State of the Irish Game

Look at Portugal - they're a country that has around the same population as Ireland, with just half our economy.

Why is it then that they are capable of developing the game in their country THAT much better than we can here?

Obviously, the FAI has to be held accountable, but does anyone ever see the LOI developing to the level that we'll have teams here that can rival the likes of Porto or Benfica? Until we have a solid grassroots system in place in the country - starting young, and running all the way through to a competitive professional league, we'll ALWAYS be nearly men. I'm sick of the old "we can't do it here because all the players feck off to England" excuse - isn't Spain or Italy tempting at all to the Portugese players?

Maybe the answer would be to scrap the LOI and start again. Start with a half dozen teams from around the country that the FAI can concentrate on building. Once those 6 teams are established professionally, then add one or two more teams the same way they do in America? Thoughts?

We are probably one of the only countries in Europe in which the majority of soccer supporter's support a foreign team before their local teams.
Could you imagine going to a Portugal home game and seeing a large Barcelona or Juventus jersey being passed around the crowd?
The FAI do need to give the league (both divisions) some sort of exposure and stop taking whatever is being thrown at them when it comes to sponsorship.
Last season was the best example....teams had their best performance in Europe ever-Bohs,Shels and even UCD (unbeaten in their two games) and yet there was no big advertisement campaign, no official launch...no f**k all.
It's alright for us poor f**kers to drag people along to the game every week but it's annoying when the people who run the league do nothing but count down the seconds to the next ManUre or International game.

oooh I need a drink!! :mad:

I reckon the various governments over the years should also be made accountable,year in and year out they're throwing money at the GAA.Not that I have anything against them,I love watching the hurling myself,but fair's fair.

That's because, in all honesty, the FAI has never given us a product to really rival the quality of the Permiership. When you do look at Portugal, you have to think as well that the locals would be just as attracted to the Spanish league as we are to the Premiership. :confused:

Look at the MLS here in the States - only a few years old, but already making money (even though it isn't covered on any of the major TV stations), attracts crowds of 15,000 - 20,000 as well as some reasonably big name stars. Because the league started off knowing that it was going to have to invest in the league to start making money.

That's what the FAI have to do - they were able to more or less raise the cash for Stadium Ireland, or at least a fair wad of it. Plus they've gotten their payoff from the government for scrapping it, and joining up with the BertieBowl. The FAI NEEDS to start ploughing money into the Irish game. It's make or break time now. :rolleyes:

The reason why the LOI hasnt progressed as much as we would have liked is because firstly:

1. Money, Lack of it, Wrongly dispersed.

Everybody nowadays simply define the reason for the poor state of The LOI with one word "money".

But what do they mean?

Look at Croke Park! prime example! the GAA have received Lotto money ang grants. The FAI have received grants and lotto money, but where does it go?

Theese Questions must be answered

*koff*

Back pocket.

*koff koff*

Anyone see the article in De Paper about corruption yesterday? Apparently Ireland is more corrupt than Chile. Who'd'a guessed it, huh?

adam

didnt see it. what paper?

De Paper. The Examiner, or the Irish Examiner, or whatever it's called this week...

adam

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Originally Posted by Gaz

Look at Portugal - they're a country that has around the same population as Ireland, with just half our economy.

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Portugal's population is around 10m - RoI c 4.3, Island of Ireland a bit under 6m. Bet the economic stat is a bit out by now as well...

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Originally Posted by ThunderThighs

Also Portuguese football doesnt have Gaa to compete with aswell.

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But it does have rink hockey!

in norway people do support english teams first. accoring to a 'friend' of mine who supports werder bremen, if you asked 99 in every 100 who they support the answer would say liverpool, man utd, arsernal. however he informs me that norwegian football is put to the fore by the media.


i was watching eurogoals and the portuguese attendances didn't seem so good. i reckon they get a lot of barstoolers, but like in germany and england the barstoolers support the big portuguese teams(like germany-bayern munich/england-man utd)

League structure number 349 from celtic tiger/thunderthighs:rolleyes:

I've been of the belief that the A league is a model the FAI shold be looking very closely at for some time.

http://foot.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=53479

The similarities between the competition from other sports and the media ignoring the local league is very clear.

