Terrace Pest article Rovers Programme V Shels

This was published in the Hoops Scene Vol. 14 for their match V Shelbourne recently. I will retype it in full and then attack some of the points I disagree with. It must be said I don't disagree with all of it just some sections of it. Here goes:

The Terrace Pest Writes
When a Politician or senior civil servant releases a suggestion into the public domain in order to see the reaction, it is often said that he/she is 'flying a kite'. Such kites are generally 'flown' when the government attempts to solve a tricky problem in a manner which some may see as controversial.

There have been a few kites flown in relation to our troubled League recently.
One suggestion which crops up from time to time is that the big four Dublin clubs- Rovers, Shels, Bohs and Pat's should merge into two clubs, one based on the northside of the city and one based on the southside.

The thinking behind this is that two newly marketed clubs would be able to attract wider support than the four existing clubs have done over recent years. There can be no denying that crowds at soccer fixtures have been plummeting in the capital recently, with none of the four big clubs attracting regular attendances of over 2,000. However, merging the clubs would not improve the situation and would spell the end for Dublin soccer.

Rovers, Shels, Bohs and Pat's are four clubs with a strong tradition behind them and despite what the sceptics say, this is a hugely important factor. It is, of course true that every club has to start somewhere,but take one look at Dublin City F.C. and it should be obvious that renaming failed institutions is not the answer to small attendances.

Indeed, far from offering a fresh alternative to the Dublin public, it could be argued that Dublin City has merely compounded the problems facing senior soccer in the city. If the four 'big' Dublin clubs are struggling, why was a new club based in the city allowed to further dilute the market. It is the opinion of many that neither Dublin City of UCD should ever have been allowed into the League of Ireland. Neither club attracts any significant support base and their presence in the League only gives weight to the impression that the Eircom League is a glorified Dublin League. When you consider that Bray and Drogheda are not exactly a million miles from Dublin, surely Dublin City and UCD's space in the League would be better taken up by rural clubs.

If four big clubs were to merge along geographical lines, it would make sense for Rovers and Pat's to form a southside club, with Bohs and Shels forming a North Dublin F.C. Shels are of course traditionally a southside club but they have been playing North of the Liffey for some time now and this appears where they wish to be based.

Far from re-invigorating the league, this move would simply kill off all interest in the game. The exisiting supporters of the four clubs would not switch allegiances and the greater Dublin public would not be interested in such a contrived move. The result would be that no one would attend games.

Dublin is a city of 1.5 million , which is more than enough to sustain four big clubs. All it would take is for just over 2% of the Dublin public to take an
interest in live football and Rovers, Pat's, Shels and Bohs would have 40,000 supporters to fight over. That less than one per cent of the Dublin public attends live football makes a mockery of any claim that Dubliners are 'obsessed' with football. That is the problem in a nutshell.
Of course there are serious problems with how football is administered and presented in Ireland- this column has made the point several times that Irish football is its own worst enemy- but it is not possible to bring the sport in Ireland forward until the Irish people show a willingness to support it. Even if we did have only two clubs in Dublin, with less than one per cent attending games that would still result in crowds of 7,000 each, not exactly a huge figure.

What Dublin needs isn't less football clubs, it's more football fans.

I think thats a fair opinion piece.

I thought that was a very good piece but i was too lazy to type it all out... :o
There were other deadly articals in that program, well worth the money...

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

There have been a few kites flown in relation to our troubled League recently.
One suggestion which crops up from time to time is that the big four Dublin clubs- Rovers, Shels, Bohs and Pat's should merge into two clubs, one based on the northside of the city and one based on the southside.

The thinking behind this is that two newly marketed clubs would be able to attract wider support than the four existing clubs have done over recent years. There can be no denying that crowds at soccer fixtures have been plummeting in the capital recently, with none of the four big clubs attracting regular attendances of over 2,000. However, merging the clubs would not improve the situation and would spell the end for Dublin soccer.

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I agree that mergers would not work, so far so good.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

Rovers, Shels, Bohs and Pat's are four clubs with a strong tradition behind them and despite what the sceptics say, this is a hugely important factor. It is, of course true that every club has to start somewhere,but take one look at Dublin City F.C. and it should be obvious that renaming failed institutions is not the answer to small attendances.

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Yes the so called big four do have traditions and histories etc.
As Rovers fan and journo George Byrne once said " You can change your wife, you can change your mother, but you can never change your team!"
The second part of the paragraph continues the Dublin City F.C. as continuity Home Farm concept which I can see some logic in .

