Press conference ahead of the 'Dublin Decider' scheduled for tomorrow night at 7:30pm.......
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Press conference ahead of the 'Dublin Decider' scheduled for tomorrow night at 7:30pm.......
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Sure there's nothing else happening in Irish soccer on a Friday evening.......
As good as when they put a press conference on at the same time as we were playing Pats in what turned out to be the winning of the league.
As an aside wasn't one of their points about Limerick not being allowed to play Barcelona that there couldn't be a game on that clashed with the same day as a League of Ireland game. I'm surprised we weren't made change the date of our game tomorrow.
I think they said it couldn't even be on the same weekend as LOI matches not to mind day. Also I think it was Athlone and Wexford youths in a mid table dead rubber of a game that it was clashig with and couldn't take away from the crowds at a league of Ireland game.
100% agree with you there. It's about time Loi fans realised that lecturing and insulting the potential market of which we should be trying to attract at every opportunity isn't going to help things at all. I know this because I also did it for years and years, telling anyone that would listen to me about how they weren't real football fans etc etc. Presumably everyone on this forum gained an interest in Loi through a friend or relative at some stage and presumably that friend or relative before that wasn't slagging them off constantly.Quote:
Originally Posted by hedderman
You can see it on any normal football forum, a "barstooler" makes some kind of comment, say about the Dublin Decider and sure as night follows day a Loi fan jumps in with a tirade of abuse, “You should be supporting your local team”, “The Fai don’t care about Football”, “You’re a customer, not a supporter”! We all know this and it may all be true but it’s not going to change people’s mindset if they don’t fully understand it.
The same ****e has been going on on football forums for the years and years and years, rarely anyone makes any kind of new point. It’s tiring and I can’t see how it’s ever going to attract new fans. It does sadden me that there isn’t the same football culture in Ireland as in the rest of Europe but bullying people into it isn’t going to change anything. People will only get into something if they want to themselves, not because they are being told what to do by a small minority. Therefore, it is up to Loi fans to make it attractive for people.
Naturally a lot of my friends are “barstoolers”, they enjoy talking about football as do I. I don’t shove Loi constantly down their throats but obviously still mention it from time to time and they would all be well aware of my interest in it. Over the years, some of them have tagged along to a game at some stage, some of them have enjoyed it and some of them didn’t. Some still come to games regularly, even though they wouldn’t have had any interest before, even when we were winning things. I never did anything to force them to come, I would just casually ask if they want to come along and slowly but surely some of them did. Some only really started getting into it the year we were relegated and then slowly lost interest after we went down. They regularly say to me that they’ll come back if we go up again which is fine by me, I’d be delighted if they came back. I’m not going to lecture them about how they should be going to games now. They only really started to get into it before we went down and this graveyard of a first division isn’t the most attractive past time for those only starting to gain an interest.
Although the excuse that “people can spend their money on whatever they like” is regularly used by people who don’t support the Loi, the reality of it is that it is true. The mindset and commitment of being a football fan and going to games regularly doesn’t just happen from attending one or two games. We all got into the Loi because we started going to games and enjoyed it and were more than happy to go again, not because we were sick of being abused by a minority of people and decided to give in.
I see your point but I don't think that people come up with excuses not to go to League of Ireland matches, they actively need to be encouraged by the clubs and their fans. I've brought people along who've added maybe a €150 euro over a couple of seasons to League of Ireland income. It's not a lot but it could add up.Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
One thing that písses me off about the Brandywell is that practically every seat in the Southend Road stand has a "Reserved" sign on it. I'm reasonably sure that the club hasn't sold nearly 2,000 season tickets but I can't be certain, e.g. at the Sligo Rovers game I had to move seats just before kickoff because someone told me it was their seat so enough seats can be an issue at League of Ireland games can be an issue even if our attendances can be poor.
As for clean toilets they're obviously an issue too. I'd love to know why there are so many (good-looking) female fans at GAA games throughout the summer (and to a lesser extent during the National League) while it appears that League of Ireland crowds are almost exclusively male.