Since posting this I have noticed the attendances have dipped for the last season

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Originally Posted by ThunderThighs

Im not sure if we should be comparing to Portugal,i'd probably say Scotland,Denmark,Norway or Sweden

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So was that big, dramatic goodbye just for show then? :p

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Originally Posted by endabob1

Since posting this I have noticed the attendances have dipped for the last season

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So it's all your fault then...!?!? :eek:

;)

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Originally Posted by Gaz

That's because, in all honesty, the FAI has never given us a product to really rival the quality of the Permiership. When you do look at Portugal, you have to think as well that the locals would be just as attracted to the Spanish league as we are to the Premiership. :confused:

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The problem is with the complete system, or rather the lack of a complete system. Each section within the FAI works for their own aims rather than for Irish Football. You'd need a revolution in how the so called "nursery" clubs operate before it'd be worth doing anything drastic with the League of Ireland. Everything at underage level should be focussed on developing the players not on trophies or UK trials or UK link ups.

The players should then feed into their local League of Ireland team rather than be shipped out. The top quality players will still go, but not without plying their trade here first (a la Doyle or Hunt). Those not quite good enough will stay playing, rather than be lost to football at 18 when they don't get signed on as a pro, or will stay in the league rather than lower league/ non league in the UK through shame.

Messing with the number of clubs, or creating a franchise league will do nothing, certainly not on it's own. It'd only be a mechanism to kill the league if it was done in isolation. The bar stoolers would still be bar stoolers, making a few trips a year to the UK. They want the glory, as told by sky sports, not real live football you can believe in. The franchises will die because of lack of support and the old clubs would have no credibility left at all.

Lazy journalists (Matt Cooper - I'm looking in your direction especially) make comparisons with rugby, but imo it is only of limited use. The structure is useful because of the ultimate focus is on producing players for the National Team. From school boys, through clubs, to province and then the National Team. In football, the top school boy clubs focus is on honours and UK professionals.The provincial structure works in rugby because the provincial teams were always there above the clubs, and because there is no "tradition" of supporting foreign teams above our own as with football. There is also no inter country league for these teams to play football in, and even at that rugby can only really sustain 3 clubs at that level.

8 years on, the same arguements exist...

The difference with rugby is that there was never an English league that coul offer wages 100 times higher than the Irish domestic league. Even with a franchise or provincial system, our best players would still be attracted across the water, when the top English clubs will pay a single player more than Bohemians pay their entire squad.

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Originally Posted by peadar1987

The difference with rugby is that there was never an English league that coul offer wages 100 times higher than the Irish domestic league. Even with a franchise or provincial system, our best players would still be attracted across the water, when the top English clubs will pay a single player more than Bohemians pay their entire squad.

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The difference with rugby, or any other sport, is that they're NOT FOOTBALL. Jesus Christ, people. :rolleyes:

we've been through this countless times and none of the 'reasons' amount to more than excuses: there's always a counter-example.
1) Other countries are as small as we are, are beside bigger ones with glamourous leagues and manage to have decent domestic leagues and occasional european success (Norway, Denmark)
2) The GAA factor - outside the UK, Italy and Spain, football does not actually monopolise the media the way it does here - ice hockey and basketball, to pick two examples, are hugely popular in northern and eastern countries. In terms of participation in football, i bet Ireland is near the top in European terms.
3) The Sky factor - the problem is not the availability of English football, but the response of the domestic game

The fault lies squarely with those in charge of the game here; not just the FAI but also - maybe mostly - the clubs. Two things; facilities, and long term planning need to be addressed. The problem goes back to the 70s/80s, and the ground lost then, but it can be made up. The first steps have to be clubs setting themselves rational targets, making themselves visible in their communities, putting money into grounds so that it doesn't feel like a trip down a wormhole going to a LoI game. Abusing the premiership fan, while it soothes and consoles us here in our little ghetto, is of no earthly use; we have to get him and his family interested and excited by his local club.

To that end, simply leaving things as they are is not enough - traditional teams shouldn't be tampered with; the Dublin United scenario is a non- starter: the 4 big Dublin sides, and the two Louth sides have identities and loyalties that shouldn't be thrown away. However, the FAI should consider putting some money into starting League teams in Kerry, Meath, Mayo, Tipp, and building structures to sustain them (the Wexford model, sort of) - in this way, you could build a 16 team premier league, and an A league with a decnt geographical spread and without punishing teams in the east of the country simply for having survived.

