I would love if the club set the bar a bit higher.
Maybe it is time that cookie came out and said that we are genuine title contenders.
The people of sligo and surrounds are ready to back this club to the hilt.
We will never have a better chance than 2010.
3 or 4 more good players and we can compete with bohs and shams.
Or am i blinkered in my view????
It sounded much like a pre-cursor to another crisis from your chairman but in reading on it does appear the club has turned a corner once again and is back on its feet and looking to build. Its a problem of the LoI that the numbers behind a club are so few that the dissenter and critic here and there will always be heard. I think some of the responses to Peachy have been harsh. My limited experience tells me that mistakes are repeated in this league and having seen it first hand there's an over confidence that comes with progress and moving the club in the right direction that very often ends up in failure all over again whether its down to setting ambition or a budget too high. There will always be dissenters and those sitting back waiting on a club to fail. What's needed is honesty and thats something that doesn't lie and the majority of people will always be lured by that. Its guaranteed. People get stung by past promises and letdowns and are hard to win back. I could say this of any LoI club because the margins between success and failure are miniscule. As a Harps fan I know a thing or two on the subject. These are just my opinions however.
GENUINE COMMENTS "HARPSBEARER" AND THEY TOUCH THE SOUL AT THIS TIME OF THE MORNING. however the big problem is that the general public are not aware of how good the standard in L.O.I is. the fai/league are not marketing the game properly to the masses. for instance if you by any paper /tabloid you must trawl through 4 or 5 pages from the back before you get any comment on the L.O.I. & then it is miniscule. of course we then face the "david v. goliath" situation where we are always competing against the G.A.A. during the summer. it's not so much the championship games but the fact that a lot of young lads are training on a summers eve when a L.O.I game is on. we need to lean from the rugby fraternity, they have completely turned in around in the last 7 years. every kid in the south of ireland wants to play "rugger" & indeed in leinster. the problem is we do not have quality people at the very top in the fai/league who can market "our" domestic game properly. back in the 50's & early 60's L.O.I FOOTBALL WAS V.WELL SUPPORTED (but so was rugby & g.a.a. always is) but we never really moved on. funnily enough it should be much easier during times of recession to attract bigger crowds to the L.O.I. as people have less money to spend on flights but maybe it is only wish full thinking on my behalf
Good point about how L.O.I isn't being marketed properly, but the question remains, how do we market it properly ? recently someone mentioned that RTE had an ad for the upcoming sports of 2010 and didn't have 1 mention of MNS or any L.O.I football whatsoever, for a national tv station they're doing well in promoting the nations league teamsI also love how so many people in Sligo claim they love football but how often are they in the Showgrounds ? and for a town that supposedly prefers football, you still get 11,000 in Markevicz Park to see Sligo play Galway ? a fine example of contradicting yourself. I've said it to people before, but not on here, but we won't compete for the bigger crowds with summer gah unless we are genuinely challenging for the title. The FAI Cup had 8,000+ there, roughly just over 7,000 were there to support the Bit' O Red, take away about 5000 and sadly thats your regular attendance, but even though we lost in a heart breaking fashion, I have a feeling this could attract fans back with hope and ambition for the season ahead. This is the most enjoyable off season we've probably had since promotion considering we seem to be sound financially, we're being run very as mentioned and have brought in some very good players, aswell as keeping hold of alot of key players e.g Peers,Brush. Lets be positive about the season ahead, and hold all the negative comments back until we see how the season goes, like Cook said last season "Wait for the first 9 games, then judge us", so I think we should all take this on board before having anything negative too say about the club for the forthcoming season.
Coleman for Ireland
Couldnt agree more more with the first part of your post...people are unaware and when i try to encourage people to go to matches its always "sure thats ****e football" even tho they have never been at a match!!..we have to try and change that preconception....would have to disagree a bit about the Rugby..every kid wants to play it now for one reason..SUCCESS...bandwagon,gloryhunting call it what you like we have a successful national team and club teams..and kids(and plenty of adults) will always jump on the back of a winning team/sport..there was f*ck all interest in rugby where im from 5 or 6 years ago now everyone is a fan/expert...soccer will always be more popular but unfortunatly for the LOI the loyalty of the soccer fans in Ireland is mostly with English teams..thats what we have to change...the Rugby "fans" can identify with an Irish team that is successful on the International and European club scene and thats what appeals to them at the minute....
