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Tickets are also restricted to one per person, and will be allocated to season ticket holders, members of Cork
City Official Supporters Club and sponsors.
The Munster FA are organising the game themselves and must be distributing 5,000+ tickets to their own clubs and
affiliates.
Regarding the Tribune - in fairness to Mr. McIntyre, I was told by a member of staff that he wanted to assign a journalist to the game vs St Pats. For various reasons, none were available.
REPLY FROM GALWAY UNITED FC
I refer to a letter from Mr John Cahill, Ballybane, which was given prominence by your newspaper and which contains several serious allegations and inaccuracies about Galway United.
Let me state at the outset that those of us running Galway United, whether as volunteers or otherwise, are not above scrutiny or criticism.
I was one of the ‘luminaries’, as Mr Cahill condescendingly refers, who witnessed at first-hand his effort to receive special treatment in the purchase of tickets for the Sunderland game. Like all of the people involved in the club, I make every effort to make myself available to deal with issues raised by supporters.
It is notable that in Mr Cahill’s quite detailed account of events at the UCD game he forgets to mention how one member of the club’s Management Committee, in sympathy with his plight, took it upon himself to purchase three Galway United scarves and present them to Mr Cahill’s children.
But it is quite clear Mr Cahill’s correspondence is not about highlighting positives about Galway United but quite clearly an effort to portray the club in as poor a fashion as possible. Remarkable behaviour, you might suggest, for a person who clearly views himself as a ‘supporter’.
Mr Cahill’s misleading and mischievous allegation of greed by Galway United is, ironically, defeated by himself in his opening paragraphs.
In those, he tells us how he brings his three children to every home match FREE OF CHARGE. Put another way, instead of paying €24 each time to have his children admitted, they can walk through the gate because the club has adopted, and wishes to maintain, a policy of allowing all children to attend games without having to pay a cent.
As the father of two children myself, I have not witnessed such benevolence when I bring my children to the cinema, bowling, concerts or other sporting events.
The exception to this ‘children free’ policy is the game against Sunderland, which is already over subscribed. The club, realising that demand would exceed supply, adopted a detailed ticket distribution policy which ensured that children’s tickets at €20 each went first to our season ticket holders and these were quickly snapped up.
The system for ticket pricing and distribution was drawn up the club’s Management Committee and adopted by its Board and both groups have supporters’ representatives.
The ticket allocation system adopted by the club has ensured that 3,000 of the 5,000 people who will attend the Sunderland game will do so on concession tickets. Of the remainder, Sunderland have sold their allocation of 1,200 tickets.
A further 3,000 children will attend, free of charge, a Sunderland training event on the eve of the game, thanks to an arrangement with the Galway and District League.
The club made it quite clear that the only tickets for the Sunderland match available at the UCD game were €40 each and that these were only available to people who paid into the ground.
Children were admitted free to that match but if they wished to purchase a Sunderland ticket then they too had to pay into the game.
Logistically, there is no other way we could have handled the sale of the Sunderland tickets to the public at that time.
There is a huge cost involved in staging this match but one which, in making the decision to go ahead with the game some months ago, we felt was worthwhile as this is an opportunity not just to witness a side like Sunderland, but more an opportunity for us to showcase all that is good about Galway soccer.
The unprecedented demand for tickets, coupled with the level of plaudits we have received from fans and from people who are new to Galway United, clearly shows it was a correct decision.
This season it will cost about €1.2 million to run Galway United. Other than a grant of €15,000 from the FAI towards a club promotions officer, every cent of that €1.2 million will have to raised by the people running GalwayUnited.
Think about it for a moment, that is €25,000 required every week to ensure that Galway United continues to participate in the national soccer league.
The clubs in the top half of the Premier Division of the league are operating from budgets of about double Galway United’s. That is the reality of professional sport.
Ten of us are underpinning the club’s finances with personal guarantees for the next three years of €30,000 each. A detailed financial budget is in place to source and collect the €1.2 million required to run the club each season.