Facilites are key though: TC apart, (maybe Tallaght, haven't been there yet) there isn't one ground in the country I wouldn't be embarrassed bringing a neophyte to. Until this changes, nothing else will.

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Originally Posted by sonofstan

Facilites are key though: TC apart, (maybe Tallaght, haven't been there yet) there isn't one ground in the country I wouldn't be embarrassed bringing a neophyte to. Until this changes, nothing else will.

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I've brought fans of English clubs (actual English people) to Athlone Town Stadium and Richmond with neither finding either a poor ground. People have a delusional concept of stadia outside the Premiership in England... which unfortunately is all many of the football but non LOI fans here seem to know about.

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Originally Posted by KianD

I've brought fans of English clubs (actual English people) to Athlone Town Stadium and Richmond with neither finding either a poor ground. People have a delusional concept of stadia outside the Premiership in England... which unfortunately is all many of the football but non LOI fans here seem to know about.

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i don't - I've been to loads of non- prem English stadia, and the old Layer Rd in Colchester apart, I can't think of one worse than United Park .....

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Originally Posted by sonofstan

we've been through this countless times and none of the 'reasons' amount to more than excuses: there's always a counter-example.
1) Other countries are as small as we are, are beside bigger ones with glamourous leagues and manage to have decent domestic leagues and occasional european success (Norway, Denmark)
2) The GAA factor - outside the UK, Italy and Spain, football does not actually monopolise the media the way it does here - ice hockey and basketball, to pick two examples, are hugely popular in northern and eastern countries. In terms of participation in football, i bet Ireland is near the top in European terms.
3) The Sky factor - the problem is not the availability of English football, but the response of the domestic game

The fault lies squarely with those in charge of the game here; not just the FAI but also - maybe mostly - the clubs. Two things; facilities, and long term planning need to be addressed. The problem goes back to the 70s/80s, and the ground lost then, but it can be made up. The first steps have to be clubs setting themselves rational targets, making themselves visible in their communities, putting money into grounds so that it doesn't feel like a trip down a wormhole going to a LoI game. Abusing the premiership fan, while it soothes and consoles us here in our little ghetto, is of no earthly use; we have to get him and his family interested and excited by his local club.

To that end, simply leaving things as they are is not enough - traditional teams shouldn't be tampered with; the Dublin United scenario is a non- starter: the 4 big Dublin sides, and the two Louth sides have identities and loyalties that shouldn't be thrown away. However, the FAI should consider putting some money into starting League teams in Kerry, Meath, Mayo, Tipp, and building structures to sustain them (the Wexford model, sort of) - in this way, you could build a 16 team premier league, and an A league with a decnt geographical spread and without punishing teams in the east of the country simply for having survived.

Facilites are key though: TC apart, (maybe Tallaght, haven't been there yet) there isn't one ground in the country I wouldn't be embarrassed bringing a neophyte to. Until this changes, nothing else will.

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Good points.

I really don't think there's that much stopping your average barstooler from being an LOI fan. I have brought one of my mates (from Balbriggan) to two games at the Carlisle, a U20 game, and a league game, both against Dundalk. He's already started calling Wanderers "we", and can't wait until the Derry game on Friday. Maybe he won't be a long-term Wanderers supporter, but he'll probably end up as a regular at either Drogheda or Fingal.

I think the main problem with many barstoolers isn't that they have watched the league and don't like it, it's that it hasn't crossed their minds to go and watch a game. If the FAI get a good marketing drive going in the month before the season starts, really hype up everything, make the league visible, and then keep that up at a lower intensity for the rest of the season, we might start getting some of them out to games.

And as for the facilities, I've been to loads of games at the Britannia Stadium in Stoke, the seats are just the same as any LOI ground, and for all but 15 minutes, you're watching the match, who cares about the rest of the surroundings?

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Originally Posted by peadar1987

I think the main problem with many barstoolers isn't that they have watched the league and don't like it, it's that it hasn't crossed their minds to go and watch a game. If the FAI get a good marketing drive going in the month before the season starts, really hype up everything, make the league visible, and then keep that up at a lower intensity for the rest of the season, we might start getting some of them out to games.

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That to me is the whole problem in a nutshell. I mean, look at the crowds and support Rovers are getting in Tallaght. Look at the marketing they have done. That stuff pays off bigtime.