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

Indeed, far from offering a fresh alternative to the Dublin public, it could be argued that Dublin City has merely compounded the problems facing senior soccer in the city. If the four 'big' Dublin clubs are struggling, why was a new club based in the city allowed to further dilute the market.

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Dublin City effectively replaced Home Farm who in 1972 effectively replaced Drumcondra who had been in the league since the late 1920's. This slot was always in the League. In fact in the first season of the League all 8 teams were Dublin clubs. You could argue that there are less Dublin Clubs nowadays with a larger population base than there were 80 years ago.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

It is the opinion of many that neither Dublin City of UCD should ever have been allowed into the League of Ireland. Neither club attracts any significant support base and their presence in the League only gives weight to the impression that the Eircom League is a glorified Dublin League. When you consider that Bray and Drogheda are not exactly a million miles from Dublin, surely Dublin City and UCD's space in the League would be better taken up by rural clubs.

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UCD were elected into the League precisely because Cork Celtic , one of your rural clubs, were an administrative shambles and a mere five years after winning the Championship went bankrupt. This came three years after the other big Cork club of the 1960's and early 1970's Cork Hibernians went bust five years exactly after winning the Championship. Just because you have a red neck doesn't mean you know how to run an elite football club.
We are the best run small club in the League. We have never gone bust, never failed to pay our players and never had League points deducted for either player registration C*** ups or financial ones! Not to mention the fact that very few clubs in the EL do not have an ex UCD player on their books now.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

If four big clubs were to merge along geographical lines, it would make sense for Rovers and Pat's to form a southside club, with Bohs and Shels forming a North Dublin F.C. Shels are of course traditionally a southside club but they have been playing North of the Liffey for some time now and this appears where they wish to be based.

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Well if a merger were to have taken place someone should have merged with Dublin City. They have sold 30,000 jerseys in the past 12 months which is 300 times their average home attendance. Ronan Seery is a marketing wizard.
Another sensible merger would have been Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers merging in the 1900's . Ringsend United and they could have played in Irishtown Stadium. Any other mergers would have been ridiculous.
What might make sense would be some longer term ground sharing arrangements but fans do not wish to consider that.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

Far from re-invigorating the league, this move would simply kill off all interest in the game. The exisiting supporters of the four clubs would not switch allegiances and the greater Dublin public would not be interested in such a contrived move. The result would be that no one would attend games.

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Yes well new mergers without a soul don't work. However sometimes they happen out of necessity. In Belgrade for example 2004/05 Serbian Cup winners Zeleznik had to withdraw from the UEFA Cup for financial reasons and ended up merging with a solvent second division Belgrade outfit called Vozdovac. Now Vozdovac( incorporating Zeleznik) play in the Top Division in Zeleznik's stadium as Vozdovac.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

Dublin is a city of 1.5 million , which is more than enough to sustain four big clubs. All it would take is for just over 2% of the Dublin public to take an
interest in live football and Rovers, Pat's, Shels and Bohs would have 40,000 supporters to fight over. That less than one per cent of the Dublin public attends live football makes a mockery of any claim that Dubliners are 'obsessed' with football. That is the problem in a nutshell.

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Irish people and Dubliners in particular are " event junkies". Witness last season when 24,000 packed into Lansdowne Road to watch Shels take on Deportivo. Their next home game attracted fewer than 3,000. Apart from the other EL fans who attended the game in Lansdowne Road which would account for at most half the 24,000 where did the other 12,000 disappear to?
Even in GAA the Dubs can barely fill 10,000 capacity Parnell Park for National League games. Come the Championship and they stuff Croker. Where are the other 70,000 the rest of the year?

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

Of course there are serious problems with how football is administered and presented in Ireland- this column has made the point several times that Irish football is its own worst enemy- but it is not possible to bring the sport in Ireland forward until the Irish people show a willingness to support it. Even if we did have only two clubs in Dublin, with less than one per cent attending games that would still result in crowds of 7,000 each, not exactly a huge figure.

What Dublin needs isn't less football clubs, it's more football fans.

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Well I agree wholeheartedly with the final paragraph of this piece.

You'll have to try that again, CTID! Use [/QUOTE] to end a quote.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

What might make sense would be some longer term ground sharing arrangements but fans do not wish to consider that.

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That's only partially true.

Bohs - from what I've read here and on the Bohs MB, some are dead against Shels (the most logical partners) going anywhere near Dalymount. On the other hand, some can see the benefit of Shels moving in and doing up the Connaught St side of the ground.