You should see the beours at the Cross lad.Quote:
Originally Posted by hedderman
I think in bigger grounds reserved seats should be a way forward. The likes of Tallaght, Tolka, Turners Cross and other all seaters should have reserved seating. Tickets should be printed for each seat too. It's the little bits of professionalism that add to it all, plus, if you're paying for a season ticket, it'd be nice to have your own seat to go with it.
I don't think threads like this are ever going to drive people away from the league.
I know I vent here, but when I'm talking to actual barstoolers (several members of my family and friends among them), I'm always polite, I suggest they might come down to the Carlisle with me next time I'm home, have a few pints and watch the football. When you put it like that, it's surprising how many will actually agree to come with you, if only for the pints aspect! Even the ones who politely decline get away scot-free (except possibly being invited again).
However, the ones who are rude and disparaging when you suggest they might attend an LOI game, the ones who make any excuse, about the ground, the standard, the imaginary crowd problems, the one junior team they know who'd win the LOI and qualify for the Champion's League group stages if only they could be bothered to enter, they're lost causes anyway, and me having a rant at them for being rubbish football fans isn't going to reduce the infinitely small chance they'll ever attend an LOI game any further.
Pardon the selective editing of your quote, Bosco, but that jumped out at me when I read what you wrote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosco
I know it's an unreliable headline from joe.ie (http://www.joe.ie/news/current-affai...league-travel/ - being the site it is, there may be a few images that some would find NSFW) but if it's right, Irish fans did spend €80 million going to England for games in 2011. I don't know if that includes Championship and below, and Scotland, but it gives some idea of the value of the market that clubs here should be tapping into. That's something that has been missing from the debate, here and elsewhere - quantifiable market information.
Most of the barstooler versus real fan thing is just an abstract ideological or philosophical debate or, more accurately, m1ckey measuring on a particularly drunken stag (hands up who among us... OK that would be nobody!:embarrassed:). That kind of 'my club's better than yours because it's here or in the UK' is just panto BS. Oh, yes, it is!
Clubs need to sit down and work out how they're going to get a slice of that €80,000,000 pie. Of that total, a good chunk is spent by die-hards who won't be shaken from their support of a British club. Fair enough: I'd rather they watched live football somewhere than never at all. But there has to be a sizeable amount that is the occasional fan, birthday/Christmas presents, stags, boys' weekends away and so on, and that's the slice to target. 1% of €80m averages out at €40,000 to each club. Ultimately, it's going to be nothing more than an old-fashioned business plan with both marketing and PR campaigns that will do it. A squirt of bleach in some of the lavvies wouldn't go astray, though!
Don't think I'd like that, the freedom of being able to move around to other parts in the ground is a great part of being a fan, I can understand it in UK etc...but not here it would ruin it for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954
Yeah, agree with that alright.
I was to the left of that flag. Most bizarre match I've ever attended. Was sitting there thinking, am I in Ireland or England/Scotland. Where else would you get a sellout crowd for 2 foreign teams, where the vast majority are not from either Country, while at the same time the National Team can't fill the stadium. You'd have to wonder where football will be in this Country in 10 years time, when most people don't really care about local football and the International Team is not fat behind...Quote:
Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
We are Liverpool?
That's gas.
jaysus you are slagging people for attending a game that you actually attended yourself?Quote:
Originally Posted by ger121
you must have been dragged in there kicking and screaming
Thought the funniest moment of the game was the disallowed goal for Liverpool being celebrated by thousands of barstoolers for about 10 seconds only to realise that the game had restarted with a free kick out. Even the PA man announced the scorer. Embarrassing but funny stuff.
When its watched on telly because of all the replays you rarely see a team centre off so that's probably were the confusion came from.Quote:
Originally Posted by MeathDrog
They do seem to have advertised LOI fixtures at the match. Which is something anyway.
Event Junkies.Quote:
Originally Posted by peadar1987
Men can tolerate extensive searches, reserved seating, strict segregation, and treated by clubs as a mild inconvenience rather than a welcome customer. You don't get that in bogball, so more women turn up.Quote:
Originally Posted by hedderman
What brought you there in the first place?Quote:
Originally Posted by ger121