Match programmes

I see Cork have won the Programme of the Year again - link. Well deserved!

However, it's coincided for me with trips to Bray, Galway and Waterford, whose programmes between them didn't have as much content as one of Cork's. Bray had three pages, of which one was my own pen pics. Galway had about three pages as well, and Waterford had two pages from two Supporters' Clubs, a quiz and a half page from the manager.

Off hand, of the other programmes I've seen this year -

Bohs - didn't see it
Cork, Rovers and Longford - haven't played there yet, although Longford's has been poor in recent years
Derry - good, although far too many copy and pastes from the internet
Drogheda - not a huge amount in it; utterly stupid quiz
Pat's - little enough content, although it was a League tie, so I'll excuse it.
Sligo - usually a few bits to read.

Is it too much to expect to have at least something to read instead of shelling out E3 for a load of ads?

Thought Corks was excellent alright. Didn't get one in Derry so can't comment on that one, thought Galways was poor enough, Sligo's seemed similar to Galways in that respect though haven't had a really good look at it yet, ditto Bray. Ours is similar enough to last year but is slightly improved. Its now all colour and usually has three substantial articles.

Just to offer a small bit of defence, though I agree that the Blues programme is a bit poor, it does regularly contain the following changeable content (though I've not seen Friday's UCD one yet):
Management Committee Notes (in lieu of a chairman!).
Manager's Notes.
A look at the League by local radio journo Matt Keane.
The Quiz.
Interview with a Blues fan.
Club Notes - i.e. Lotto, fundraisers etc.
League Table, Fixtures and Top Scorers.
Page of photos from last game.
IBSC notes.
OSC Notes.

As well as the regulars: player pen pics, running tally of appearances, ground regs etc. etc.
OK, parts of the 4 Notes pages cover similar things, particularly the 'we would like to extend a warm welcome...' bits, but there's a lot more in it than you're making out there.
Quite half-arsed compared to the Cork one, or the Pat's one of yore (haven't seen it in a while), admittedly, but I'd say they're constrained by much smaller ad revenue for one thing.

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Originally Posted by stann

OK, parts of the 4 Notes pages cover similar things, particularly the 'we would like to extend a warm welcome...' bits, but there's a lot more in it than you're making out there.

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Hmmm...maybe I was a bit harsh actually. Although I wouldn't consider fixtures and tables, club news or the photos content as such. Or the manager's column, as you noted (Pete Mahon's is an exception; how he's not been fined for it yet I don't know!)

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Originally Posted by Rogue Trader

Drogs a lot of Gloss but nothing of note in it really.

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Yeah, that sums up a lot of the programmes, to be honest. Glossy is OK (even at UCD, we've given in to its temptations...), but you have to have content if people are expected to keep forking over E3. Don't know how they keep selling programmes to the home fans who must surely know what they're letting themselves in for?

Bohs' one is decent. Most recent one against Pat's:

front cover
p1 Ads
p2 Manager's Notes
p3 Ads
p4 Editorial/Club Draw winners/bouncing baby
p5 Fixture list for the season for Bohs
p6 Commercial Manager's Comments
p7 Half-time underage teams details
p8 Ads
p9 Ads for Sunderland and Wolves matches
p10 Ads
p11 Historical match reports
p12 Ads
p13 Ads
p14-18 Player interview (p16 Ads)
p19-20 Centrefold: Fergal Harkin (non-nude)
p21 Ads
p22 Ad for Christmas Draw
p23 Ads
p24-27 "Isdiosyncratic" fan column and separate fan's report of last match (p26 Ads)
p28 Ads
p29-30 Club details, ground regulations, player sponsors
p31 Ads
p32 Fixtures for the weekend, league table, last three meetings with Pat's
p33-34 U16s news, Bohs Community Soccer Camps details, ads
p35 Mascots details and photos
p36 Ads
p37 Bohs and Pat's squad w/numbers (blanks beside away team if they don't have squad numbers, natch)
p38 Ads
back cover (ad)

That's the shape of it every game this season. Well impressed, as a recent returner to LofI.

Think they had little biographies of each of the visiting team's squad in one of the earlier programmes but that must depend on space.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Hmmm...maybe I was a bit harsh actually. Although I wouldn't consider fixtures and tables, club news or the photos content as such.

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We've no choice but to consider those things as content. :D
In terms of articles, yep, it is pretty poor. Even the one article as comparison with other programmes would define it is a relatively new addition.
In fairness to the lads putting the thing together, they are constantly looking for contributors each season, so I suppose it's up to us to sort it out. I presume even the high-end glossy efforts have all voluntary contributors? None of the journos, in particular, get paid for their copy?

That's only about four pages of content though (the player profile and the old match reports).

Haven't seen the fan pages. Must have a copy of the Bohs-UCD programme somewhere; must have a look and see what it was like.

i have to say brays programme is absoluly shoking no colour terrible pics and very poor ads (layout etc)

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Must have a copy of the Bohs-UCD programme somewhere; must have a look and see what it was like.