Shels - initially, fans seemed hostile to the idea of moving out to Donabate or wherever it was that was mooted. The logical implication being that they wouldn't mind going to Dalymount. The whole Donabate debate seems to have gone quiet recently. Maybe some of the Shels fans can clarify.

Rovers - with the benefit of 18 year's expertise in groundsharing, they'd probably argue that it's the work of the devil (Satan, not Louis). Not surprisingly, the majority would probably want Tallaght for themselves but seeing as the SDCC will own the ground, they may not have much say in the matter.

Pats - opinion re leaving Richmond is divided between "over my dead body" and seeing potential benefits, but in the short term, both the club and the fans are more focussed on the development of Richmond. As I said in the other thread about us groundsharing, the most internse opposition to us sharing Tallaght would most likely come, not from Pats fans, but from all the rest of the clubs in the League.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

We are the best run small club in the League. We have never gone bust, never failed to pay our players and never had League points deducted for either player registration C*** ups or financial ones! Not to mention the fact that very few clubs in the EL do not have an ex UCD player on their books now.

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Maybe the reason you have never gone bust is because you are subsidised by the college?

I agree with the general gist of the piece once you remove the usual UCD/DC add nothing to the league bits. As far as I'm concerned, if they manage to survive in the premier then they deserve their place. The reason that a club like City can survive is because for Dublin area players (who are the largest proportion of players, simply cos Dublin is so big) it's more attractive to remain in Dublin and play with a smaller team than move lock stock and barrel to Derry/ Galway/Limerick etc... I am of the firm belief that a team cannot perform to its potential if most of its players are based a hundred miles away and training with other clubs. One or two in a team is workable (Clive Delaney) but in general it's a bad idea.
IMO the only way forward for getting more teams from outside the Pale is if these teams can develop local talent in a way that EL teams have not been doing up to now, with the notable exception of UCD.

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Originally Posted by Dr.Nightdub

1: Shels - initially, fans seemed hostile to the idea of moving out to Donabate or wherever it was that was mooted. The logical implication being that they wouldn't mind going to Dalymount. The whole Donabate debate seems to have gone quiet recently. Maybe some of the Shels fans can clarify.

2: Rovers - with the benefit of 18 year's expertise in groundsharing, they'd probably argue that it's the work of the devil (Satan, not Louis). Not surprisingly, the majority would probably want Tallaght for themselves but seeing as the SDCC will own the ground, they may not have much say in the matter.

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1: reds independent fans group were campaigning against the move.then irelands number one had a private meeting with the r.i. fans group.and they comletely changed their opinion on the move..not telling any other shels fans why

2: satan never did anything to deserve being mentioned in the same sentence that evil louis ****

dublin city farm is a franchise.anyone who supports such an entity is not a football fan

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Originally Posted by anto eile

dublin city farm is a franchise.anyone who supports such an entity is not a football fan

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I think that's the whole point of the article. Even DC have some background. A merged Northside or Southside team would be a complete contrivance which no football fan would support.

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

Maybe the reason you have never gone bust is because you are subsidised by the college?

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We spend within our start of year budget, not have our shortfalls made up. That's a combination of an annual grant from the college, fundraising (e.g. the UCD Supeprleague) and usual activities (e.g. merchandise sales, ticket sales, player sales, sponsorship, media rights, prize money). We're simply a well run club, end of story. Dublin City and UCD don't step on anyone's turf or divide resources. If you were to go with the argument that all our regular fans are ones stolen which the other clubs could have had and put our combined support at 600 that a mere 150 extra fans for each other club.

How much is the grant from the college?

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Originally Posted by sullanefc

How much is the grant from the college?

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No idea. But it's layed out at the start, not something to make up shortfalling budgets. Unlike the likes of Waterford we can actually budget.

I think the grant is less than 10% of our turnover. Given our turnover is one of the smallest in the Premier, that's not very big. The idea that the grant (subsidy from the college, as you call it) is why we don't go broke is nonsense. Teams with more money don't become more fiscally responsible. The club is well run - and has to meet stringent internal financial criteria as well, I think - no more than that.

The grant from the college is less than 10 per cent of turnover and just to address another one of the usual inaccuarate comments on our club before it's made the scholarship schemem is funded by private donations not by the state or the HEA.

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

This was published in the Hoops Scene Vol. 14 for their match V Shelbourne recently. I will retype it in full and then attack some of the points I disagree with. It must be said I don't disagree with all of it just some sections of it. Here goes:

The Terrace Pest Writes
When a Politician or senior civil servant releases a suggestion into the public domain in order to see the reaction, it is often said that he/she is 'flying a kite'. Such kites are generally 'flown' when the government attempts to solve a tricky problem in a manner which some may see as controversial.

