What's your current British club? And what was the one before that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
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What's your current British club? And what was the one before that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
So you want 11+ players better than Keith Fahey, who is, I'm guessing, on €10,000+ a week. That's a players' wage bill of about 5 or 6 million+ euro a year. Between 18 home games, you're looking at needing to take in €400,000-€500,000 per home game. Even if you charge the upper end of the scale for tickets, about €20, you still need to attract 20,000-25,000 people to every single game. At the very minimum. It's just not going to work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
And I've said a thousand times before that a provincial system won't work for Irish football. To attract enough people like you, you'd need instant success in Europe. That means around 20 top quality players, who would cost maybe €10 million each. Multiply that by 5 for your proposed 5 teams, and you're already looking at a billion euro, without paying signing on fees or wages. Then you need stadia, because only Lansdowne is up to standard at the moment, so another few hundred million, and even then, you might get a capacity 55,000 crowd for big games against Celtic and Rangers, but are you going to turn up to watch North Wales Dragons or Kilmarnock? I'm guessing no. So why spend about 1.5 billion on a system that doesn't make sense for this sport, when a tenth of that investment could give the League of Ireland 22 decent stadia, and a top quality marketing campaign, which would go a lot of the way to making the competition sustainable?
At some stage in the late 90's I'd say it was Wimbledon/Dublin FC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
I meant in the context of as opposed to my future Irish Superleague team (or not as the case is likely to be) though then I suppose I would have split allegiances which would complicate matters because you cant really just stop supporting your club you've grown up with, though you can start supporting a club that didn't previously exist (as ever club at one point didn't)Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
When has it ever been "either or"? Most LoI supporters I know would follow a UK club to some degree or another. On the contrary, it's normally people that refuse point blank to take into a game that try to make it an issue.
Should your current British club ever endure hardship and be God forbid relegated would you consider switching allegiences rather than have your eyes defiled with the horror of football that isn't 100% aesthetically pleasing?
What if your current British club signed Keith Fahey? League 1 here we come?!?!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
I have no problem reconciling supporting Stoke with following Bray, and attending all the games I can. It's a toss-up which club I feel more affinity for. I agree with Macy, it's onlt those looking for excuses who make an issue of this.
And also, you've family connections with Stoke, yeah?
I'd say most club members in Norway/Sweden avidly follow the EPL, but it doesn't interfere with them following their club.
Yeah, my dad grew up there, and only came over to Ireland to marry my mum.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
When I was in Norway for the Ireland game, I met a group of Norwegians who were singing Liverpool songs in the pub. But when I asked them what team in Norway they followed, every one followed their local team, even if they weren't top flight.Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
Hold your horses I'm not talking about recreating the NFL in Ireland here.....lets not get hysterical .Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
If we can leave my low opinion of Keith Fahey out of this I am not expecting any new league to be a rival to the EPL or Serie A, I'm merely advocating setting up a few clubs to supplement a few other existing clubs to create a league equivalent perhaps to the top 12 teams in Belgium, Greece or perhaps in the longer term Holland for instance. Given the potential catchment area for these teams this is hardly unrealistic. What other city in Western Europe the size of Dublin for instance doesnt have a more credible football team than Shamrock Rovers?
Lets just say that with my current club either of these scenarios is somewhat more unlikely than Hell hosting the next Winter Olympics and leave it at that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Set up a few new clubs? What a wonderful idea! Sure we're just brimming with people looking to get involved with clubs. That's a sure fire winner.
Get off your hole and go to a game and just enjoy it for what it is.
Lucky you then in choosing a really big club :)
So who's going to pay for these new league and teams then adrock?
As has been said to you al;ready. If you actually went to games (along with the rest of the football fans who don't go to gamnes in this country) we might be able to achieve what you're looking for
But as long as you wait for money to magic itself into Irish football, we'll make do with your internet potshots
Deleted
Do or don't, I'm beyond caring and just take the football and attendances for what they are. But stand by the "couldn't be bothered" decision and not come up with bs excuses to justify the "don't" option, and be prepared to accept the consquences that is inevitably a weaker national team.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I dint exactly choose it, its kind if a family heirloomQuote:
Originally Posted by gustavo
Actually the Finnish league is still sh*ite, its one of those few countries in Europe like the other Baltic states or Luxembourg where Football (and i'm not just talking about the domestic league) doesnt have a big enough status compared to other sports - Ice Hockey in this instance - to make it ever amount to much.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Norway's more a case of retarded development. Thirty years ago they were hopeless amateurs getting thumped 8-0 most the time. Once participation and interest in the game developed so did the standard of players which in turn made a proper professional league viable. They only got round to creating it about 20 years ago and not long after international and Champions league success (to a reasonable extent) ensued. Basically as soon as the interest and player development was there to make a decent national league viable it existed.
