Fans Forum - Transcript of Meeting

ok as you'll all remember there was alot of stuff said.. here's the selected (by me :) ) highlights

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Brian lennox: Hi I’d like to thank you all for coming, my name is Brian lennox of cork city football club. From my left we have eoin brannigan, the sports editor of the daily star newspaper, pat kelly referees assessor, darren bernstein from the fai and liam murphy manager of cork city. Just to start off I’d like to ask darren to say a few words.

Darren Bernstein: Hi it’s a pleasure to be here in cork tonight. Thank you for turning up to the 5th fans forum. Thank you to Eoin and The Star for sponsoring this, it would not be possible without them sponsoring, thank you to cork city for hosting the fans forum and thank you also to pat kelly and alan kelly. Its particularly brave thing for them to turn up on a Thursday night. I think they get enough stick on Friday nights.

Who am I you may ask? I am darren bernstein, the marketing executive for the eircom league. I’ve been in ireland now for 9 months. Yes I am from england but maybe the good thing is I’m not from dublin *cheers* so its not all bad.

Why am I doing this? Well then 9 months into the job I’ve realised the eircom league and the fai havent been as evident or representative as they should have been. I knew pretty quickly they have never met the fans. thats not right. In september I did 1 of these in derry and that’s what came out. Fans want and opportunity to speak to people in the eircom league so I thought why not. I’ve sat where you have sat here in pubs. As a background this is the first club I’ve seen that has support bigger then the club I support, bury. We don’t have many fans, we don’t have very good players either. * laughs*

The reason this is important is because I’ve sat at these things , where you have sat and asked questions of people running my club. I never had the chance to ask people running the leagues. The answers from clubs were never satisfactory and that was the end of it. I decided if I was ever on the other side of the table, I would be truthful. We are at an age where the league is more truthful, honourable and accountable to fans. This is why I’m here and doing this. I presume that when people ask you why you support cork city, people look at you like you are from the moon and say, why not support liverpool or man utd, they ask me that too why support bury and I’ve not really got a decet answer for them. I support who I support. Hopefully when you go away tonightyou will have a belief that you support cork city because you are from cork, you are proud of what the leagueis trying to do to develop the eircom league. Its your league not mine. The reason you have paper and pens is to write down any ideas you have. You may have questions you not wish to ask here so write them down and an email address and I will get back to you with an answer. I will take them away and I will act on them.

So what are we going to talk about tonight.
· Summer football
· The 10 team league
· Tv3
· We’ve got pat and alan you may wana talk about all the bad refereeing decisions
· Uefa licensing is coming in, you may wish to ask what it is and how it will affect cork city, how it will affect the league.
· The marketing of the league. That’s what I do. You may ask what I do. Theres not much marketing going on.
· We’ve got eoin branigan from the star, you may wana ask about newspaper coverage.

So I’ll pass it over to you, I welcome questions and give the most honest answer I can. Brian lennox will chair the meeting. Again if you’re gona ask questions that will help move the eircom league forward please ask it.

Brian lennox; ok can we keep the questions to what eoin and darren have talked about. Has anyone got a question?

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Scotty: I have 2 questions. 1 are you willing to break the bank to keep john o’flynn here if a big team in 1st or 2nd division comes in for him. Sorry I have to know this, everyone here wants to know this also.

Liam murphy: John has a 2 yearcontract not a 2 season one. Currently we are only midway through the season. We spokoe recently and he was very happy with things. He loves the players, in fact we brought him on abit. The thing that drives john is he has ambitions to go back to england, but he will not go to a second division club. He will only go to a division 1 or premiership club, but like to be quiet honest with you I’d love to have him here as I said ambition drives him, I mean you can see how hard he works.

Scotty; my second question is this. There are many rumours, but I’ve heard for a fact from 2 people that its personal problems with cork city right. What I believe is that there are problems with people here with certain player. You’re a buiness man and you know you never involve personal problems with business. Why is this happening? I know for a fact that 2 players had personal problems with the club and left . is there a reason behind this, can i ask. Its 2 rumours, if you want me to name them I will.

Brian lennox; I havent heard any rumours.

Liam murphy; you’ll always have players with personal problems.

Scotty; mark herrick is one. Anthony Buckley is the other. I know for a fact. 2 others I know with damien richardson. Can I ask? Well alan reynolds I know I’ve heard is rumoured to be having problems. Is there a reason behind this?

Liam murphy; alan reynolds is having problems

Scotty; well it rumoured. What about mark herrick and bucks?

Liam murphy; marl left the club. I wanted him out of the club. I went to him as a friend of mine and I said to him straightup since that accident I don’t think you’ve been performing

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A face in the crowd; darren since you’ve come in, you’re 9 months Into the league already, and whatever structures was in place previous to arriving .. aaaam how do you think it was . I mean we all know it wasn’t the best but aaaam do you think with the change of summer soccer and the 10 team league do you think its come on alot what kind of progress do you think its making basically since you’ve come in like?