The facilities argument is not so much about the state of the stadia, as the size of them. The Sheep think that all stadiums have to be huge like Croker or the ones on SKYSports.

Look can we please just shut this thread and ban anyone who tries to start something similar?

Instead if people have a bright idea, submit it in email to the moderators and have a proper well thought out, well written piece published on the blog where an idea if its decent enough can be worked out there. This is just ridiculous.

Gaz - using the MLS and its attendance figures is completely irrelevant. Do you not realise that major global cities put teams into the MLS that might be bigger than this country? Dublin alone supports umpteen clubs. That is a TOP-DOWN method which is completely inapplicable here in a country that has such a strong grassroots. The same for the A-League.

And that whole model just does not work/probably isn't even legal under EC directives in this country/similar country. Infact i'd rather shoot myself than have ridiculous franchise football.

The model we are following, a succesful model implimented in countries of similar situation is the scandinavian model, and its only at the begining of the plan.

I think if the last god knows how many years, particularly the last 18months has indicated ANYTHING, it is NOT to copy what americans do, and to learn from scandinavia.

Don't even get me started on the Portugueuse league thing. Mods please take into account my suggestion for "future structure" things, print off a series of academic proposals etc? These threads just really infuriate me. Barstoolers who pop in and join to lecture us about how the league should be, as if we would NEVER have thought of it ourselves, work out some of the god complex, vanish for a couple of weeks and come back with another worse, if not more idiotic proposal.

There will always be comparisons in sport, it's why stats are so prevalent.

But to compare a previous discussion in Irish Football. When Denmark/Danemark had qualified and preformed compentently at Espana'82 and while they were beating RoI 3-0 in Copenhagen during qualifying for France'84 there was regular proposals that Irish Football should follow the Danish model as this was the route to success
Then Norway beat us 1-0 during the qualifiers for Mexico'86 and 0-0 in Dublin. 'Norway, Norway is the answer to the crisis in Irish Football.'
Akranes, Icelandic football team beat a proud Dublin club 3-0 and 3-0 in Europe.'Icelandic Football look what they have been doing. Surely we can do the same.'

( I was considering bringing a compass to matches so I'd know where the next best thing was coming from.)

Its good to be aware of what is happening in other places.

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Originally Posted by SouthSideHoop

There was an interesting article in the Herald a while back,Gareth Farrelly was talking about the league in it.He says that the Fai need to admit that the current Loi is a shambles.That they're trying to promote something which isnt good.He thinks the hierarchy in Irish football have been around for too long and they just don't know how to make it any better.There has to be a review of the whole league and it cannot be done by the Fai.
So who by then?

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but havent the FAI only been directly running the league for the last 3 years or so ?

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Originally Posted by ShnaeGuevara715

That is a TOP-DOWN method which is completely inapplicable here in a country that has such a strong grassroots. The same for the A-League.

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Precisely. One of the big issues has always been the relationship between the junior league/schoolboy clubs and the LOI clubs. Until a proper pyramid structure is in place where the top junior league players aspire to play in the LOI, then there's no point talking about various incarnations of the top-flight. As it is, there are plenty of junior league players good enough to play LOI, but who don't want to, and whose clubs don't want them to either.

One of the best recommendations in the Genisis report on the league (granted that's not much of a boast) was that of dual registration- where players could be registered with both their local junior clubs and senior clubs.

This the FAI totally ignored. This has resulted in crazy situations like Finn Harps own Youth Team squad (they are registered in the Donegal Youth league) being unable to represent the club at A Championship level.

Dual registration could ease the considerable conflicts between junior and senior football and help get the whole football community working together.

The thing is Irish sports fans are the biggest barstoolers in the world - if there is any sign of a party then we will be there - oh yeah some sport to go as well!!

In terms of quality I think the LOI is fine, it has a decent standard of football with a lot of passion and heart shown from the players

In terms of facilities I dont care - as I only go for the football, but maybe this does put some off visiting grounds

Breaking up the league wont make any difference - Would Sligo or galway get any bigger crowds if they were playing a team from Tipperary or Kerry? I doubt it

For me the FAI have let the league down - it seems a lot of the clubs are doing it all themselves with little support
The LOI needs to be marketed much more but then when you have a muppet like Delaney who is a manure fan (and kissing the likes of bertie, etc) we might have to wait on that one!
We need to get the young people into the sport at an early age - seeing St Pats the other night it was great to see all the youngsters singing, cheering and getting into the spirit of the game -
Also great to see at Shels selling virtually everything in their club shop - to kids, etc. Saw one father buy a kit for his young daughter - thats what we want - the game handed down to the next generation.
But the FAI never market our league

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Originally Posted by sonofstan

2) The GAA factor - outside the UK, Italy and Spain, football does not actually monopolise the media the way it does here - ice hockey and basketball, to pick two examples, are hugely popular in northern and eastern countries.