Ireland's not the same - the passion for football in terms of playing and supporting has always been there - its just directed to playing for and supporting overseas teams . Why? Just because it is and has forever been so and noone's ever tried to do anything about it. Sure if every football supporter in the land just decided suddenly to focus all their interest in the domestic league it could improve a lot very quickly. It would take a seismic change though to shift this perception of domestic football as being pretty naff simply because it is, relative to that in Britain. Yes big interest in and attendance in local football would induce better quality football and vastly diminish our dependence on british clubs but its not just going to happen so you have to reverse the process , namely get a league in place people want to watch and then you can get the fanbase in that will sutain it. I
Its a matter of how to get from Point A where we are to point B where we want to be. Better to built a Panema Canal than keep sailing around Cape Horn anyway even if it costs in the short term.
Anyway I'm fed up getting flack for not being loyal enough to the LOI beacause I do actually catch local games so I know what standard it is. If the LOI was really that teriffic to make us all want to watch it we wouldnt be having this discussion in the first place
Just a thought lads. Its been over a year now. What has been the impact on attendances of Shamrock Rovers making the move to a new stadium? Did crowds go up?
I ask because in my opinion the crap facilities are a large part of the problem with Irish football. Even if the standard isn't great, I think more people, families especially, would show up if the grounds didn't look like the set for a movie about English hooliganism in the 70's. If attendances have spiked, it would be evidence that if you build it, they will indeed come, even if other factors would certainly have an influence.
Do you honestly think LOI clubs don't realise that poor facilities turn people off games?Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
LOI gets this all the time - "You need better marketing", "Get better players in", "You should improve your advertising", or "just build better facilities." The attitude (and I'm generalising now, not replying to the post quoted) seems to be that the league is completely unaware of how to improve itself.
But we know all these things. The problem is there is no money to do it. As Dodge said, there is only 1 problem with the LOI - we don't have enough funding to do any of these things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
Get your ass down to Tallaght and see for yourself! ;)
Attendances have spiked since the move to Tallaght, but it's impossible to say if it's because of the nicer facilities, the sense of community, the history of the club, or the excellent marketing Shams have done around the Tallaght area. I think the facilities argument is quite a weak one, to be honest. As I've said before, someone who doesn't turn up because the floodlight pylons are a bit rusty or the concrete is cracked is the same sort of person who wouldn't turn up because Britain's Got Talent was on the TV.
I wouldn't go that far. I think there is a genuine argument that facilities at some grounds (and Jackman park is a prime example) do turn people off games. There are a fair few grounds that, unless a first-time spectator is bitten by the LOI bug immediately, they wouldn't be keen to visit again. Obviously, for some grounds, this is less of a problem, and for some fans, it may even be part of the appeal.Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
But a switch to a Magners league style set-up would probably result in clubs spending even more on players to get into it, and less on facilities. So unless the improvement of facilities was paid for by the sponsor (and we're talking millions here for most grounds), they wouldn't take place.
Now it could be argued that it's up to clubs to get their house in order and build the facilities to enable them to get into the league, but shorn of two or three of the bigger teams in the country whose grounds are good enough for Magners (Rovers, Cork, Bohs (maybe), and with the added competition of a new domestic league overshadowing it, attracting fans and sponsors who would make such improvements feasible would be virtually impossible.
why not, i did, i used to like man utd, and have actually been to old trafford, unlike your fellow bangwagon jumpers, but i stopped, when i was going to pats matches, you are more of an eastender supporter than you are a man utd supporter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
so you support EPL because of the standard, maybe you should watch la liga because the standard of football in that league is better!!!!!
I'm sorry I can't agree. Local teams seem more than able to run up massive overdrafts to pay players 100k a year, but completely incapable of borrowing money in a sane way to pay for infrastructure projects (I'm generalising now). There is money there, but its all going on the credit card instead of the mortgage. I know if we were starting again, we wouldn't start from here, and the credit card bill is there and needs to be paid off, but the first step is to cut up the credit card. There's no point paying it off and spending on it at the same time. Your running to stand still.Quote:
Originally Posted by osarusan
But the race to the bottom carries on as it always has done, and paying a 34 year old Joseph Ndo is a higher priority for Sligo Rovers than getting a decent stadium? How long until they can't pay a tax bill?
I don't think people are saying that the league isn't aware of what to do. They are saying they need to get on with doing it.
