Inter Toto

[Bionic Brennie]

A post from the Rovers forum...

"Am I the only one who couldn't give a flying F*** if we don't qualify for the Inter Toto ? I genuinely believe that this year's Inter Toto adventure screwed up our season.

We had just built up a head of steam in early June when the European games came along and we lost the plot completely as soon as they were over with the three game backlog being a big factor.

There is no money to be made from the Inter Toto and it would just be a distraction from what should be our main priorities for 2004"

[Counting Crow]

That is interesting.

Whoever wrote it was spot on.

The completely fell apart after they were knocked out.

[Éanna]

being honest I agree. I think its a complete waste of time and money. The only thing it does is give the cluba bit of a feel good factor for qualifying for a euro competition but that soon wears off. I'd go so far as to say if we finish 3rd we should refuse the place and concentrate on our domestic form. waste of time and money

[patsh]

Well these matches won't take place until next July or August, and we should be 4 months into the league when/if we play them.
By that stage, we would expect City's league position to be either be a few points ahead at the top, or one or 2 behind $hels/Bohs.
Given that both these clubs will be playing in European competition after us, it should not hamper our march to the title/double.
Play our second 11 for the LC, Munster Senior Cup, and games against inferior opposition like Wahurfort, Harps, SPA etc.
(Moons, Billy, Carey, Derek, K. Murray, Conor, Greg, Kearney, Nwanko, Behan, Casey).

That should give Mickey D, George, Flynnie, Doyler, ColinT, Dan, Benno, Hoggie, Ukoh and our new star midfelder and striker enough rest to take on the big games and get us to the 3rd round of the TwoBob, where we should account for Charlton Athletic over 2 hard fought games. We can go down gloriously then to Deportivo/Bilbao, earning a cool €500,000 in TV rights from our run.
By this stage, the average home gate should have gone to 6,500/7,000, allowing us to offer excellent terms to any player we want. This in turn will stand us in good stead for our Cl run the following season, when we become the first eL team to qualify for the league stages.
In a few years time, just around the time some guy who managed SPA for 2 years will be applying for the job of cleaning the jacks out the Cross and when the corporation decide that they need to build us a 20,000 seater stadium to cope with the growing army of fans of the biggest ever club in this country, we can look back and say"That inter twobob cup eh....remember those days"........

[Schunter Netz]

Brilliant!!...er...whats plan B?

[niamh]

THis season was just a particularly bad one for the Intertoto with so much league congestion. Rovers have a few good games, then 4 European ones, and then come bad ones and it's the Intertoto Cups fault? What about the management and players??

[tiktok]

the thing about the intertoto is that if you do well you have a european fixture every weekend, it's a lot of travelling and expense for less reward than other euro games.

it definitely threw rovers season off track, they hit a very bad slump after being knocked out.

hopefully next season the fixture situation will be better organised (there'll be no daft break for three weeks in the middle of the season) so with a bit of luck it wouldn't have the same effect on us (should we qualify).

[pete]

Originally posted by niamh
THis season was just a particularly bad one for the Intertoto with so much league congestion. Rovers have a few good games, then 4 European ones, and then come bad ones and it's the Intertoto Cups fault? What about the management and players??

Yeah 2004 season should start a couple of weeks earlier & of course there is no Special Olympics break either. Thats almost like a whole extra month to the season.

While Rovers hardly made money from the Inter Too Bob City haver potential for much larger home crowds & professionla clubs need all the revenue they can get. A team would probably need to get to the third round to draw a big team & get some good money. Euro 2004 may even mean bigger clubs hampered by absent international players.

[Schumi]

Originally posted by niamh
THis season was just a particularly bad one for the Intertoto with so much league congestion. Rovers have a few good games, then 4 European ones, and then come bad ones and it's the Intertoto Cups fault? What about the management and players??

It didn't help Pats last season and when we were in it, we had a crap start to the season. It seems a little more than coincidence.

[joe]

hmmm, last time we were in it we finished the season with the fai cup and 2nd/3rd place in the league. think i'll settle for that again, thank you very much

[ccfc till i die]

I dont know how they can claim it ****ed up their season. Maybe a few matches afterwards but in fairness they have had months since their outings in europe and they're still off the ball.
They also went out in the first round of the cup to pats and (I think) didn't go very far in the league cup.
It's a meagre excuse for their bad season.

[Shed End John]

Originally posted by joe
hmmm, last time we were in it we finished the season with the fai cup and 2nd/3rd place in the league. think i'll settle for that again, thank you very much

I'm with you there, Joe. I'm not expecting us to win the League anytime soon with the personnel we have; so the Cup and a high League placing would do just fine.

[paudie]

sure whats the point of playing in the league at all if the club doesnt wan't the hassle/expense of playing in Europe?

The Inter toto was a great excuse for Rovers poor season. It must have really affected them in every game they didn't win in September and October.

Teams probably don't make a fortune out of playing in the Uefa Cup either, unless they get to the first round and get a lucky draw, so if you follow some people's logic seem if we win the cup next year we shouldn't enter the UEFA either.

Loads of of interviews with ex City players have mentioned that European games were one of the highlights of their careers.

As a supporter I think its great to have new teams playing at the Cross and we always get decent crowds for Euro games so the financial burden shouldn't be too bad.

Its long enough since we played in european football without some people suggesting we shouldn't play in it at all when we qualify (fingers crossed).