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I agree with much of what you wrote SOS, but the above has to be challenged as it's incorrect.

Many other countries - big and small in Europe - do have a football dominated media. For example, you didn't mention Germany - the biggest football rights market in the world.

The number of countries in Europe who have football-only newspapers is clear evidence of the thirst there is for for footballing media, and thereby its media domination. Even in smaller countries like Portugal, Armenia and Cyprus - football is the big thing in the media.

In other countrues which do have strong competing sports - e.g. Greece with basketball - football still dominates the media. Ironically - basketball in Greece is dominated by teams from the major football clubs, so another sport actually perpetuates the leech-like media dominance of football there. It's the same in parts of the former Yugoslavia.

Football dominated the media across Europe. Aside from wrestling in Georgia and rugby in Wlaes (debatable), I can't think of any country where football isn't the biggest sport.

Oddly enough, I was thinking of Greece when I wrote that. I used to go out with a woman from Athens, living in England, and from a football loving family - Olympiakos - who found the level of obsession with football to the exclusion of most other sport in the UK media -and society -unfathomable.

Still, maybe I overstated: either way, I still don't really buy the 'it's all the GAA's fault - anymore. In my teens, i lived in Athlone for a few years and supported the town; if you'd asked me then if Westmeath even had a GAA team, i wouldn't have been able to answer from experience - as a pursuit, it was invisible in the town. This isn't true anymore: but up to the 70s/ early 80s. football was the only sport there and in Sligo and in Drogheda and Dundalk, in most of Dublin, in Waterford City and in Derry. The GAA had the rural parts of some of those counties, sure, but not the towns. If football had built from that base, instead of surrendering it, we'd have a healthy medium sized league now, with the possibility of expansion into new territory as well. Sure, the GAA hate football, and have done their best to try and ensure it doesn't prosper, but you can hardly blame them for that: we need to get as political as they are, not wring our hands about the unfairness of it all.

The obvious problem in the LOI is the lack of crowds as everything else flows from that - media coverage, advertising, revenue etc...

There is not a single sport in this country that attracts good crowds every week so I don't know what will get Irish people to attend sport in the way it is done in other countries. That said we are definitely sports made when it comes to watching on TV.

Even if the FAI created a new franchise league with 10 teams playing in new 10k seater stadiums (lets say 10m to buld each stadium) with budgets of E3-4m would the crowds come & stay?

BTW Rovers crowds are good but it is too early to say if it will last...

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Originally Posted by SouthSideHoop

Barstoolers shouldnt be hissed at,if you ask them why dont you support an Irish club,there are loads of different reasons why they dont,but we should ask them what it would take to make them support an Irish club,even retaining their affiliation of their Man United,Liverpool,Celtic etc.

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Nice to see some reason here. Without attracting "barstoolers" the attendances will never increase so they're as much part of the answer as the problem.

On the Ireland forum I asked the question about the general Scandinavian system recently. I'm continuing too look into this. Some of you may be interested to know that a Routledge academic journal called "Soccer and Society" is dedicating its May issue to Sandinavia. It'll be pricey I think but I'll be buying it. If anyone wants more info PM me in May.

Media has been blamed above - I agree entirely - but I wonder if any other country's government has been so consistently & belligerently neglible of football than successive goverments in Ireland have. It's too late now that our Government is virtually broke. The Celtic Tiger years were a crminal waste in terms of facilities investment etc., and not just in football / sport.

I was told by a figure in Irish football recently that he believes disproportionate political representation in GAA areas (i.e, everywhere outside Dublin!) is a fatal factor for football at political level. I suspect for the same reasons that local government solutions like in Tallaght may be hard to replicate.