It is tough going but, I am glad to say, one that is in hand and a credit to all involved.
We are but the latest guardians of the club, all of us operating on a voluntary basis. Down through the past 30 years there have been similar people who gave generously of their time and money to ensure League of Ireland football survived in Galway and, in turn, we will pass on the club to a new set of guardians.
We have been encouraged by the level of support from fans and from the corporate sector. Thousands of hours are spent by up to 100 volunteers collecting the €1.2 million required through events such as golf outings, dog nights, banquets, lotto sales, casino nights and so on.
Each volunteer in the club, whether it is a Board member who has already pledged €30,000, or a steward who spends most of a match in the car park or at the turnstile and rarely gets to see any of the action on the pitch, purchases a season ticket. It is the dedication and commitment of these wonderful people that has seen Galway United return to the top flight of Irish football and it will be these people, and not the ones taking cheap shots, that will ensure the future of the club.
As we develop, we will continue to grow our staff levels. At the moment, the club employs over 30 full-time people, the majority involved on the playing and coaching side of the business.
The club is blessed with a small but hugely dedicated staff who run the administrative side of Galway United. Your letter writer is also wide of the mark in his assertions about his dealings with a member of staff in this regard, gravely insensitively as it turns out.
Mr Cahill says that the failure of a Galway United official to meet him on Monday because he was in England was a ‘fob-off’. The reality, quite regretfully I’m afraid, is rather different.
The reason our official was unable to meet Mr Cahill was that he was in London at his father’s bedside when he died. Indeed, I was with our official prior to the UCD match when he received a call informing him that his father’s condition had deteriorated alarmingly. In the circumstances, I felt my colleague displayed remarkable constraint a few minutes later in dealing with Mr Cahill’s less than restrained effort to receive special treatment.
Even a cursory effort by your newspaper to check the authenticity of Mr Cahill’s other serious allegations would have alerted you to the grossly insensitive nature of this part of his claim.
Mr Cahill’s unhelpful and inaccurate assertion about the club’s off-field activity does not stand up.
Following the Genesis Report into Irish soccer, the FAI appointed an Independent Assessment Group to carry out an intensive examination of each of the 22 League of Ireland clubs. This was the most in-depth examination of clubs ever undertaken in this country and scrutinised every aspect of each club, on and off the field during a lengthy process that continued for many months.
At the end of this process, it was found that Galway United was the best run club in the country, which was the primary reason we were invited to compete in the new Premier Division this season.
Such a designation of the club was testimony to the magnificent work carried out by so many people, many of whom operate in the background with minimal acknowledgement.
There are many people who seek to shape and influence Galway United going forward. Most do it by buying season tickets, rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in to the work of one of our many committees, others do it by securing sponsorship and so on.
Others, a tiny minority, try to shape the image of the club by writing letters of complaint to local newspapers.
I, for one, am in no doubt who the real supporters of Galway United are.
Yours sincerely,
John Fallon,
Chairman,
Galway United FC.
Thanks, Paddyfield.
I actually swiped it from www.galwayfirst.ieQuote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Dunne
I thought that you had typed it all out !
''R..... E..... P..... L.....Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Dunne
Where's the feckin 'Y' gone again'
lol
Fair dues to the man from Galway, he pulled no punches.
great letter from john fallon. someone at the club really needed to respond through the local media
Read that clowns reply to the Chairman in todays Tribune. Get over yourself mate!!!!!!!!!
Any chance of copying it on to this thread? Or is it pure ****e drivel .Quote:
Originally Posted by inthestand99
as another poster on this forum pointed out he said how was he to know that nick was away because a family member was dead.this was in relation to him saying he rang the office but got no reply.was mostly drivel though.
was thinking about writing in a letter myself to rebuke this guy and defend the club and then another poster suggested we all write letters in.20 letters arriving on their desk would make them take note.so how about it????
