Originally Posted by
Shedendinvisibl
I read the 4 pages of that Man U forum and 80% of it is goonery. A few points of note...
1) People don't consider our football of any use as it's "Semi Pro" or "Part Time". The two biggest sports in Ireland are amateur and they can get to to 80,000 people to their games. You can't compare it, GAA clubs are insitutions that have been based in stable conditions and feed back into a collective consciousness of who we are (ie lower professional, working class, middle class Irish), and the fact that the sports were effectively outlawed and blocked for hundreds of years (esp Hurling under the Statutes of Kilkenny), the romance has been built up. Add to this that clubs are based around a church and parish, compared to rather more itinerant clubs in football, the connection is long lasting. However developing stable (on and off the field) football clubs will allow for a 10-20 year connection to grow with a local community, instead of wandering around the city and county looking for a gap in the fence to go play a game.
2) People claim they only support Man U, Liverpool et al as a family member used. Every auld fellow you talk to in Dublin supported Rover, Bohs, Shels and Drums yet their sons never did. Supported is a tough one, maybe followed - and I know more people who claim to have been at LOI games when they have no more interested in standing in a puddle than I would. Talk is cheap as they say, but you're right, some family's hand down traditions, but it's not always the case. Though in Ireland there is a disconnect related back to the halycon days of the league and 1960's/70's emigration and rural to suburban movement. A former Uni classmate of mine was born a reared GAA and hated football, he got digs on Connaught St., ventured to Dalymount one wet Friday when he'd nothing to do and now (living in Germany) he's a fanatical football fan (MSV Duisburg).
3) People claim clubs don't have any community or underage involvement. Shels, Pats, Rovers and Bohs all have huge underage sections while UCD offer university scholarships. I can't speak for other clubs but I'd assume most if not all of them have some underage set up. True, but the value of underage is only applicable when promising players are not led by their parents to the UK and out of the system. I was told by a colleague that we should institute the old Eastern European thing of not letting players leave the country until they're 29! I can only speak from a passing experience of Shels underage and it wouldn't be the most progressive, Rovers are improving and I believe Sporting Fingal are on the right track, Wexford have shown how it can be done, the old Cork City too, though there needs to be a full plan in place to make it all worthwhile.
4) People claim LOI clubs have bad infrastructure or facilities to be a factor in their not attending games. While we are not palatial by any means a walk around most city parks at the weekend sees same critics changing in car boots in heaving rain. Playing is different to watching (unless you're stuck out in the back end of Ballyfermot watching some Saturday 3 A side slogging it out in a mudbath. Facilities in Ireland don't lend themselves to progress, and certainly the atmosphere isn't helped. It's a chicken and egg, do you build and hope they come, or get the crowds and then build?
5) People claim poor football to be a reason not to go to games. While the quality of a Premiership game is generally way better, this is as much the vast gulf in resources and cash and player availability as anything. Agree, though some of the Sky league fare is awful, though it's well packaged for Dunphy and co to talk about. Quality football doesn't always mean excitement, when Ireland were battling to wins under Jack Charlton the style of football perfectly suited our psyche - get the ball forward and get stuck in. We changed the style and slipped back, or other teams began to read us - I prefer the former reason! :-)
6) Lastly, the greatest problem is the perception of the game here and what you get from it. €15 wouldn't even cover the breakfast on a day trip to Anfield; the cost of a one day excursion would more than cover a season ticket into a LOI club as well as a programme and a half time pint. So long as people reckon it's bad value to go to games here they won't go and IMO we are onto a long term losing battle unless people change their attitude to going to games here. Agreed, but as was mentioned on the redcafe thread, we're event junkies for the most part, and this is always going to cause problems. We'll never have clubs filling their grounds week in week out in Ireland because there are too many reasons for this not to happen. Club owners (not all) have an appalling lack of understanding of how to make it happen, our governing body are too corrupt of spirit and foresight, senior and junior clubs are disconnected, the GAA is huge and Rugby has copied the GAA blueprint and flourished, we're in a continent where there are too many top leagues and distractions.
Feel free to comment....
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