It was bound to happen...

http://www.elevenaside.com/euroclub/...p?newsid=18321

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Glentoran manager Roy Coyle has urged soccer authorities north of the border to consider implementing a summer calendar after watching his side fall to a demoralizing 6-2 aggregate defeat to eircom League champions Shelbourne.

A 4-1 second leg at Tolka Park on Wednesday night win saw Shels stroll through to a second qualifying round meeting with Steaua Bucharest of Romania.

This is the third year of summer soccer south of the border, and Shels’ win on Wednesday night extended eircom League clubs’ 100 per cent record in Champions League and Uefa Cup matches this season.

And Coyle, who was without players for both legs due to holiday commitments, feels the Irish League would do well to follow the Republic’s example – while he also underlined the need for improved playing conditions in the north.

He said: “I’ve said for a long time about summer football in the north, why not try it and see if it works?

“But the one thing you have to do if you’re going to think about producing summer football is to work on the pitches.

“There are an awful lot of pitches that need an awful lot of work in the north before we can begin to address that issue.”

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If Glentoran had even attempted to prepare they'd have at least had a chance.

typical of mr.coyle to come out with this now.
some people see summer football as the holy grail and the answer to all the ills of the world..........nonsense.
summer football has its pro's and con's, like everything else.
sure hasn't there even been some unhappy voices regarding summer football from within the EL already?

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Originally Posted by -lamb-

sure hasn't there even been some unhappy voices regarding summer football from within the EL already?

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But you'd have to see who the voices belong to first !!

There is no getting away from it, now matter how to skip around it and choose your words carefully, Clubs will have to work to get success ..... Summer soccer is not the answer for failing clubs .... it was just what we needed in the eL to move things along, the benefits are great so far, pitfalls there too .... BUT ....... and i mean this ...... Summer soccer (or anything else) cannot be used as an excuse for failing clubs. It is not a golden ticket to pass the buck for their short comings

The bit of an upturn that is happening in the league is partly due to the UEFA licensing being implemented. It is mostly down to club operating realistically and honestly and trying to improve what they've got.

Blaming and asking to shange from summer soccer is like moving the deck chairs around on the titanic.

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Originally Posted by -lamb-

some people see summer football as the holy grail and the answer to all the ills of the world..........nonsense.

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Not the holy grail ... but it is alot better for the players, the fans, the possiblity of a good (real) media deal. There are alot of pluses and to be fair ... there are more pluses than minus's (??) for summer soccer IMO.

And for the people who disagree ...... i ask you to try and remember back when it was winter soccer ?? Maybe just me but was it really dull dower shíte, loved it ... dont get me wrong but chríst above, it is so muxh better now.

Something like this was bound to be said. However, this has been batting around in the North for years now. Coyle is not the first to say it, nor will he be last. I think that the Glentoran v. Shels tie has just finally made people realise something needs down.

Attendances in the IL are very poor. Glentoran, going for the league with an average home gate of around 1100, Linfield going for the league with 1800, Portadown going for the league until the final 2 or 3 games with 300 people watching a match at home. That shows something is seriously wrong and that the IL has nothing to lose trying summer football.

I am all for it, always have been, and Wednesday's diar performance only confirms that. We know it won't suddenly solve everything, because it won't, but it is a step in the right direction.

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Originally Posted by glentoranfan

Attendances in the IL are very poor. Glentoran, going for the league with an average home gate of around 1100, Linfield going for the league with 1800, Portadown going for the league until the final 2 or 3 games with 300 people watching a match at home. That shows something is seriously wrong and that the IL has nothing to lose trying summer football.

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But summer football isn't the panacea in terms of attendances either. I'm really not convinced about the overall merits - the benefits in Europe should be there, whether an extra game or two in Europe really makes much a difference to the rest of league also remains to be seen.

The pro summer football lobby thought it would increase attendances, it hasn't, now they say european progress will increase attendances - it didn't for shels last season. Anything to do with marketing is as much applicable to winter football as summer football, so imo they should be discarded. Ditto setanta start up and increase competition for sports, rather than setanta starting because of the football.

The only club that has significantly increased attendances in the last few years is Cork, and imo summer football is way behind a winning team in contributing factors...

