of Yorkshire and possibly Lancashire and Northumberland, and where counties get changed every so often for administrative purposes - people still know what county their home town is in.

Ridiculous statement...