There have been a few kites flown in relation to our troubled League recently.
One suggestion which crops up from time to time is that the big four Dublin clubs- Rovers, Shels, Bohs and Pat's should merge into two clubs, one based on the northside of the city and one based on the southside.

The thinking behind this is that two newly marketed clubs would be able to attract wider support than the four existing clubs have done over recent years. There can be no denying that crowds at soccer fixtures have been plummeting in the capital recently, with none of the four big clubs attracting regular attendances of over 2,000. However, merging the clubs would not improve the situation and would spell the end for Dublin soccer.

Rovers, Shels, Bohs and Pat's are four clubs with a strong tradition behind them and despite what the sceptics say, this is a hugely important factor. It is, of course true that every club has to start somewhere,but take one look at Dublin City F.C. and it should be obvious that renaming failed institutions is not the answer to small attendances.

Indeed, far from offering a fresh alternative to the Dublin public, it could be argued that Dublin City has merely compounded the problems facing senior soccer in the city. If the four 'big' Dublin clubs are struggling, why was a new club based in the city allowed to further dilute the market. It is the opinion of many that neither Dublin City of UCD should ever have been allowed into the League of Ireland. Neither club attracts any significant support base and their presence in the League only gives weight to the impression that the Eircom League is a glorified Dublin League. When you consider that Bray and Drogheda are not exactly a million miles from Dublin, surely Dublin City and UCD's space in the League would be better taken up by rural clubs.

If four big clubs were to merge along geographical lines, it would make sense for Rovers and Pat's to form a southside club, with Bohs and Shels forming a North Dublin F.C. Shels are of course traditionally a southside club but they have been playing North of the Liffey for some time now and this appears where they wish to be based.

Far from re-invigorating the league, this move would simply kill off all interest in the game. The exisiting supporters of the four clubs would not switch allegiances and the greater Dublin public would not be interested in such a contrived move. The result would be that no one would attend games.

Dublin is a city of 1.5 million , which is more than enough to sustain four big clubs. All it would take is for just over 2% of the Dublin public to take an
interest in live football and Rovers, Pat's, Shels and Bohs would have 40,000 supporters to fight over. That less than one per cent of the Dublin public attends live football makes a mockery of any claim that Dubliners are 'obsessed' with football. That is the problem in a nutshell.
Of course there are serious problems with how football is administered and presented in Ireland- this column has made the point several times that Irish football is its own worst enemy- but it is not possible to bring the sport in Ireland forward until the Irish people show a willingness to support it. Even if we did have only two clubs in Dublin, with less than one per cent attending games that would still result in crowds of 7,000 each, not exactly a huge figure.

What Dublin needs isn't less football clubs, it's more football fans.

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Brilliant.

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Originally Posted by anto eile

dublin city farm is a franchise.anyone who supports such an entity is not a football fan

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This thread was going fine until this post, what a dumb thing to write. Is your point that if the club you support didn't start a fews ions ago then they have no right to be a club? I have said it before, it matters not how old the club is just that it is a club that people are willing to get behind, OK. Numbers of fans are small but you have to start somewhere, why is it so hard to understand. The few fans that Dublin City have are not converts from other clubs but new fans who wanted something to get behind and not just roll in behind all the rest of the EL clubs. Why is it so hard to understand?

The problem is as the article says is that we need more fans to support all clubs not just the ones that you think are worthy of support. What gives any fan the right to knock any club just for existing? If you don't like the way the fans behave or the way the club is run or the way the football is played then fair enough but just for existing is not enough of a reason to have such hatred.

Kildare County are new to eL football, yet don't attract the same level of animosity as CHF (quite the opposite, in fact) so your arguement about people disliking Ronan seery's franchise simply on the basis that they are 'new' doesn't hold water I'm afraid.

The bottom line is that CHF bring nothing new or inspiring to the league. They are simply occupying a berth. I do not regard them as a 'football club', and this has nothing to do with history. They represent nothing, nowhere and nobody.

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Originally Posted by manic da hoop

Kildare County are new to eL football, yet don't attract the same level of animosity as CHF (quite the opposite, in fact) so your arguement about people disliking Ronan seery's franchise simply on the basis that they are 'new' doesn't hold water I'm afraid.

The bottom line is that CHF bring nothing new or inspiring to the league. They are simply occupying a berth. I do not regard them as a 'football club', and this has nothing to do with history. They represent nothing, nowhere and nobody.

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OK I give up!

You win, from now on I will support The Rovers. :rolleyes:

SO that's it, your right, I don't think so.