No-one's saying it would be immediate. It would be a longer-term thing. A realignment of habits over time ; A change in where an entire town looks to (or has to look to) for senior football. The quickest shift could actually be in terms of minor sponsors, rather than fans.Originally Posted by sadloserkid
I fear you're in denial about the impact an LOI club in Letterkenny could have on the longer term fortunes of Finn Harps.
I think we're broadly in agreement then though the scale and speed of the process and how significant that would be to Harps is still open to speculation. 🙂
Absolutely. I'm not saying that a Letterkenny would survive (or that Harps wouldn't), just that it would make things more difficult for Harps.
Entering the league seems to be easy part, keeping a team going has proven very difficult.
Only one 'new' team that entered the league in the past 37 years has survived.
Any Letterkenny team would have serious competition from an already established Harps side, who will likely have a new ground in place shortly.
There isn't a viable LoI ground currently in Letterkenny, and you'd have a hard time procuring any public funds to pay for it.
I just don't know if there is there is enough interest for two LoI clubs in the area, but this is me guessing. Is it worth having a new LoI team in Letterkenny if it means losing already established one? Would that even come into any licensing application?
FWIW, we're probably going about this the wrong way. If we'd a proper pyramid structure to the game, this wouldn't be a debate.
This is a brilliant debate lads to kill the boredom of bank holiday mondays filling the voids. I am not an expert on county size but Co Cork is a huge county and easily sustains two loi sides. Surely Co Donegal can do the same also? I know with Co Cork you have Limerick and Waterford . With Co Donegal you have Sligo Rovers and Derry City nearby. Co Donegal is a massive county I would be confident in that if Letterkenny decide to join the LOI it wont effect Harps support too much. Maybe Im wrong!
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
It's the population of a county/area that matters really, rather than the geographical size. And with football being a primarily urban sport, it's density/the presence of relatively large settlements in particular that matters.
Cork county has well over half a million people in it. Cork City is over 200,000 people (double that in the metropolitan area), so is well able to sustain an LOI club in terms of population. Cobh is part of Cork's metropolitan area, but has been a 'soccer' town since pretty much the sport reached Ireland. It's also got 13,000 people in the town, which is bigger than Longford Town and more than double Ballybofey-Stranorlar. The populations of Cork City and County are also growing quite a bit too.
Conversely - The problem with Donegal is that it's geographically big but has a small population, and only one real urban area. The whole county has about 160,000 people. Letterkenny is its only settlement of scale, at 20,000 people. Second is Buncrana at about 7,000, followed by Ballybofey/Stranorlar at about 5,000. The bit of Donegal that is linked physically and in parts economically/traditionally to Derry (the Inishowen peninsula, including Buncrana) has more than 30,000 people. The rest of the county is fairly thinly populated really. In the last census (2016), Donegal was one of only 3 counties that actually had a declining population - though this year's census is likely to see it return to growth again.
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 06/06/2022 at 5:02 PM.
Population really is only a part of whether a proffessional football team would be stable or not. It is really silly to look at that one factor and think , yeah this town deserves an LOI team based on the catchment area. There are multitudes more reasons why an LOI team can be sustained in one urban area and not in another.
Kilkenny City, Fingal, and Newbridge Town are all bigger population centers than the areas you are mentioning, yet could not sustain a strong enough following to keep LOI football. To be honest, you are looking at it pretty wrong. Just because there is people around doesnt mean they have 1) an interest in the sport or 2) have a connection/ willingness to support aN LOI club.
It seems kind of like a rugby person trying to fix football here or a colonial attitude of looking at a map and drawing borders. One factor does not make an area suitible for a national sports team. If Letterkenny Rovers (or any club) do not have passionate members, willing to work hard across multiple generations to develop cultural capital inside the area, then no matter what the population is the cathchment area, it wont survive. Not knowing the dynamics of the area, but the people of Letterkenny might see Finn Harps as a Donegal Team, not a Ballybofey team, and would not switch allegience. (It might be the other way too, where Letterkenny people would never support a team from Ballybofey- be delighted for an LOI team... or they could just be ambivalent to the whole thing). You can't just say which way it is based on pop stats though.
I remember when in the Mid-2000s when Drogheda was winning and Dundalk was in the First, I had mulitple people tell me that the clubs should merge into one Louth team based in Drogheda to increase the catchment area. I would bet my life on it if it happened, not one Dundalk fan would travel 20 min down the road. Same arguments with stats and data, yet compleltly missing the dynamics of the area.
But simply looking at population numbers does a total disservice to the hard work clubs (and Finn Harps) have done to get a following. You can't just magic up that hardwork for another area.
I love pondering about future LOI clubs as much as anyone, but there is no subsitution for the cultural capital created by the already sustainable LOI clubs.
To clarify - professional sport is all about money. And that needs either popular support and/or financial 'investment' (though injections of the latter without the former won't build longer-term stability).
Will having a large population to appeal to ensure viability in professional sport all on its own ? Of course not. No-one has claimed it would. But NOT having a sizeable population to tap into makes long-term viability unlikely, without injections of money from somewhere else. Because professional sport is all about money. And if you don't have a big enough actual or potential support base to generate that money from within, then it has to come from somewhere else. And if it isn't self-generated through local appeal, then the club is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term.