Darren Bernstein; I think summer soccer is going to make a huge difference, the traditionalists that’s for sure, pause traditionally when you start the season in august and finish it in may you start in nice weather and end it in nice weather, so in between you sort of forget the weather in terrible whereas now you are going to start and end in terrible weather, the reason why I am saying that is… drunk guy interupts ‘city theres only 1 city’… you can see straight away half way through october the weather changed the crowds have gone down and the quality of football has gone down I think since the weathers turned bad …that’s on the summer soccer side ..
in terms of when I started; what kind of progress we are making generally, I was just talking to eoin before, we were making a lot of progress b4, the first 3 months we were doing really well. U know with Roy dooney and all the problems there were I think he was starting to turn the ship, then the politics take over. I don’t think its set us back 6 months but maybe another year because now we have a new guy come in tommy allen and its going to take him time to get his feet under the table, so that wwhere roy himself will admit he made mistakes at least then he was in a position to learn from his mistakes but we are sortof back at square 1 again but that doesn’t mean to say we havent progressed we’re starting at a higher level now then 9 months ago. I duno does that answer your question.

Question:In relation, just to keep in on track with what you are talking about there darren, the genisis report what impact is that going to have on your position and will there be real acountability at the top, and i mean at the very top/ I’m talking about micheal hyland, the president of the league. The chairman of the league.. is he going to be answerable because I mean after the shambles we had last season, we nearly got into it again this season……. After the meeting that gave longford got their 9 points back and then walked out the door and didn’t answer any questions from any journalists.. sure whats the fans want is professionalism and accountability at the top?

Darren Bernstein: that’s what I want aswell. Aaaam what the genisis report really was about the world cup but I think what we need to take is the direction and the real theme of that report which for the fai says their was a lack of mamagement a lack of structures etc etc I think for the league, the league needs to maybe have genisis 2 or something like that , that really says well as the fai as a governing body are changing you have to keep our fingers crossed and hope that the people who have power to change will this time embrace that change the league needs to say well if the wind of change is going to happen we get in the middle of that and like you say be more pro-active, more professional , more accountable, hopefully this is a small start to becoming more accountable because if you don’t see people and talk to people you cant be accountable so I would agree with you. I hope the genisis report changes the leagues outlook and therole it needs to play in football in ireland


A face in the crowd; do you think the clubs are doing like to progress the league you know in light of the current situation with the genisis and you know the different advances that are being made you know to bring on the league. Do you think the clubs, the premier division and the first division are doing enough?

Darren Bernstein; no

A face; not at all?

DB; no.I think clubs in general for far to long have come to the eircom league or national league or league of ireland whichever you would like to call it, they’ve come with a begging bowl, they’ve come saying what are you going to do for us and yesterday I had a marketing seminar and I learnt from it as well because I wasn’t doing any of the talking it was all people from outside. The 1 thing I took from .. it was a mantra I will hold with me now as long as I am in this job it was ’ be part of the solution, not part of the problem’ we know we have a problem, we know it, theres no point in denying it but if everyone says oh no we cant do anything about it we’re not going to do anything we know what the problem is that’s the start, now lets go find the solution. I can hopefully offer what the solutions are but I don’t run 1 individual club the clubs must take those solutions and implement them.

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Stephen; on the licensing situation I’ve had a brief look at a couple of points in the licensing they were talking about the 10 team premier division as it is. Having taken a glance through the licensing requirements we could end up with a 4 team premier division if they were all to be implemented as they are written down. do you think this licensing thing is implementable in the current form its there. Or does it have to be implemented in that the clubs have no choice, because the history of clubs in the league of ireland, I certainly couldn’t see many of them ending up in a couple of years time with a postitive assets situation and stuff like that based on history. Whats your feeling on that?

DB: You always have a choice. The clubs have a choice, they have a choice whether they want to strive to be a well run professional club or whether they just want to survive, and you know if they are happy to survive, Well then. I know from brian cork city arent just happy to survive cork want to play in europe, and if you want to play I n europe you have to get the uefa licensing it’s as simple as that.now I know they may be some clubs in the league willin to sit at the table but they are not doing he fans a service they are not doiung the league a service becayuse you know its holding back clubs like cork city because cork are investing and you know if other te4ams arent investing and they don’t want to accelerate like cork city then it means then some of cork city’s investiment is being lost. The uefa licensing isnt trying to kick clubs out of the league. its trying to improve the standard and wuality of it andi odnt thine there is anythign wrong with that its not just us who are doing this its other clubs and leagues across europe we’re in a very good position in relation to say wales or northern ireland I think in terms of having positive equity that’s not actually true. As long as you are not actually in debt to other football clubs. If you don’t ower any money for transfers or to people then you are fine. So you know as long as cork have paid all their players and have paid all their transfers then you know they could be a million euro’s in debt, it doesn’t really matter

Brian Lennox; the price of chips are going up.