Not only in the North,lads,but here in Wales as well!We'll probably see an experimemt in summer footy in the Welsh Premier in the next3-5 seasons!Especially as the Secretary,John Deakin,is a keen advocate!

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Originally Posted by Macy

The only club that has significantly increased attendances in the last few years is Cork

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we've always have this level of support, 3-4000 for home games and 5-6000 for big games. thats not an issue. if longfords attendances have not grown during the summer seasons, especially with no competing GAA side, it is down to them.

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and imo summer football is way behind a winning team in contributing factors...

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for:
better pitches
better enjoyment (no rain)
more future fans ( school kids on holidays)
no competition from EPL
ten-fold improvement in european performances.

against: some clubs are experiencing the normal fluctuations they have in support rather than suddenly 10,000 turning up to every game as they hoped.

I rathered the cold, dark winter atmosphere at games, than this summer football but improvement in Europe is the only way to move the league forward and show the barstoolers that we can compete with the best.

Having just got back from a long weekend of football in Ireland (both sides of the border), we asked every club on their thoughts of summer football so far.

The 2005 season is the 3rd season of three in the 'summer experiment'. There does appear to be a slight majority at the moment, so I at least expect the experiment to continue, maybe for another three years. The world doesn't change overnight and really three years / seasons isn't long enough to establish definite trends.

From a purely selfish point of view, I like summer football in the League Of Ireland. Reasonable weather (not the hot and humid weather of the SE of England) in the summer. I like the idea of matches played in summer evenings. You can take all day to get to a match at a leisurely pace.

I think the Irish League should consider summer football. Then there could more easily be an expanded Setanta Cup with league seasons aligned and indeed, although Shelbourne were better than Glentoran in the UCL, a more fairer comparison of the respective champions could be made if both leagues had parallel seasons.

As for the Welsh Premier League, I'm not so sure. All feeder leagues would have to follow suit and that would be a problem in Wales - there isn't support lower down. You also have the Welsh teams in the Football League and the semi pro ones in Conference, Southern and Northern Premier Leagues.

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Originally Posted by Castle Barracks

Not only in the North,lads,but here in Wales as well!We'll probably see an experimemt in summer footy in the Welsh Premier in the next3-5 seasons!Especially as the Secretary,John Deakin,is a keen advocate!

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Yeah the Welsh FA have even had discussions with the FAI about how it's been for us and asking for advice and things like that iirc.

Here's an interesting fact: Glentoran players do not get paid until the start of the LEAGUE season.

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Originally Posted by lofty9

Here's an interesting fact: Glentoran players do not get paid until the start of the LEAGUE season.

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I don't know much about the IL but seems the top 3 clubs been living in a comfort zone for a while now. I'm sure the Setanta Cup & now the CL tie with Shels will awaken them to their potential.

It'll be very interesting to see how the IL players & fans approach the Setanta Cup next season. I think that will give indications on possibility on All Island league in the near future...

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Originally Posted by pete

I don't know much about the IL but seems the top 3 clubs been living in a comfort zone for a while now. I'm sure the Setanta Cup & now the CL tie with Shels will awaken them to their potential.

It'll be very interesting to see how the IL players & fans approach the Setanta Cup next season. I think that will give indications on possibility on All Island league in the near future...

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i've no doubt fans of the strongest teams will be strongly in favour of an all-ireland league, but what about the rest of us (north and south)? i'd be very wary as i can envisage the rest of the teams getting a worse deal than they already have, along with the knock on effect of losing respective top flight status and all that goes with it - lower sponsorship, lower attendance, weaker players, a kind of "zone of no return" really.
a pipedream idea that if implemented has the potential of killing off football once and for all, or almost certainly killing off some of the smaller clubs at best.

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Originally Posted by lofty9

Here's an interesting fact: Glentoran players do not get paid until the start of the LEAGUE season.

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They are paid for 40 weeks out of 52.

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Originally Posted by -lamb-

i've no doubt fans of the strongest teams will be strongly in favour of an all-ireland league, but what about the rest of us (north and south)? i'd be very wary as i can envisage the rest of the teams getting a worse deal than they already have, along with the knock on effect of losing respective top flight status and all that goes with it - lower sponsorship, lower attendance, weaker players, a kind of "zone of no return" really.
a pipedream idea that if implemented has the potential of killing off football once and for all, or almost certainly killing off some of the smaller clubs at best.