It's no accident that the most successful football teams in each country are usually from its larger population centres. It's not places like Cheltenham or York that bag the success in England. It's London, Manchester, Liverpool. In a league with 92 senior teams and well over 100 professional ones, that leaves room for lots of smaller clubs further down the pyramid. But the LOI doesn't have anywhere near that depth, and never will have either.
To reiterate again what I'm saying so we're 100% clear : Will having a relatively large population ensure the long-term viability of an LOI club on its own. No. Absolutely not. But is NOT having a relatively large population likely to undermine the longer-term sustainability of any LOI club ? Yes. Particularly as the game here becomes increasingly professional and money-dominated - which is the path it is slowly but surely on (especially with the money from Europe).
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 06/06/2022 at 8:38 PM.
Okay, everyone can agree. If Letterkenny Rovers put in the same work as Finn Harps did for the last 50 years, they would probably have a higher potential and ceiling than Finn Harps.
But they didn't. So for me, all of it is a moot-point.
Nothing stopping Letterkenny Celtic from trying to become an LOI team.
That all went a bit too in-depth for a totally hypothetical situation
Cavan/Monaghan FC, Mayo FC, Klub Kildare FC, Carlow Kilkenny FC and Kerry FC should be the template for all League of Ireland hopefuls to follow. Join the underage leagues, build from there and see where it takes you.
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined.
First Division 2014: 7 first teams and a B team.
Opportunity lost for new clubs to join GLITW.
Letterkenny / Harps would have an Derry/ Stute vibe to it with Letterkenny the daddy of the relationship.
As Irishmen we dilute our sense of nation by depending on the English to bring us our balls
If I remember correctly, some of the big DDSL clubs were rejected from the LOI underage leagues (quite rightly). So the option is not available to all.
Also probably important to note, these are brand new entities, not established teams in the region who are trying to step up. It means that the volunteer/ community core might be missing from these clubs. Not that it might not matter, but Klub Kildare is not a Newbridge Town or Maynooth trying to step up into LOI, but seems a kind of ETP type programme with the aim of developing players. Again, it seems fuzzy to me, but it might mean that these new entities do not have the people to pull on to run a senior club.
I don't know the dynamics of it, but as far as I can tell, these are as much top-down FAI driven clubs, to offer competitive football for players in unrepresented regions. It might be masking a lack of appetite for senior LOI football to be developed. It might also be that other clubs from the area are told that no, you cannot compete in the national league unless you took a regional name (which would also probably make sense). Keeping with the example, Newbridge Town might be told that you can run an LOI underage team, but it must represent Kildare, so the same people who would have been running a Newbridge Town team in LOI are now running the Klub Kildare.
It seems successful for Kerry FC, but they also have a prominent ex LOI player pushing it and some American backers. The other clubs might not have that. I think we all want every region in Ireland to be represented in LOI, but it is also important to know the huge resources, both economic and human effort, that is required to run a sustainable senior team at the LOI level. Hopefully, a Third Tier will be the best stepping stone for these clubs to becoming sustaniable clubs.
Strabane get 2 men and a dog if they are lucky. They play I'm a league of seven teams and came second. They are surrounded by Derry, Coleraine,Institute, Dergview, Limavady utd and portstewart. They wouldn't last pi**ing time yet pull any support from any of the surrounding clubs including Harps. Remember Harps have had local competition in the past. They have watched them come, fail and dissappear back into obscurity while Harps trundle on.
Would Inishowen be a viable catchment area for a LOI club? Maginn Park seems good enough, and there is a sort of cultural divide between the peninsula and the rest of the county.
KiKi Balboa makes a good point about having the volunteer force to support a new club. I think if a group of people already involved in junior football come together and decide they want a senior club for their town/region/county it can be done. The ambition doesn't need to fester away in one club for years for it to be proven
oh boy I'm not good at football forums
Are there enough clubs in Dublin already?
Regards Kerry and the other non LoI entities, there is a strong history of representative football in Ireland. The Kennedy Cup for example. For areas without League of Ireland representation, a representative team in the youth leagues has been a fair solution. They have been facilitated by the FAI, as opposed to driven by the FAI.
You are right that these entities do not have the resources to sustain a senior team at LoI level.
An Intermediary League could allow U23 sides from the LoI clubs, with leeway for 3 overage players.
If non LoI entities want to progress to LoI level, an intermediary league can at least afford them that opportunity to put the structures in place.
There doesn't appear to be any club in these areas willing to take the leap. If a club can be formed with the support of the majority of the clubs and the district league, it should be less divisive in the long run. Cobh don't have the support of all of Cobh?
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined.
First Division 2014: 7 first teams and a B team.
Opportunity lost for new clubs to join GLITW.
I personally dont think it would be viable but who knows I suppose,it has a strong enough local league all on its own seperate from the rest of the county,but I'm not sure that would translate into whats required to sustain a club in the LOI.....
Irish by birth ,Harps by the grace of god.
Yeah, definitely. Not saying it is not a good idea.
If a third tier is a possibility to be formed in years to come, how many of the current 19 LoI clubs are likely to join with a reserve/B/U23 team?
https://foot.ie/forums/117-Kerry-FC
A Championship: 4 years - 8 first teams - 0 financially ruined.
First Division 2014: 7 first teams and a B team.
Opportunity lost for new clubs to join GLITW.
I'd tend to agree with that.
Perhaps, if there was a regional set-up under a third tier, they could attempt to field a side. Having Maginn Park is a big plus.
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