-Laughs-

DB: its nothing to be worried about. If the club wants to attain this they will. The benefits are that they will play in europe you have a standard that every club in europe will have. Man united have to reach the same standard as cork city, all that differs is the quantities, because they’ve got a bigger stadium, once you’ve passed this minimum standard you know theres not one rule for one and one rule for the other.

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Scotty; can I change the point for 2 minutes. You never answered the question I asked. Would you break the bank for john o flynn to stay.

Bl;; I’ll do the very best I can.

Scotty, cheers. Thanks.

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Stephen; right darren you are 9 months into the job. 1 thing that appears to me as a league of ireland supporter for more years now then I care to remember, 40 even this year, is one of the major problems in the league, I don’t know how you find it but there definitely seems to be a lack of co-operation between the clubs themselves to promote the league. In that everyone is looking after their own patc, and I’m all right and I don’t care about anyone else. Have you found that or would that be a reasonable point?

Db; every minute of every day of my life.

[Stephen; can it be changed?

DB: Can it be changed? Yes. Yesterday was very positive. We had a guy come across working with 6 clubs in england macclesfield stoke port vale ,crewe, its called a football co-operative local clubs who were rivals. To market themselves to bigger companies you had this situation where inb the past realised there was a financial beneift in coming together. So this guy came across and spoke to our clubs abd by the end of the day people were talking to each other saying this could work here because you know everyones fighting over scraps here but if we all come together there is a bigger pot for us to go for what it does show is to the public that we are not continually fighting against each other, so I mean on your question is there a lack of co-operation .. yeah . whenever I meet someone new and they say I’m glad there is osmeone doing marketing but I don’t fancy your job its not very easy I say to myself well what are you going to do to make it easier because no-one makes it easier, so you know a bit of co-operation would be great.

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GWA: To do with gate receipts, a problem we’ve had with our club, with the finn harps. A few weeks ago we were playing finn harps, they gave gate receipts as 1,500 whereas it was painfully obvious to anyone that was there that it was significantly more then that and I doubt if finn harps are the only club to have done this and I reckon its going-on, on a continual basis. Is there being something done to overcome that problem because It can only be a problem throughout the league![/b]

DB: For the FAI cup, the FAI actually directly control this. So in terms of what I can do . I can do very little. But it is a problem and it goes down to the last question which is Co-operation. The clubs are obviously trying to rip each other off, its gona create bad blood, now the difference between and I don’t want to keep going on about england, there is 92 clubs in england, so you may not play another one for 10 or 15 years whereas here because there are only 22 clubs its likely that every 2 or 3 years you are gona play this other team again, and so the bad blood stays there and baggage continually and over time there is such dis-trust amoungst different clubs that its difficult to change but I suppose tis about co-operation and realising that you know you can create a lot of goodwill but in an instance that can be destroyed if gate reeipts are well stolen I guess is the word. Again its down to people in clubs, hopefully you can get more honest people in clubs.

Bl; just on that point personally cork city over the last few years have doen the gates properly and we just cant understand when we goto away games that there is a fiddle going on and sure everyone says you know turn the blind eye. We’re not doing it anymore. we are not signing any of these attendance records anymore. sO you know as far as our club. We are putting down our foot and saying lets cut it out.
-claps-

scooty; you say you are not signing. What do you mean not signing. Cork city Attendance records or what?

bl sry when you are over at the other game away from home.

Scotty; oh sry yea.

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Question: Where do you see the league in 5 years time?

DB: Good question. I hope it wont be in the format it is in the moment. I hope it will be one division of , maybe 16 or 18 clubs. I don’t think the present format is sustainable, I don’t think the present format is the besat way to market the league. I think. Obviously as a club not form dublin I think that clubs like galway and sligo and hopefuly limerick as well would benefit from having yourselves and derry and the 4 dublin clubs going there every year. At the moment there are not many other country clubs apart from yourselves and derry city that don’t get that opportunity. And I think that if it is to be a truly national league, we need to make it as national as possible. Now the problem for that is that is we may have to lose a few clubs. Maybe this is what will happen through uefa licensing. Maybe ok right you will lose promotion and relegation but what you do gain is you know playing each other 4 times a year so you arent bored seeing that same faces all the time. So as I say I don’t think it will be a division of 10 and another of 12. Id like to hope that within 5 years the percentage of people in grounds will rise. Eg at the moment ye are probably high between 60 and 70 percent full every week which means 5,000 out of an 8,000 capacity. That needs to rise especially in dublin. I don’t think that dublin have got any excuse with 1.5 million of whatever living there. The stadiums are 8 or 9 thousand capacity and they should be filling them, like you do quite regularly, and I’m not just saying that because I am here . we need to raise attendances. By raisingi attendances the sponsors will come back because you know they are interested in big numbers. I would hope that within 5 years we’ll have had a club at the minimum of the 3rd round of the champions league. As more clubs go full time and as summer football kicks in this is certainly more attainable. So they are the 3 main things I would hope to have in 5 years.