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I have one right here beside me. Though thats not much good to you. (I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to Programmes. Though not too tidy with them so sometimes takes me a long time to find the one I'm looking for). Pretty Much as EB said. Centrefold is Stephen Rice though and it also has a nice picture of a very pretty young lady, Leanne Conroy, who is our media liason officer and a Dublin finalist in the Rose of Tralee. The Player profile/interview is Chris Kingsberry. Some people like "Ned Simpson"'s column, I find it hit and miss, a matter of taste I suppose. Theres also a hilarious match report of our away trip to Derry.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

That's only about four pages of content though (the player profile and the old match reports).

Haven't seen the fan pages. Must have a copy of the Bohs-UCD programme somewhere; must have a look and see what it was like.

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The player interview is three pages long (sometimes more), and the fans' columns are three pages usually too. The old match reports are a page, SC's notes (always good value one way or the other) are another page, the underage digest is another page and something people are interested in.

That's nine, and the info on some of the other pages (fixtures, tables, last three meetings, etc.) is dead handy if not original.

I think it's a decent effort. Nothing amazing but I don't think you can call it 4 pages of content.

Haven't seen any modern programmes from any other clubs, so if they **** all over the Bohs one well fair balls to them.

Cork is the only one I've seen this year that beats ours (Missed Pats and Waterford).

I'm dying to see this Cork one; does it have a Velvet Underground scratch'n'trip or something?

Kilkenny are the biggest offenders on the lack of content front. €3 for a teams sheet, 6 pages of ads and a chairmans message.

No programme in this league has been any good for content IMO, apart from Bohs, and I haven't seen Cork, Derry or Rovers and lost my Sligo programme. It says a lot for the league that Drogs programme gets voted second best.

In terms of look Pats looks very good and Galway's isn't bad either. The rest are pretty poor.

Athlones is awful - ads ads and more ads basically - little content

Dundalk - top stuff - its always excellent

Pats - good player profiles for opposition players, but other than that poor enough - but it is free

Bohs - not bad

UCD - lots of league tables etc - usually a piece on other student clubs of the world also - plus the ramblings of some dude about mobile tv?

Longford - awful -

Sligo - good - eames seems to always have a piece as does meath and district league man Conall Collier, a decent fans view section to

Rovers - expensive at 4euro but a good read - nearly always a stadium update! interview with a player - good length - profile of opposition, their key players and history etc,

Shels - last season good stuff - this season . . . not as good

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Originally Posted by DRDoc

UCD - lots of league tables etc - usually a piece on other student clubs of the world also - plus the ramblings of some dude about mobile tv?

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Don't see how there could be loads of league tables- just Premier and First. The students clubs of the world aren't a regular feature, thank God. Some dude- Aberdonian Stu- gives a good rant about different things but God knows what it's doing in the official club programme.

I always buy the City programme since they upgraded to A3 full colour 4 years ago which is proof that if you improve the product people will buy it.

I gave up buying other programmes a few years ago as generally rubbish. I broke the habit last season as had heard the Drogs one was good - unfortunately they used mine & others quotes on foot.ie as filler so no point to read my own stupid rants.

The last good away game programme i bought was Shamrock Rovers but I did not get this season as used to skipping away game programmes.

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Originally Posted by DmanDmythDledge

The students clubs of the world aren't a regular feature, thank God.

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Ah no, that's interesting enough, I think.

I think the tables referred to include the Superleague tables and the inters/freshers tables; maybe the home/away tables. The programme against Derry had, for example -

1 Cover
2 Ad
3 Pete's column
4 Match reports
5 Match reports
6 Head to head
7 Ad
8 News Round Up
9 News Round Up/CPO column
10 Player sponsorship
11 Player sponsorship
12 Back in Time
13 Cross table
14 Appearances/fixtures and results
15 Appearances/fixtures and results
16 League tables and goalscorers.
17 Quiz
18 Article on UEFA Women's Championship qualifier to be held in Belfield
19 Best Damn Column in Football
20 Around the World - Armenia and Poland
21 Around the World - Georgia and Malta
22 Supporters' Club news
23 Ad
24 Student Clubs of the World - Hamilton Academicals
25 Student Clubs of the World - Hamilton Academicals
26 Squad lists
27 Ad
28 Ad

So actually the Superleague and inters tables are gone now. U-21 tables will come in shortly, with a report of the past couple of games too.

As pete notes alright, there's often bugger all for away fans, which can be very annoying. Hard to sort though (even the Cork programme falls foul sometimes). We have the ATW to help that, and the Back in Time was until recently two past games against the current opponents, which can be interesting.

the dundalk progamme this season is the best i have ever seen published by the club, recently it has been increased to 48 pages, most of it is in colour, reads more like a magazine than a match day programme. Has regular features like a review of a classic season and a look back at DFC legends, plenty of info on the visiting team, also up to date club info - its an unsual large size too - very good value at eur3.00

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Originally Posted by DRDoc

Rovers - ... profile of opposition, their key players and history etc,

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I'd like to see that in Bohs' one, too.

Is it a totally daft idea to suggest that the people who make programmes for all the different clubs could get together and make sure that they all have an up-to-date blurb on the visiting team, maybe even how they're doing so far this season or something? It'd be one extra phone call or e-mail on top of the regular workload, like.

You could also have some page by someone (mature) associated with the visiting club or their supporters' club saying what they've heard about the home team so far this season or how they expect them to get on or how they get on historically with them or something or recalling some mythical previous meeting, like they have in international programmes.

It would add to the sense of history and feel of it, rather than having kids looking at a list of names from 'this week's opposition'.