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I think your fears would be justified if an all-island league did nothing to expand the game here. However - the hope and expectation would be that a single league would generate increased interest, support, sponsorship etc that would perculate to ALL levels. It wouldn't be hard for even the smallest teams to do better than they currently are financially and support-wise, so fringe teams should have little to fear.

I would even assert that not implementing an all-island league will actually kill football at ALL levels on the island. As football in Europe continually changes and a de-facto European league continues to slowly evolve, the Eircom League and Irish League are increasingly irrelevant footballing sideshows/anomalies to the majority of the population on both sides of the border. Merging our leagues gives an opportunity to generate interest, without which we'll all surely die in the face of much stronger products.

As an aside - as has been debated on this site numerous times before, there's a very strong case for 'killing off' (or, more accuraetly, returning to Junior/Intermediate football) a number of the smaller clubs on both sides of the border. The Irish League in particular has an absurd number of teams given the size of the province. Exactly what do the likes of Ballinamallard, Coagh and Dublin City add to Irish football.....?

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Exactly what do the likes of Ballinamallard, Coagh and Dublin City add to Irish football.....?

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they give somewhere for footballers to play, somewhere for them to improve, to try and get noticed, allowing a bigger club to pick them out?
ballinamallard, though relegated to div.2 last year, have a good rep for producing decent youth players and are fermanagh's sole representative in the semi-upper reaches at the minute (though enniskillen "something" are supposed to be expanding their ambition and spending a bit of money).

by the way, all clubs not in the irish premier league ARE already classed as intermediate or amateur clubs.would you say northern ireland has a higher number of clubs than, say, scotland? maybe we have more because historically we have supported the game more than the south (no offence)?

i think another part of the attendance problem (around larne anyway) is that the amateur teams also play on saturday afternoons and i know for a fact that this has a big effect on larne fc (eg. our catchment area has 3 top amateur teams and around 3 others) and most of those players/families do support larne but can't get to too many games. it's also ridiculous that the senior team should even have to think about moving away from saturday matches to accomodate this.

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Originally Posted by -lamb-

they give somewhere for footballers to play, somewhere for them to improve, to try and get noticed, allowing a bigger club to pick them out?

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They could still do that sure, regardless of what league structure they were in.

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Originally Posted by -lamb-

By the way, all clubs not in the irish premier league ARE already classed as intermediate or amateur clubs.would you say northern ireland has a higher number of clubs than, say, scotland? maybe we have more because historically we have supported the game more than the south (no offence)?

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To be fair Lamb, the main reason there's more clubs in the Irish League is simply because the IFA went ahead with a daft expansion to 28 clubs a few years back !! Before that expansion, the EL had 6 more teams than the IL. There are teams outside of the Eircom League as well, you know - we just don't let them in for the sake of it...... :) And Scotland has over 300% the population of Norn Iron, yet only 50% more senior clubs......

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Originally Posted by -lamb-

i think another part of the attendance problem (around larne anyway) is that the amateur teams also play on saturday afternoons and i know for a fact that this has a big effect on larne fc (eg. our catchment area has 3 top amateur teams and around 3 others) and most of those players/families do support larne but can't get to too many games. it's also ridiculous that the senior team should even have to think about moving away from saturday matches to accomodate this.

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Yee's could always play on a Sunday........ !? :p ;)

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

To be fair Lamb, the main reason there's more clubs in the Irish League is simply because the IFA went ahead with a daft expansion to 28 clubs a few years back !! Before that expansion, the EL had 6 more teams than the IL. There are teams outside of the Eircom League as well, you know - we just don't let them in for the sake of it...... :) And Scotland has over 300% the population of Norn Iron, yet only 50% more senior clubs......



Yee's could always play on a Sunday........ !? :p ;)

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1) there are only 16 senior teams in northern ireland - the 16 in the premier league. that's it. very roughly that's 1 per 100,000 people. you think that's too many?
div.1 and div.2 are all intermediate.
ballinamallard and coagh are both intermediate clubs. ballinamallard are in div.2. how far down would you want them to be in a pyramid structure with a small base?!

2) i know you're being light hearted here, but why should we? i have no particular issue with it other than for me saturday at 3pm is the best and traditional time for football.
in all seriousness, where else would amateur football take precedence over senior football?