Someone; yeah and darren will be chairman of the league as well

Db; what in 5 years or 25 years

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Question: darren a lot fo what you said is aspirational, you hope this, you hope that, number 1 thing you hit on there is with provincial clubs, we become a league of ireland, instead of what it is effeectively now which is a league with cork derry and longford and dublin teams. What can the league management do, what can the fai do to achieve this. What positive bias can they have to help the likes fo sligo athlone, limerick ,waterford are doing well in the first division at the moment they’re flying it. Is the answere just to have 1 league?

A face; even just focusing on the popualtion like, waterford, limerick, galway sligo, longford, and you know. Those towns like have good clubs like but if there was more support like , exactly what can the league do to bring it on like.

Db; I think it goes down to politics as well which is unfortunate. Just on the fact that the premier division is seen to be a dublin league. I think that its unfortunate that when the 10 team premier came in it happened that 6 of the 10, or 7 of the 10 are from the dublin area, maybe next year ot could only be 5 , you cant pick and choose who goes up and who goes down it’s as simple as that this isnt america where you can move franchises around. You know it could be that ucd and bray go down and waterford and finn harps come up in which case it could be quite an attractive 10 team league. So you never do know you know cobh could come up and then you have quite a big local derby, so you never know but in terms of the 16 or 18 team league and one division as I said before there isnt enough cash around, if you spread it between 22 its just too thin, and I also think that there are too many clubs just willing to survive. That are ruining the standard of the league. How do we change it you know which is the crux of the question. Its politics because you know turkeys don’t vote for christmas, and who is going to vote themselves out of a bit of powerat the table, it’s a simple as that. Again cash is king.

A face; but yeah you’re in the marketing department right. To market the league to the soccer viewing population if you will where the popualtion is densest. Sponsorship and that and that is revenue for these particular clubs. Will the management be doing anything to you know, bring that along like?

Db; you mean to get more sponsorship in ..or or to make the league more national ?

A face; aaam basically like, the clubs as you said there, clubs that are clinging on, just willing to survive or whatever, I mean if clubs could be have a good market where, have a good product where to the public aaaand you know will the league be able to assist clubs.

Db; I ithink we need to look at the bigger picture now. Again I don’t think we should talk about individual clubs but lets look at a case study, lets take limerick. Limerick have a huge potential we all know that. Is it my job to do limericks work for them. I know brina has his work cut out with cork city so should he go down to limericjk and say come on you’re destroying the league by not improving yourselves when I said at beginning you know clubs must take responsibility for themselves un fortunately when clubs decide for themselves that they don’t want to move forward but they want to stay in the league they’ve got the political vote and they don’t really have to do anything in terms of marketing themselves if they don’t want to, but it does affect the standard and quality of the league. Now its not an accusation at limerick but you know they are not reaching their potential. It’s a shame but you know what can I do. Well I can offer them as much help on the marketing as I want, like yesterday there was marketing seminar we had 4 very very qualified people talk to use about different sides of marketing if you don’t turn up then what can I do.

Stephen; how many clubs as a matter of interest did turn up at that?

Darren Bernstein: 17 of the 22

James: Did cork city have a representative at that meeting?

Darren Bernstein: No

-boo’s from the crowd-

James: Why not?

-boo’s continue-

Brian Lennox: Basically because it was on at half eight in the morning, and it finished at half past five, and I couldn't bother my arse going all the way up to dublin!

scotty; that just an excuse

BL: its an excuse but I’m trying to run the club

scotty; I would have gone to it for you.

Bl; I told darren that if he has one down here that I’ll go to it. But no I am not going to go up there no. sorry darren

James; did derry city or any of the other proviincial clubs have representatives. Like cobh

Db; cobh never,

James; but derry city came down for it

Db; yeah

-more boos and shaking of heads-

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eoin; I changing the subject now onto tv there, but what can we do to exploit tv cause it’s a crucial sector, and tv3 now have the marketing and there hasn’t been much done before we had network 2 and there werent throwing on much of the games.