No idea what it was like before, so i have nothing to compare it against! seriously though, most of my live sport tends to be rugby. All of it actually.Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
Have you done any research on Sligo's financial situation or are you just guessing?Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
I have done no research beyond what I can find on Google, and I have no idea about the finances of the club, but I find the business decision that was taken to employ him curious for the following reasons...
(a) Rovers have fairly dilapidated facilities
(b) The population of Sligo is under 20,000
(c) Ndo went to 2 world cups, and even at 34 I would imagine isn't far off a 6 figure salary
So how the hell are the paying for him? And more importantly, why are they paying for him?
The only business model that can possibly work for a club of their size is to bring through local talent, and sell them on to bigger clubs in Ireland or across the water. He is taking the place of a local kid in that squad who could be sold on at a profit.
I don't blame the man for going there, he has a family to feed, but he should never have been offered the opportunity, and his example is typical of the boneheaded decisions that have blighted the game here for decades. Unless I missed a sugar-daddy owner buying Sligo Rovers the whole situation is crackers.
Well Spain's a bit of a trek and besides outside the top few clubs I think there is a massive drop off in quality. I think the Bundesliga is probably tops in terms of depth.Quote:
Originally Posted by danthesaint
Anyway Britain's easy to get to, my family indoctrinated me in to their footballing ways and it is something I can discuss with my peers that we have a common interest in , which isn't so easy with Irish domestic football.
In any case I support an SPL club so its not like my standards are exactly sky high, which puts be in a good position to identify the troubled state of that league, which I have juxtaposed with our own sorry domestic competition and identified a common solution. Still at least over there at a minimum half the teams playing in the match have a bit of quality about them! I like Man U too though, definitely a great club. You can have a conversation with practically any english speaking dude in the world about Manchester United quite easy it seems.
Too many points raised here to get stuck into, but I honestly think there's no contradiction in being Irish and being drawn to British football. I do think there's a contradiction in being a football fan and having no interest whatsoever in Irish football if you're Irish. It doesn't have to be your driving passion.
Footy is weird though. There are so many reasons to attach yourself to the game. At one extreme you have local fans who adore their team but have little regard for the wider game, and at the other you have devotees of the game who are detached from any club affiliation. Most exist in somewhere in between. My guess is that there's something that can be done to entice people interested in football to attend more Irish football and I don't think it'd take a marketing genius to figure it out.
Maybe we should just be happy that many people actually play the game rather than pay to attend it. That's at least one measure of any national association's performance. A population of 4 million can't exactly be expected to compete across the continent.
A SIX-figure sum? I have no idea what Ndo gets paid but it's not even close to that. There's not a player in the league who does.Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
Sligo is a small town but the club's attendances are second only to Shamrock Rovers and they've a smaller playing budget than Bohs, Rovers, Fingal and possibly Pats too (although I believe Pats were fully part-time last season). It's a co-op owned by the fans and the people of Sligo so they're basically not allowed to spend beyond their means anymore.
As it happens, the signing of Ndo has coincided with a renaissance in the club's fortunes: they've qualified for the Europa League on merit and won the lesser cup with a possible victory in the FAI Cup to follow (no, seriously, they won't win). He's been arguably their most important player this season alongside Ryan, and if it was his signing that pushed them over the edge to European qualification and cup success then I'd say he was a very shrewd investment.
As far as being a development club - the opposite is probably true. They're one of the top 5 biggest clubs in the country and their only fault is that they don't produce enough local players to reflect their size.
Also, according to the Sligo fans on here the club's turned a profit for the last couple of years. I know they have residual debt but they deserve all the success they get (as long as it's not next Sunday).
Theres not a player in the league getting a 6 figure sum? You realise that's only €2000 a week right? I would have grave difficulty in believing that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
When Derry City had their latest crisis the squad were owed £200,000stg within 3 few months, and they were still getting a quarter of their wages, so there must be someone in the league getting 100k a year, and there's no way Ndo is running around there for €250 a week
And of course Sligo are doing well on the field, they seem to be paying the most money and that's how football works. And of course they made a profit. No Irish clubs ever lose money, they turn a profit every year right up until examinership/administration.
If we were talking about this 2 years ago you could have made all the same points. You would just have to replace the word "Sligo" with "Drogheda". It wasn't sustainable there, and it won't be any more sustainable in Sligo. Football is in competition with the more comfortable facilities of the GAA, which can afford them because they don't pay their players. Which brings me back to my point, that it should be a higher priority for any club to be making payments on a comfortable purpose built all seater stand, than on the talents of a hasbeen star signing. That can come once the bricks and mortar are right.