Brave statement to make, but I genuinely think we arent far away from this. Cynics among us would point to the thousands that turned up on cup final day and say where will they be next season. At every club or organisation you will have a certain percentage that will jump on the bandwagon. But I think if we can hve a bit of consistency over a couple of seasons and not implode like we have done in the past, market ourselves correctly we will add to our gates, the potential is there. The problem in the past was if we got near a bit of success we sold the team down the river and would be back to square one on and off the pitch. People felt let down and there was nothing left to believe in.
Maybe with the board we have now their is a chance to be consistant and build from there.
I think we will do well to get third next season however.
A solid start to the season is important.
Couldnt agree more. You just have to look at Munster, their off field achievements are almost as impressive as their achievments on it. Shams seem to have taken several leaves from their book in terms of marketing, PR etc. no reason why we couldnt do the same. As I said already we have massive potential.
What do u mean by Munsters off field achievements?..im not being a smartarse i just have no interest in Rugby so not sure what your refering to.
Have to agree with the fact that the only way we're going to get people to go is to be challenging at the top of the table. Remember the crowds in 94 and also in 95 when we were on something like a 12 game unbeaten run and looking like we could win the league (only to in true Rovers fashion to completely fade away - the hope is the worst!)
It's not just us that have the same situation. Shels played Deportivo a few years ago in Lansdowne. 24k at it. Played really well. Some great football. Everyone left the ground happy with the performance. Think they played UCD next week in the league and had less then 1,000 at it.
If the Irish team started fading away at rugby the whole hype would go away as well. There was a Munster Leinster game in the mid 90s with only a couple of hundred at it. It happens in every sport alas
"Even if the wind stops to blow
Even if the sea ceases to flow
Even if the sun ceases to rise
The name of Sligo Rovers will shine and shine forever like the morning star glittering in the sky."
Drunk off those wine gums, ey peachey?![]()
And that's different how exactly?Drunk post, no sense![]()
"Even if the wind stops to blow
Even if the sea ceases to flow
Even if the sun ceases to rise
The name of Sligo Rovers will shine and shine forever like the morning star glittering in the sky."
That's it in a nutshell.
as far as I know the county team will have a maximum of 15 competative matches this year - compared with close to 40 for the Rovers - and of those 15 probably only two or three will attract a 'big crowd'. But the hype in the local media will have you believe that they are getting those crowds every second week.
don't forget sunday, Arse v Manure in 3d or not, 5.30 Clarion.
Lads, the main purpose of the forum is that we are looking for help.
We need more people on the committee.
We need people to help on match nights plus people to help on an ongoing basis-even an hour a week would be great.
We want constructive criticism-maybe there are better ways of doing some of the jobs we do.
We will listen to all ideas.
But the bottom line is that income from the gate will not pay the bills-same for every club. We need to rely on the various fundraisers to make up the difference.
If we have more money, we can get better players, we can spend more on the marketing of Sligo Rovers, we can improve our facilities but it all takes money. If we leave it to the next fellow to do it, it wont get done.
At the same time, we had a good year last season apart from 2 games!! We cleared all the old tax and made improvements in the ground. Our squad seems stronger now than it was this time last year. We have some good lads on the committee plus we have a lot of great people helping out on match nights who often dont get any thanks.
But Sligo Rovers is your Club, the supporters and it is you who will determine where we go next as a club. Do we go the next level and challenge for the league and have European football regularly in the Showgrounds, do we stay where we are or God forbid, do we head back down to the First division. The choice is yours.
Let's try and get a good crowd out on Sunday and kickstart our season. Remember Sligo Rovers is a Great Club and it is Yours.
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