Db; tv3 first of all the prgram is on late we all know that. Its on too late, too late for me, and for kids which is important. The way it works is they have to sell advertising space to make it worthwhile. Thwy do that by viewing figures. Until the time comes where they are confident with putting eircom league weekly on instead of eastenders or whcihever other soaps that’s on tv3, then it gets more advertising and revenue then they are not going to change it but what they may do is bring it forward a bit more. So the more emails they get from people saying that they like the program or constructive criticsm saying they could do this .. it does make a differencethey said to me after the first show that they received more emails about the eircom league then they had ever had from a champions league match. So they are actually surprised about how popular the show actually is. In terms of the live coverage the contract is for a minimum of 20 lives games over 4 years. So we’ve had 1 so far now they may choose to do another one this seaason or 8 or 9 next season. I;ve spoken to tv3 a few times they are actually trying to do a lot, and they know they have a lot to do, but in terms of improving the show, the goal of the month competition , they brought that in 2 days after I met with them, they did it. They want to do more magazine style, they want to extend the program, infact I think they have already done so in the last few weeks. So you know they are not leaving us out to dry. I am trying to work on something with them in terms of a tv advertising campaign for the start of the new season, but that’s very much at the starting phase. But I am encouraged by what they say to me. They have contacted me for meetings which is good because its less itring when you are constantly knocking on doors, when someone comes to you and asks for a meeting you know it gives you a bit of encouragment that they are taking an interest. So I think , that even though I wasn’t here throughout the entire previous coverage by rte, I think that tv3 are doing a decent enough job. I also believe that if we are to improve I think we need to set our stall out in great ron atkinson speak and show why we are worth covering. I flick over and on tg4 they are showing some gaelic games and there is hardly anyone there. I’m not talking about croke park, I’m talking about local games, they’re showing that and I’m thinking we’re better then that. We know we are better but we’re trying to do a better job of telling people we’re better then that.

Eoin Brannigan(The Star); I was actually talking to trevor welch about the timing of the show and he assures me that they are looking at repeating the show at an earlier time in the afternoon, or some day during the week so other people can actually watch that cannot seeit late at night, which I think would be an advance.

Pablo; a big feature of tv coverage is that the television companies whether it be rte or tv3 arent willing to show games outside of dublin. If you are trying to spread the games around the country there has to be a change with this.

Db; we spoke about this aswell and derry and cork, its obvious and I think that they are aware of this ad want to do something.
Questioner; I actually have 2 questions do you actually believe that tv3 have the resources to actually go to all of these matches, because like lets face it tv3 is now actually an english owned company it might be easier for them to show jenny jones in the afternoon then show a live football match. They probably don’t have the staff or resources to actually go to these matches. And my second question is why have cork city played so badly recently, who would you see as accountable, the management, the coaching or would you see it as the players. Why are they finishing so badly

Db; have tv3 got the resources. Well they don’t have the resources of sky. But I think that, it could be about co-operation again, they don’t have the resources to go to every single ground. I do think anyway that every club should tape their games. For various reasons, mainly that its good marketing sense, you can sell videos at the end of the season to fans especially as we are going towards summer soccer that by the time the season finishes they can sell them for christmas videos, or the goals from the season. It makes sense comercially anyway to video your own games. There is also other things like if you get a man sent off you can send it in and have an appeal. There are things like that.

Question; are you thinking of bringing other peope onboard to help you out. Cause I was on the trip to balleyboffey for the cup game and you seem to be taking an awful lot on youeself. Shouldn’t other directors be there to give you a hand?

BL: my plan next year is to bring in a manager to actually run what I am doing at the moment. To help me out. This person would be full-time. I am only doing it part-time, which isnt good enough for the club. So I do need somebody full-time and I will be bringing in someone next year to run it full-time.

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Question; can I just ask a question to darren there about facilities. Darren you said there that clubs are coming with a begging bowl mentality. I know you are only in the job 9 months and its grand to have the uefa licensing and I agree with it totally and I’d love to see this club go full-time professional , but if we don’t have a training ground, like I know brian is going to buy 10 acres but I know there is a perfectly good place just up the road in bishopstown. I don’t know what your plans are but I think we’re gona need more help more then marketing. I don’t think that’s gona be enough!

Db; theres a capital grants scheme that the fai have. Last season 6million euro’s was given to eircom league clubs for stadium redevelopment I know athlone town got 1million and have yet to use any of it kilkenny got some money for a new stand, I think st pats got some money, longford got money for training pitches pitches, shamrock rover have gotten 6 milion to buy a lawnmower
-laughs-
but there is more money there for capital grant schemes. Its not just marketing help.in the uefa licensing there is a capital projects for clubs to be done to raise the levels of there grounds for example kildare county were given money to build a new stand. In the uefa licensing it states that there must be access to a training ground now ideally it would be nice to have your own and brian obviously is looking to do that and that’s great but these things take time, they don’t happen over night when I talk about the begging bowl mentality I’ll give you an example, a club came up to me and said we’ve got this idea and we want to get some brochures printed are you going to give me some money to go and print them. Now you know this isnt my job, I need money to get my own brochures printed never mind doing any other clubs. Now that’s what I mean by the begging bowl mentality. When you are talking about usms of 100,000 or so thenyes there is a responsibility to help out or lead, or use the resources at the fai’s disposal, so I would say there is money floating around that can be accessed.

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A face; darren as regards sponsorship do you think the individual clubs and the league are getting enough out of the sponsorship that they have?

Db; again yesterday we had

A face *interupts*:; do u think the sponsors are giving enough.

Db; I don’t think the sponsors are giving enough but I don’t think the clubs and the league are giving enough back either.

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Question. Just a point there that liam made about the training facilities as far as I can remember a few years back the fai said that they would sell bishopstown back to cork city at cost price, the very same price they paid for it. wHats after happening there?