At this stage any further letter writing would be counter productive.
Mr Cahill again made some bizarre points in his second letter. Apparently the Sunderland game could have been played in Pearse Stadium :confused:
a reader/poster here too so !!!!
Dear Editor,
Please allow me to respond to the letter from John Fallon in the June 1st issue of your paper. When my letter was printed in your paper on May 25th I wrote that I expected a reply full of spin-doctored garbage and that's exactly what happened. What I did not expect was a full-blooded personal attack and a blatant attempt to paint a picture of me that would suggest I was out for one thing and that was to attack Galway United.
Let me put a few things straight for you Mr. Fallon (and your team of spin-doctors who so eloquently put your reply together). I won't respond to all of your scurrilous remarks - only the ones that I took exception to.
You say that my letter contained serious , misleading and mischievous allegations and inaccuracies - if you are talking about misleading and inaccurate then you should refer to your own adverts for the ticket-selling. It did say 20 euro for kids - end of story. I can produce the ad from the paper if you wish.
You say that I did not mention the scarves that were given to my kids by your colleague. Granted that did happen but I also failed to mention an awful lot more things that happened and were said that would not have painted your handling of the situation in a better light.
You say that the club made it quite clear that the only tickets available at the UCD game were 40 euro - why then Mr. Fallon did the very man that gave me the scarves say that the kids tickets were 20 euro when I sked him? Ask him yourself Mr.Fallon - you know who he is. He will be putting in a claim for the three scarves that "he purchased" out of his own pocket. On the same subject why then Mr. Fallon , if it was so clear that the ticket price was 40 euro , did your ticket-seller say to me that the 20 euro tickets were gone by the time I got to the top of the queue?? Why would she say this if there were no 20 euro tickets available at the UCD game?? How come Mr. Fallon did I speak to people in Terryland that night that paid 20 euro for their kids tickets if the only tickets available were for 40 euro??
You say that you witnessed at first-hand my attempt to receive special treatment. How dare you say that. All I was looking for was the price that WAS in the paper and what people before me had paid. I know too well that in this world you get nothing for nothing - all I was looking to do was pay the face-value rate.
How dare you also say that my efforts to "receive specail treatment" were less than restrained. What exactly are you suggesting when you say "less than restrained". I really hope you are not suggesting that I did anything other than express my right to speak out - I spoke out strongly but that is all I did - speak out.
You say that you were one of the luminaries that I condescendingly referred to - let me point out Mr. Fallon that you were certainly not one of the luminaries I referred to. I spoke to three Galway United officials that night and you were not one of them. In fact as I was speaking to your three colleagues I did notice you beside me but you failed to utter one word to me. Available to deal with supporters issues you said in your reply - well you certainly did not make yourself available to me that night. The only thing you did that night was to motion to your colleagues to usher me away from the ticket office as it was looking embarrassing for the club to have someone speak out in front of so many people that might be tempted to join me in speaking out.
The thing that riles me the most about your reply was your intimation that I was insensitive to the situation of one of your colleagues. I am disgusted that you would stoop so low to suggest that I actaully knew anything about this mans unfortunate situation.
The first I heard about this was on the Friday of the Bohs match - one of your colleagues told me- the day that my letter was printed. To use the word "insensitive" in your letter would only be justifiable if I had known anything about the situation - and I most certailnly did not. In fact Mr. Fallon the insensitivity is surely on your part given that you would use this unfortunate situation to back up your claims against me. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Let me finish by saying this - in my letter last week I did not suggest any individual from Galway United was making any money from the Sunderland match - nothing could have been further from my mind. I understand how hard it is to keep a club afloat but if the board thought about it a bit more then they could have raised a hell of a lot more money by doing it right. Did the game have to be held at Terryland with it's limited capacity?? In this day and age of GAA benevolence were they not approached about Pearse Stadium and it's 30,000 capacity?? Anyway it's not for me to tell them how to do a job right - is it.