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Originally Posted by sonofstan

Oddly enough, I was thinking of Greece when I wrote that. I used to go out with a woman from Athens, living in England, and from a football loving family - Olympiakos - who found the level of obsession with football to the exclusion of most other sport in the UK media -and society -unfathomable.

Still, maybe I overstated: either way, I still don't really buy the 'it's all the GAA's fault - anymore. In my teens, i lived in Athlone for a few years and supported the town; if you'd asked me then if Westmeath even had a GAA team, i wouldn't have been able to answer from experience - as a pursuit, it was invisible in the town. This isn't true anymore: but up to the 70s/ early 80s. football was the only sport there and in Sligo and in Drogheda and Dundalk, in most of Dublin, in Waterford City and in Derry. The GAA had the rural parts of some of those counties, sure, but not the towns. If football had built from that base, instead of surrendering it, we'd have a healthy medium sized league now, with the possibility of expansion into new territory as well. Sure, the GAA hate football, and have done their best to try and ensure it doesn't prosper, but you can hardly blame them for that: we need to get as political as they are, not wring our hands about the unfairness of it all.

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I agree with you that it's not the GAA's fault. I would go so far as to say it's something peculair in the Irish psyche - whetehr it be 'post-colonialism' or something else.

Football is the only sport that Irish people not only support foreigners over their own, but then actively deride the domestic alternative. In any other country people may support a team not form their area, or as with Norway not even from their country, but they would still hold a candle for their local team and want them to do well. There are many people in Ireland who really couldn't care less how Irish does, and would even want it to fail.

It's similar to the attitude some people have towards the Irish language - attacking it at any opportunity. Perhaps it's just a subconscious way of dealing with the simple fact that it is indefensible to support a foreign football tema you have nothing to do with. Running down their own league adds justification to their glory chasing.

No-one would support a GAA county they had no connection with, let alone run down their own county at the same time. Only in football (and the language) do we have this peculiar phenomena. We arguably had it in popular muysic up until U2 -the idea that you weren't any good if you were only playing in Ireland. It's an insecurity/inferiority complex that we're still stuck with in football

yeah, I guess, though if people do deride the LoI, it is through a certain guilt - 'we would go if it was any good', and i suppose there is a similar guilty conscience about an teanga: 'who want's to speak a dead language?' (who's letting it die?) or 'it's no use in modern society' (neither is Welsh, but a fair proportion of people there, even closer to England, and not even politically independent, manage to speak it AND English, without finding it too much of a mental strain).

Thing is though, football is hardly on its last legs here (like I fear, but hope not, Irish may be): it's just the LoI that is: and here, maybe is something else we could learn from the GAA - if you play under 10 hurling in Ná Fianna with a plastic camann, you still feel like you're part of the same organisation that goes all the way up to an all Ireland: that simply doesn't happen with football - there's no connect between junior football and the league, no connect between the league and the national team, no connect between playing the sport and the clubs you support. The FAI needs to turn itself into an organisation with the same clout and visibility as the GAA - everything that happens in the sport here needs to feel like its part of the same thing. (a truly national body -north and south - would obviously be a big help here)

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Football dominated the media across Europe. Aside from wrestling in Georgia and rugby in Wlaes (debatable), I can't think of any country where football isn't the biggest sport.

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Latvia : Ice Hockey

Isn't basketball huge in Greece & Lithuania? I think handball is big, at least in terms of TV viewing, in Denmark.

Nordic sports in Scandinavia?

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

Isn't basketball huge in Greece & Lithuania? I think handball is big, at least in terms of TV viewing, in Denmark.

Nordic sports in Scandinavia?

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Football is number 1 in DK, SE and NO - without a doubt.

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Originally Posted by sonofstan

Thing is though, football is hardly on its last legs here (like I fear, but hope not, Irish may be): it's just the LoI that is: and here, maybe is something else we could learn from the GAA - if you play under 10 hurling in Ná Fianna with a plastic camann, you still feel like you're part of the same organisation that goes all the way up to an all Ireland: that simply doesn't happen with football - there's no connect between junior football and the league, no connect between the league and the national team, no connect between playing the sport and the clubs you support. The FAI needs to turn itself into an organisation with the same clout and visibility as the GAA - everything that happens in the sport here needs to feel like its part of the same thing. (a truly national body -north and south - would obviously be a big help here)

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Exactly sonofstan. Until football in this country sorts itself out and starts pulling in the same direction we're going nowhere fast.