Db; I havent a clue. It was before my time

Question; well could you find out about it?

Db; yea I will

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Db; can I just go back to that previous question about marketing. Yesterday we held a marketing seminar and we came to the conclusion that the clubs don’t do enough for their sponsors and the league don’t do enough for their sponsors in terms of the dragging or the eircom league and the eircom name through the mud last year. If eircom was your company associated with registration problems then you wouldn’t be very happy. They’ve not done the best by us in terms of the funds at the disposal of them are massive, they choose to direct their support in terms of the national team now I don’t particualrly think that’s wise, I can understand it from a commercial point of view but what we’ve not been very good at in the past is fighting our corner and one huge benefit we have is that we are in the newspapers every day of the week for 7.8.9 months whereas the international teams comes around what is it 10 matches a year,. Now they are huge impact matches but we have some great assets ourselves, and hopefully when the new contract comes around next year with eircom or whoever it may be, we’ll be in a position to honour the contract mutually in a much better way.

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James; sorry darren you were talking before about the future of the league. Do you think this country can sustain a full time professional league, and the second part is for brian, do you ever see cork city going full time professional with both players and management.

Bl; well I’ll answer my part first. Yes I do.

James; with a full time manager aswell

Bl yes full time manager

James how far down the road do you see that happening

Bl. I’d say within the next 5 years. It will have to be professional off the field first, because its useless having fulltime professionals doing nothing you know.

James if there are full time professional players shouldn’t there be a fulltime manager to manage them

Bl; that’s what I’m saying we must have the structure in place first

James but we have have full time players now don’t we

Bl; we do, and liam is doing a very good job with them at the moment.

James; but he is part time manager isnt he

Lm; yeah I am a part-time manager. I work 20 hours on a soccer academy. And the players train with me on that. They train twice a day some days. They train in the gym. They are with the lads the part-timers you know.that’s it.

*James gives up on this pointless line of questioning*

db; can I just answer my part of this. I do see a future for a full time professional league. Now that may not be with 22 clubs. It may only be 12,14,16. But I think we need to get to that stage where we have a full-time pro league. I’ll take something that was said two seconds ago maybe we need to be professional off the field before we are full time professional on the field. I’ll give you a great example of what happens when you don’t do that and its drogheda united. All their problems are that they invested all their resources on the pitch and not off it. Theres also another thing, being part-time is just the length of time you do something. You can be professional and be part-time. Professionalism isnt just about being full-time. Professionalism is about a frame of mind, the quality in which you do stuff, do your job. If you are full-time and not professional then you really have got problems. So to answer your question yes we will be going full-time.

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A face; this is to the guy from the star. Everyone in the room knows that the media coverage albeit tabloid broadsheet is attroacish bar acouple of papers. Where do you see yourselves has the eircom league evolved in say the last 5 years. Do you think it’s a topic worth more coverage like?

Eoin; I don’t think you can argue with the amount of coverage it gets especially from the star. We viwe it as a priorityas evident by the fact that we are down here running these fans forumsi mean you wouldn’t see the irish times do it much less the irish independent who’s sports editor is an ex league of ireland star. We also commit to travelling to away european games when we can and even when it doesn’t make commercial sense, I mean we got lucky a couple of years ago we were the only paper that went with bohs to kasierslautern. I mean from our point of view besides eircom we are probably the biggest sponsors of the league but sometimes it is difficult like last season you know it was an embarrassement you know I mean darren mentioned sponsors there a couple of minutes ago I mean if I was in chagre of eircom I would be close to pulling out because it was just a farce. You didn’t even know who was champions to enter the champions league, and I mean both clubs got trophies at the end of it, how can you hold your head up high and sponsor a league like that. So it is difficult but then it is our national league as well. And we have to support it and we have to help it out or do what we can whatever little we can you know when the time comes. Everytime we seem to turn a corner there seems to be another roadblock in our way you know in the league’s way. I mean roy dooney came in with a great fanfare as commissionar and then 8 months later he was made a fall-guy or however long later he was made a fall-guy. Then he was quitting then he was going, I mean that saga dragged on for another 4 months. How many people in the room could actually tell now whether or not he actually is there or not still.

Stephen; question there for my friend pat, you’re getting away lightly out of this tonight. Over the last number of years partivcualrly over the last 5 years the standard of football being played in the league of ireland has certainly improved its certainly far better then it had been unfortunately there seems to be a general opinion that the standard of referring hasn’t followed suit. What are your comments on that?