Finally Mr. Fallon - I was a supporter of Galway United before the ticket debacle and lo and behold I still am a supporter of Galway United - and the ironic thing is that an awful lot of the "real" supporters that you refer to have actually stopped me on the street and said well done for saying it like I saw it. In fact I didn't get any negative comments at all - strange that!
Yours sincerely,
John Cahill
P.S. If you do reply to this letter I can tell you now that I will not be dignifying any response from you by replying again.
Cheers Claret. I'm sure thats the end the end of that I would hope JF doesnt bother responding. The guy in fairness makes some valid points if of course his recollection of the evening is fully correct, anyway he states he wont be persuing his argument any further so let sleepng dogs lie and all that.
Mr. Cahill is not really a GUFC fan if he suggests taking the game away from Terryland and he is definitely on another planet if he expected the GAA to allow United use Pearse Stadium.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Claret Murph
Quote:
Originally Posted by Claret Murph
Well, Mr. Cahill, I believe you are now either a viewer or contributor to this board so - Welcome!.
You're no slouch yourself when it comes to spin doctoring 'though, and the paragraph I quoted above cleverly claims that you -personally- received no negative feedback to your original letter. That's probably the truth, I've no way of disproving it. But, you conveniently omitted the fact that this thread gave a fairly full analysis of your original contribution, and there was quite a negative response to most of the points you made from genuine GUFC supporters. My understanding is that you were aware of this when you penned your second masterpiece, but somehow chose to be economical with that piece of the truth.
In fairness, a couple of points you made were valid - also acknowledged here - and my personal response to you would have differed from the clubs official response in a number of ways. However, paper has never refused ink and my opinion is that your correspondence and the clubs response would have benefitted from a good editor.
Sadly proper research and good editing skills are no longer a requirement when people want a platform.
The Tribune has played good cop / bad cop with this story enjoying the controversy (the Sports Editors antipathy towards Galway United is widely acknowledged, also, something, I believe you counted on, in writing your second letter) while supporting the club through its summer soccer initiatives and its coverage of the MATCHES through its publications and its radio station. (You should really look for a rate-per-word deal from them if you're intent on keeping this one going 'though.):D
The season ticket offer - before the Sunderalnd game was announced at all - was the least expensive in the Premier Division. If you were as committed a supporter as you have made out to the readers of the Tribune and GalwayFirst, you would have seen the fantastic value a Family Ticket would have offered you this season.
Your decision to light a fire of controversy around your local eircom league club is your choice and your right, but I agree with the club Chairman insofaras your stance has done nothing to safeguard or promote the future of national league soccer in Galway, but just left a bad taste all round and left the naysayers rubbing their hands - again.
The great thing for me is that as a father of young children you can see the great joy football can bring to their lives, and a local eircom league presence is their best opportunity to see it played at the highest level and - believe it or not at the lowest price!
It's hard for a club so reliant on volunteer support to swim against a tide of negativity. Why not turn your energies into something positive and come to terms with the meaning of the word "supporter"?
Great post My Town.
I would safely say that Mr. Cahill would be cheering on our visitors on the 1st August and has probably seen Old Trafford more than Terryland Park in the last 5 years.
Excellent post My Town well written with great points made well. It is a shame that most people choose to shout about things they are aggrieved about (Sunderland Tickets) and tend to say nothing about things that are great (price of GUFC season tickets) but hey its probably human nature. I think its a crying shame that the arrival of a small Premiership outfit to our city should spark such reactions, it seems that the great value for money at terryland for the last number of seasons has been very quickly forgotten by some.
Mytown well said , I would like to add a few things but this time i will hold back . Roll on Friday night ohh and just to let Mr Cahill know that he will have to pay the for kids on Friday night , all MAILS addressed to the FAI ticket.office@fai.ie.
Who knows even Ford may give him a car to get him up to Terryland !!!!!!!!!!! as I am sure they might have done something to upset Mr Cahill in the past .