Eircom League discussion on RTE Radio this Saturday
Irish London-based journalist Tony Incenzo will be taking part in a discussion on RTE Radio this Saturday, November 25, at 2.20pm regarding the article below...
NON-LEAGUE PAPER EXCLUSIVE!!
IT'S been three years since the Eircom League of Ireland launched summer football. Fixtures now run from March to November.
The NLP sent our roving reporter Tony Incenzo to the Emerald Isle to find out if the switch has been a success...
The jury is out on summer soccer in Ireland. The standard of football and playing conditions have improved greatly, with Irish clubs now starting to make an impact in European competitions. But attendances in the Eircom League have been disappointing.
I watched 10 games in 10 days at the end of June and spoke to a cross-section of the Irish soccer public in a bid to assess the impact of summer fixtures.
My first port of call was Dundalk - a club who have won the title nine times in the past. Club general manager Peter Halpin is a former youth team player with Crewe Alexandra and Leicester City. He has firm views on the summer schedule.
" We are competing against the GAA ( Gaelic football and hurling) in the summer months," said Halpin. " At Dundalk, we have found that our attendances have decreased dramatically. We have also suffered from the televised World Cup matches this year."
The Gaelic Games are tremendously supported in Ireland. The Dublin v Laois football game at Croke Park recently attracted 67,790 spectators whilst 53,286 witnessed Cork v Tipperary in the Munster hurling final at Thurles.
In comparison, the biggest attendance I encountered in the Eircom League was 1,536 for Derry City v Dublin City. And the lowest was 79 for Kildare v Cobh.
Derry have traditionally been a well-supported club. And they certainly have the noisiest fans in Ireland with a barrage of drums and chanting throughout their 3-0 win.
Derry assistant boss Paul Hegarty is a big fan of summer football and his views echoed most of the managers and coaches I spoke to.
He said:" The standard of football has definitely improved because of the better pitches and training conditions in the summer. I played for Derry for 12 years and I can see a big improvement on the field of play since we switched to a summer schedule.
" We have just been drawn against Gothenburg in the UEFA Cup. In the past, we would have thought ' F**K that!' But now we feel we have a chance of beating them.
Over at Sligo Rovers, the viewpoint is that the summer schedule is not a success due to diminishing attendances.
Commercial manager Richard Sutherland said:" In our part of Ireland, farmers and country people work the land more in the summer as it is bright up until 10 o'clock at night. In the winter, they were more prepared to come and watch Rovers play on a dark evening. So our crowds are well down."
And I obtained a different angle on summer soccer when I went to see the Mayo League play an Eircom Under-21 fixture at Castlebar.
League official Joe Butler said:" We actually launched summer fixtures for the Mayo League back in 1994. The main reason we made the switch was that we have particularly bad weather in the west of Ireland and too many games were being called off in the winter.
" We had to keep extending our season so the move to summer soccer made sense. Now the rest of the country has followed us!"
Despite the mixed reaction, summer football is here to stay in Ireland. And the whole concept has been studied in detail by the League of Wales, who have been considering a similar switch.
There are further developments in the pipeline across the Irish Sea which are also designed to boost the domestic game. The Eircom League will merge with the national FA of Ireland, who will run the league from the 2007 season onwards.
A four tier Eircom League structure will be launched in 2008 with a (newly named) Premiership, First Division, a new 'A' championship ( for reserve and Non-League teams) and an under-20 league.
The Premiership will be reduced from 12 teams to 10 from 2009, with all top flight clubs encouraged to go full-time. There are currently only half a dozen outfits who are fully professional.
And the total prize fund will increase from the existing level of E450,000 to E803,000 with the league champions receiving a handsome purse of E225,000.
FAI chief executive John Delaney said:" Within three years we should have a fundamentally changed and improved senior league. There is a sense of something unique happening and we might just get one shot at this so we have to make it work."
Eircom League chairman Paddy McCaul added:" Change is never easy but the new proposals have brought a feeling of confidence and optimism. The clubs want to aspire to greater success and they have a really good vision of where the game can go in Ireland."
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SLIGO ROVERS manager Sean Connor is adamant that summer soccer is a big success in Ireland.
He feels that the product on offer has been greatly enhanced and the composition of teams has changed with dramatic effect.
Connor said: The standard of football has improved immensely. We have had what feels like a 10 year progression in the space of three years due to the introduction of a summer schedule.
We now have much better pitches and improved training facilities. That has led to a switch in emphasis, with technical skills coming to the fore in matches.
In the past, Ireland used to have teams full of old cloggers just launching the ball from back to front on the muddy winter pitches. Now, we can use much younger players and work on their technical ability.
The average age of my side is only 22 and that bodes well for the future of Sligo Rovers.
Connor also feels that the effects of the summer switch are far-reaching for Irish clubs when they are competing on the international stage.
He said: It is no surprise that the Eircom League teams are doing much better in Europe now. It wont be long before an Irish club reaches the group stages of the Champions League.
Shelbourne almost did it a couple of years ago when they beat both Reykjavik and Hajduk Split before losing narrowly to La Coruna in the final qualifying round.
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SHAMROCK ROVERS boss Pat Scully is well known to English fans after a playing career with Arsenal, Preston, Northampton, Southend United and Huddersfield.
And Rovers are perhaps the most famous club in Ireland, having won the league title 15 times. So Scullys views on the summer switch carry some weight.
He said: Ive been all for summer football and I am glad it came in. The standard of play has definitely improved, as better pitches lead to more quality on display.
But the main advantage - and this is a huge benefit - is the training. We now bring the lads in on bright nights and in good weather, so you can put on a really good session.
The Irish teams are hoping to catch up with the progress of Scandinavian clubs, who have made huge steps forward in European competitions over the past 20 years. And Scully believes that the summer season will greatly assist that aim.
Our sides have always struggled fitness-wise in Europe in the past, he said. Because they were playing the matches in our pre-season period in July.
But now the likes of Shelbourne and Cork City have been getting good results in Europe over the past couple of years because they have been playing the games maybe 15 fixtures into our domestic season. So they have a much better chance of getting positive results as they are at the height of their fitness.
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