ONLY 2k a week?
Sligo are not paying the most money. Bohemians were paying the most money, Fingal second (we think) and Rovers third. Sligo were next in line, with Pats and Dundalk not far behind.
You seem to have made your mind up already. Bohs have been losing money for years. So were Cork. Derry were despite fiddling with their accounts. A club making a profit is a club making a profit, simple as.Quote:
No Irish clubs ever lose money, they turn a profit every year right up until examinership/administration.
No, I couldn't, and wouldn't, because Drogheda were always losing money at the expense of a benefactor.Quote:
If we were talking about this 2 years ago you could have made all the same points. You would just have to replace the word "Sligo" with "Drogheda". It wasn't sustainable there, and it won't be any more sustainable in Sligo.
Say your right about all that, its still nuts. The money Sligo or anyone else may or may not have can only be spent once, and spending it on big name signings offers nothing but instant gratification. Using that cash to invest in improving the facilities offers a legacy that can't be taken away from the clubs. Once it is done it will improve the match day experience, and also provide an income from corporate events, concerts and the like.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
And it has to be said, given the chequered history of the league, that it also has the advantage of securing the future of a club in the community. New stadiums will inevitably be financed by local government, and if like in the case of Shamrock Rovers are owned by the local council, no matter how badly the clubs are run, the local stadium will never be repossessed by the banks. All of which allows the fans to come along behind, pick up the pieces, set up a successor club, and simply rent the same ground off the local council
Thats a cop out!! You could easily make as many la liga games a year than you can premiersh1t games. England or the mainland to you is easy to get to, easier that say your local football team??Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
so you "support" a club in the SPL, how many games do you travel to?Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrock
As you "support" an SPL club and like man ure, can you not add a third team to a team ya like. it will only cost you 10-15 euro a week, that will be 100euro cheaper than having to get a flight to see 90 worth of football, that you wouldnt even be guaranteed to be a good game.
You're still presuming that Ndo is being paid massive wages. He's a 34-year-old who had played very little football in the two or three seasons before he moved to Sligo, which is why Bohs let him go. He's in no position to demand big wages and Sligo have done nothing to suggest they're interested in paying big wages.Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
He's been to 2 world cups! he has 21 caps for Cameroon, and probably deserved many many more. Even at 34 he would still command a good wage, but without a copy of his contract i suppose there is no way of being sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin
Interesting article on the BBC today about Chesterfield and the new stadium they built. Average crowd in 2010 is 6,244, in contrast with 3,593 a year ago.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletc...ld.html#270434Quote:
Chesterfield find their field of dreams
Post categories: Football
Paul Fletcher | 06:53 UK time, Friday, 12 November 2010
Chesterfield chairman Barrie Hubbard realised 27 years ago that his club needed to move to a new ground.
It has taken a lot longer than he initially anticipated but, after several unsuccessful attempts to secure a new site, the Spireites finally left rickety old Saltergate in the summer after 139 years and moved into their brand new 10,379-capacity b2net Stadium.
At first glance, the move appears to have transformed the Derbyshire club, who currently top the League Two table with the best home record in the Football League. Only Crewe have left the new arena with a share of the spoils following a remarkable 5-5 draw.
But the impact extends far beyond what happens on the pitch. Just as Liverpool are desperate to increase revenue by leaving Anfield for a bigger stadium, so the Spireites are hoping to reap the rewards of their relocation to a modern facility.
The b2net Stadium has brought significant benefits to Chesterfield. Photo: Getty Images
"If you never visited Saltergate, then you missed out on a treat but we had to leave because we were losing money every year," said Hubbard, who is in his second spell as chairman at the club. He was not involved with the club during the infamous period when Darren Brown took the club to the brink of extinction.
In the end, as is the way in the modern game, it all boils down to money. At Saltergate, the club only generated income on the 40 or so days a year when they hosted games. Now they have year-round revenue streams.
"We do not have any corporate boxes as such but what we have done is build a conference and banqueting centre and fastened a ground on to it," said Hubbard.
More than 5,000 people are booked in to attend Christmas parties at the stadium during December, while the club also has a licence to hold weddings.
Chesterfield are not unique in moving to a new purpose-built ground. Of the teams in League One and League Two, Southampton, Colchester, MK Dons, Oxford, Burton and Shrewsbury have all done it in the last 10 years.
Colchester left Layer Road for the Weston Homes Community Stadium in 2008. They had 40 hospitality places at the old ground but now have 650 and serve an average of between 250 and 300 meals at each home game. They also have a range of rooms, boasting a capacity from 10 to 400, that have hosted comedy nights, bowls and sportsmans dinners, while the club will stage an amateur boxing event in January.