Pat kelly; well obviously I am going to disagree 100 percent with you. The thing about it is I took over actually I;m in my third season looking after the referees in the eircom league and before itook over we had a aging panal of referees now we have brought a new panal in and we started the school of excellance 4 years ago now and we were hoping to get 5 people every 2 years from the school of excellance. We now have 14 people who were from the school operating in the eircom league a lot of them are in the first division, some of them have come through and are operating in the premier division and you know I gave myself a 5 year program and I hope to have most of the things in place by the end of the 3rd season and I think we are moving along nicely. We are losing a lot of expericanced referees, we lost 1 last years and we will lose another 2 more this year and you know these people like knew players when they come into a team will be given a certain amount of time to improve and to learn their trade. now we will use them in the 1st division and some of them will move into the premier division such as the referee who did the longford game, he is one of the up and coming referees and you know that’s as much as I can do. I mean can anyone here tell me how many times a week do referees train, or do they feel that they just turn up an hour before the kickoff and that’s the end of it until you see them again the following week. We have some of them training at least 4 times a week.

Scotty; more times then cork city?

Pat kelly; more then cork city maybe.

pablo; pat I have just one question relating to referees and that’s every time cork city play a dublin team 9 times out of 10 there is a dublin referee in charge. Why is that. That doesn’t seem to be fair.

Pat kelly; that’s because everytime I refereed cork city I got abuse so I changed that. Being serious about it we have 55 people on the eircom league panel, between referees and assistants, out of that 37 ot of the 55 actually refereed in the eircom league and this is because we have to trey and bring people into the game everybody gets an opportunity to referee some people survive others don’t.

A face; that’s understandable pat but you have to take that uncertainty out of a match, where you have dublin referee in charge of a dublin team and it is a bone of contention amounsgt city fans.

Pat kelly; right what I say here is that I sit in the stands there when cork city are playing as-well for a lot of matches and when cork city score I’m probably the only person that doesn’t jump up into the air but when there is a decision made whether its an offside a free-kick or whatever everyone here would see that through green and white glasses and I can understand that shelbourne would see it thorugh red and white glasses, the fall-guy is the fella in the middle unfortunately, but he.. now I’ll answer your question. The referee goes out to referee a match regardless of who’s playing he tries to do an honest job on the day he makes mistakes and these mistakes are

--------- missing bit to do with stewarding ?? -----

-applause from audience-

BL: I had a good meeting with the stewards this week and whats happening this Friday is that there will be 4 guards going into the back wall of the shed there will be 4 stewards facing the shed, there will be another 22 stewards which is the biggest amount we have ever had because I want to make a statement. Its going on too long and its only a small few of these gueriors and I’m fed up with them. I personally want to go into the shed myself you know. I think it reuining it you know its awful.

A face; brian just on the stewarding thing itself the club cant afford to have that volume of strewards at every game and it doesn’t warrant it anyway for some games the stewards that were there if they were just evident if they weren’t looking at the pitch if they were looking at the crowd or whatever. If they were seen to be more vigilant more evident, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten to this.

Bl; I agree

Db; can I just add to this, stewarding is a big issue that has come up in these fans forums I think as fans going up to dublin you probably are well aware of the problems when you are there with a company that do all the stewarding. Now going back to the very start of the night and why I am doing this, well now I have the questions that I can start answering stewarding, if there are problems with the stewarding and its making people stay away from grounds and people are scared to go because they think that they will be mobhanded or whatever or treated with heavy hands whenever they go to dublin then there is problems here. Well knowing that there is a problem I can now look at doing something about it, because its keeping people away especially families and kids. Its stopping the league progressing so maybe one of the things I can take away from tonight and from the forums is can we proved some sort of stewarding training some kind of help whether its a resource or training.

Pablo; regarding cork city and the shed its basically a dozen or so young fella’s that bring drink into the shed, having their few cans and they are allowed do what they want in there and it is ruining the reputation of what is probably the most famous area of terracing in ireland at this stage.

Bl; it wont happen again. You have my word on that.

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Question; the shed it is coming down, when are we going to see the plans of what will replace it.

Bl; well its been stated in the paper that I am taking it down.
-laughs from the audience-

the plans as far as I know are with the planing department, so anyone can go in and see that , talk to the mfa about that. I have no idea how soon it will be up, they are only going for planning at the moment.
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Question; sorry darren if I could ask you, where do you go from here, as regards marketing to the general public. I mean its all very well and good talking to league of ireland and cork city supporters here. From what I have seen there is very little outside advertising. There is no little fixture list that used to come out every year. I didn’t get one or see any.

