Are the Ireland team losing support?

[paul_oshea]

they're not supposed to let you through with cans either!

[mypost]

there are loads of them out in oranmore, mates know loads of them infiltrated the place is.

There was another white and red flag down at the Cusack corner flag, with the popular Polish town of... Waterford.

Security was a joke last night, I hate stands of mixed support, the Poles should have been allocated the Hill 16 side, and the 2 sides up to the halfway line as an overflow area. Yes I know they live here, but it was our home game. That still doesn't stop proper segregation. What will we do when the Italians come next year?

Had another bottle-throwing incident from the premium boxes again, near me just after half time. The coppers were on the scene soon afterwards, but little appeared to have been done.

Attendance released by SS after the game as 61,000

[francesco_1]

There was another white and red flag down at the Cusack corner flag, with the popular Polish town of... Waterford.

Security was a joke last night, I hate stands of mixed support, the Poles should have been allocated the Hill 16 side, and the 2 sides up to the halfway line as an overflow area. Yes I know they live here, but it was our home game. That still doesn't stop proper segregation. What will we do when the Italians come next year?

Had another bottle-throwing incident from the premium boxes again, near me just after half time. The coppers were on the scene soon afterwards, but little appeared to have been done.

Attendance released by SS after the game as 61,000

I'd rather hear the polish people singing and cheering then nobody cheering at all as is the case in lots of matches only a small irish crowd having the balls to sing,are people afraid they willl be judged if they sing to loudly,i also noted that the mexican wave kept stopping right after it left the polish section.

[mypost]

Home fans don't sing in this part of the world. Irish fans always sing at away games.

[elroy]

There was another white and red flag down at the Cusack corner flag, with the popular Polish town of... Waterford.

Security was a joke last night, I hate stands of mixed support, the Poles should have been allocated the Hill 16 side, and the 2 sides up to the halfway line as an overflow area. Yes I know they live here, but it was our home game. That still doesn't stop proper segregation. What will we do when the Italians come next year?

Im all for stands of mixed support, the atmosphere last night would have been nothing without the polish. We could take alot from how they supported their team.

[EastTerracer]

The Russia game has a recorded 45k attendance. The rest of that campaign went belly up after 2 away defeats.


Nevertheless, the competitive games against Belgium and Scotland were packed. Friendlies don't really count, 18k against those 2 teams would be considered very high by any standard at that time in Europe.

In all campaigns from Giles time onwards the public came out and gave the team huge support in the big games until interest in qual had all but gone, then crowds would drop. There is no denial about that.
The so called bandwagon was always there waiting to happen, just never did until 1988. The qual campaign for wc 1982 certainly gripped public interest.

I think we're just looking at different sources on this. Have a look at Donal Cullen's excellent book "Ireland - On The Ball". It details the team lineups and attendances for every Ireland game up to 1993 including match reports.

Some of the numbers and the photos surprised me - the first game of the 1982 campaign, at home to Holland, only drew 30,000 (there's a picture with loads of empty seats in the old East Stand) but when we won that game the interest did increase and the subsequent game against France was the all-time record crowd for an Ireland game until the first game in Croke Park. In reality, our support has always been consistent - when things are going well, especially against big name teams, we will get big home support but when interest wains, support historically always declined to a more modest number. In the 70s and 80s this meant a crowd of 15000- 20000 at a friendly but in the last twenty years we've reached the stage where 35,000 would be a poor crowd. How can we say the team is losing support?

I'm not saying anything about the passion of that support, just the absolute numbers.

[tetsujin1979]

The population of Ireland is about 4.1 million. Of that, how many do you think are sports fans? Not just soccer, but rugby, gaelic, hurling, snooker, formula 1, etc?
I've a good mate who's a massive Kilkenny fan, and used to go to every game at Lansdowne. Now he simply can't afford to attend everything, so he's stopped going to rugby and soccer.
People need to remember - it's not just about the quality of the team, or the passion of the fans (or the lack thereof, on both counts). There are bigger factors in play in the country at the moment.

[Scram]

Great turnout and atmosphere at the Polish game. The highest turnout at any game in Europe. It was the Poles of course who led the way on the pitch and in the stands!

Hopefully Trappatoni cops on to himself and makes the changes NEEDED.

I can't see myself paying a premium for tickets to watch this disorganised uninspiring incompetence much longer and many are of the same opinion.

I thought that Stan's reign ending had put an end to the look of a disorganised incoherent mess.

I dare say that if Andy Reid was in the side, and other changes were made, increased attendence would be assured.

Stephen Ireland returning would seal the deal. An event beyond the fans or Trappatoni's power. The only way I think to get Ireland back is for Richard Dunne to have a word with Robihno etc. and have them subtely let Irealnd know how much they are looking forward to SA 2010!

How much more interesting would an Ireland team be with Reid and S. Ireland involved.

[gspain]

Great turnout and atmosphere at the Polish game. The highest turnout at any game in Europe. It was the Poles of course who led the way on the pitch and in the stands!

Hopefully Trappatoni cops on to himself and makes the changes NEEDED.

I can't see myself paying a premium for tickets to watch this disorganised uninspiring incompetence much longer and many are of the same opinion.

I thought that Stan's reign ending had put an end to the look of a disorganised incoherent mess.

I dare say that if Andy Reid was in the side, and other changes were made, increased attendence would be assured.

Stephen Ireland returning would seal the deal. An event beyond the fans or Trappatoni's power. The only way I think to get Ireland back is for Richard Dunne to have a word with Robihno etc. and have them subtely let Irealnd know how much they are looking forward to SA 2010!

How much more interesting would an Ireland team be with Reid and S. Ireland involved.

Berlin and Paris had better crowds at least.

The atmosphere was awful btw. The Polish fans put on a good show but the whole atmosphere wasn't a patch on the RDS yesterday.