"The move has broadened our horizons," U's media manager matt Hudson told me. "Layer Road was not a place where we would be able to grow."
Colchester, whose ground cost £14.2m to build, have four charity partners that are able to hire stadium facilities at cost. Organisations such as the National Blood Service use it.
Work will soon start, too, on kitting out the east stand as a community-orientated facility. There will be a gym, restaurant, police station, classrooms and children's play area. There is a clear sense of pride in Hubbard's voice as he tells me all this.
"It has given the entire town a lift," he said. "It has given everyone a new lease of life."
It is a view shared by veteran striker Jack Lester, who has been at Chesterfield since 2007 and is desperate to mark his time at the club with a promotion.
"The people of Chesterfield are really proud of the new ground," said Lester, who scored the winner in the opening league fixture at the new ground. "We are quite a small club but the new ground can help us move on to the next stage."
The makers of The Damned United were looking for a ground as antiquated as the old Baseball Ground in Derby to film scenes from the film, which focused on Brian Clough's ill-fated 44-day reign as manager of Leeds United in 1974. They found it at Saltergate, which served as the Baseball Ground, Elland Road and, remarkably, the old Wembley at various points during the film.
Saltergate was a tight and compact stadium, often boasting a good atmosphere on match day, particularly midweek. Lester joked that it looked as though the last renovation at the old ground had taken place shortly after its construction in 1871.
Players often trained at Saltergate on Friday and would rush to the showers afterwards in the knowledge the hot water would soon run out. The squad would then make their way home to eat lunch. Now the players eat lunch together.
Lester says it means they spend more time as a group talking about forthcoming games and believes it has contributed to their good form. It is a small detail but important.
I asked Chesterfield fans on 606 what they thought about the move to the new ground. CSCFC summed up the difference when he said: "Saltergate - pick the dead spiders off the loo roll. B2net - clean, warm and comfortable."
Saltergate was in use from 1871 but the time had come for the club to move on. Photo: Getty Images.
At Saltergate, you were out on the street within seconds of leaving the ground. At the new ground, the concourse boasts bar and food kiosks, as well as flatscreen televisions.
Bransoj said: "It has changed my match-day experience completely. I used to leave the pub five minutes before the game and wander in as we kicked off. Now I'm there 45 minutes before, using the concourse facilities and putting the money back in the club."
But perhaps the most ringing endorsement for the new stadium comes in the form of increased attendances. The club have an identical home record to last season following their opening eight home fixtures, with seven wins and one draw. Yet the average crowd in 2010 is 6,244, in contrast with 3,593 a year ago.
Hubbard thought an acid test of the new ground's pulling power would be the recent midweek match against Accrington. Last season, the match, which the home team won 1-0, was played on a Saturday and watched by 3,104. This year, 6,034 passed through the turnstiles on a wet and miserable Tuesday to watch the Spireites thump their opponents 5-2. When I first spoke to Hubbard, he was busy helping out with the sale of tickets.
I get the impression Hubbard is a man with his feet firmly on the ground. Towards the end of our conversation, he sounded a note of caution. The cost of the ground has been financed privately, involving what Hubbard described as some "friendly loans" that have not yet been fully repaid. On the field, it will be many months remain before an excellent start to the season becomes real achievement.
Hubbard would not be drawn on the difference in match-day revenue since the move, at least not in terms of actual figures, but he did concede that it had at least doubled. He was also at pains to point out that outgoings had also increased by more than 100%.
But almost three decades after the chairman initially thought it was time to move, he might just have overseen Chesterfield's very own field of dreams.
Combining the stadium with other community facilities is a great idea, similar to what Dundalk have done with OrielQuote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
As someone who regularly goes to domestic games, i find the idea of a magner's league interesting and potentially something that could improve domestic teams, their finances and also their facilities. It could re-invigorate the four nations leagues.
If this league consisted of teams from the Republic, the North, Wales and Scotland, then it could be fairly viable. There would be a large away support going to games and there are enough big cities to ensure that the league can grow. As well as this, there are cities such as Cork and Aberdeen where there would be a healthy support and undoubted full attendances for many of the games.
I suppose there would have to be a promotion/relegation opportunity for teams from the National leagues to get in. The league might look like this
Scotland
Celtic, Rangers, Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen, Dundee, Motherwell
Wales
Cardiff, Swansea, TNS
Northern Ireland
Linfield, Glentoran, Cliftonville
Republic of Ireland
Shamrock Rovers, Bohs, Cork City, Derry City, Sligo Rovers