Db; in terms of advertising in newspapers we don’t have money to do it its as simple as that. Those little cards were paid for by eircom and this year they decided they werent going to pay for them. The league doesn’t have the money to play for them. You could say why havent we got the money to pay for them. There is many reasons for that I think the 2 biggest expenditures of the league are referees expenses and also we pay out too much in things like compensation, simple as that. Legal fee’s are crippling the league.
I’ve always said that money in the stage of development that we are in, money certainly in some cases its not the biggest problem there are some clubs and there are too many clubs around the league that are not at a stage yet where if were to have a huge campaign on billboards all around the country that would attract loads and loads of kids and families theres a lot of places where it just doesn’t feel right, you may as well be in the park, it doesn’t feel like a professional football game and the point of going to a professional football game is for the atmosphere because its better then watching it on tv. Now if I was to go to some grounds then I just wouldn’t want to go back. The image of the eircom league is that the football is rubbish the grounds are rubbish but its not like that in I’d say 50percent. But in the few cases at the moment, going to matches is not exciting enough, the product is not right, not necessarily on the field but off the field. You feel like you are going to a park sometimes. You need to get it right off the field first so that when you attract the kids in they want to go back. Now that doesn’t mean to say we shouldn’t do anything I hopefully for the new season have plans, and I think that money is just a means to the end now if I don’t get the money from the league, from the FAI or eircom to put these plans into motion iwont just say that I’m not doing them then. I will look for other external sponsors to do them. So yes you know we sohuld be doing advertising but we need to first say …anyway we don’t have the money to do it, but b we need to look a the bigger picture and say would that be the best use of the resources that we have and I don’t think it would be at the moment just to say that we’re gona stick a poster up and loads of people will come.

Sonya; 2 things on that points so. The first is do you have a marketing budget?

Db; no I dont

Sonya; the second thing is I remember the last billboard campaign and I know its nothing to do with you, you werent involved with it but it was the national league / league of ireland ‘its not as bad as you think it is’. Now the first rule of marketing is that you don’t emphasise the negative side of it. You mentioned a few times tonight about the clubs and that some of them are not upto standard.with grounds and I have been up at many grounds and I know that. I think the genisis report has shown one thing to eircom league supporters is that the fai are culpable for many things and that I think that ‘one game one association’ that’s the new logo and that we have to see it as well in the eircom league.

missing end

A face; will you be coming back in a few months darren or will someone from the fai managemtn of the league be coming back

Db; unfortunately we get to the politics again I will certainly come back. I’m delighted to comer back. I will never shy away from speaking to people if people want to talk to me. But I cant make other people accountable that don’t want to be and I think that’s the crux of the problem for far too long. In terms of your question about the marketing and the poster someone told me about that, and I’m trying to keep myself out of trouble again, but when I heard about the poster and who created it you know… the genisis report says it all, I don’t need to say it again


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the meeting ends

brian lenox returns to his cheese and onion pie making industry

liam heads off to track down the murph out banner / media conspiracy theorists.

darren berstein stays for more questions

james heads for the bar with murph's eyes glaring track marks into the back of my head :) ..

oh yeah and my fuppin hand hurts from typing all that :D

Quote:

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Originally posted by James
[B
james heads for the bar with murph's eyes glaring track marks into the back of my head :) .. [/B]

---

That must have been disturbing....
Well done for the typing.
Couldn't have done much better meself.

well thats all off the top of my head like
if i forgot anything i'm sry
the old photgraphic memory aint what it used to be ..

Quote:

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Originally posted by James
drunk guy interupts ‘city theres only 1 city’…

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The joys of holding these things in a pub!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Schumi
The joys of holding these things in a pub!

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for fups sake schumi
i spend aaages transcribing the meeting for muppets like you..and thats all you pick out from it :confused: :D

*wonders why he bothers*

but it was funny!

Quote:

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Originally posted by James
for fups sake schumi
i spend aaages transcribing the meeting for muppets like you..and thats all you pick out from it :confused: :D

*wonders why he bothers*

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I'm sorry! All the "aaam"s were great too.:D :D

Quote:

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Originally posted by James
bl; basically because it was on at half eight in the morning, and it finished at half past five, and I coulndt bother my arse going all the way up to dublin

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I´m disappointed by that response, but surely Noelle/Jim Murphy would have been the ones to go to that, not Lennox.

Quote:

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Originally posted by James
Bl; my plan next year is to bring in a manager to actually run what I am doing at the moment. To help me out. This person would be full-time. I am only doing it part-time, which isnt good enough for the club. So I do need somebody full-time and I will be bringing in someone next year to run it full-time.

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good idea, hopefully this will see that incidents like the marketing seminar don´t reoccurr.

Quote:

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Originally posted by James
Lm; yeah I am a part-time manager. I work 20 hours on a soccer academy. And the players train with me on that. They train twice a day some days. They train in the gym. They are with the lads the part-timers you know.that’s it.

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:confused: Yet again he´s trying to confuse people into liking him

ok added the start of it and made it easier to read

:)

my fav bit it yet to come from scoooty and the gothenburg fcuk-up :D

You forgot my "is management responsable for poor away results" question.

The fooker spent five minutes answering without actually adressing he question!

you've some memory Jamsy boy i'll give you that. wasnt it funny how Noelle felt the need to explain why she didnt attend the seminar in the programme on Sunday.

That woman thinks she is so important. So what qualifications has she to be a merchandising manager?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Pablo
wasnt it funny how Noelle felt the need to explain why she didnt attend the seminar in the programme on Sunday.

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Tel us more. I missed that...

she basically said that she is at the forefront of those kind of seminars and actually organises them but had some excuse or other for not attending
she then said that the stewards were being trained by FAI head stewards before next season