About 700 in Flancare I'd say. Quite a big Shels crowd, 250-300 of them maybe.
the crowd was half and half Mervue & Salthill as well as it was a town derby, Mervue would have a better chance of bigger crowds i would say but we will see next saturday when they play cork at home. Very disappointed that no match programme even if a team sheet was available, makes you wonder with all the licence lark how much the people who run the game really understand the importance of a team sheet match programme to the regular punters that pay in.
Also GUFC and Connacht rugby were competing against each other on friday night for punters. The venues are barely a mile apart
About 700 in Flancare I'd say. Quite a big Shels crowd, 250-300 of them maybe.
I saw three matches this weekend and it was only watching liverpool that the following facts and questions occurred to me:
1. The population of the Liverpool Urban Area is 816,216 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Urban_Area all of my facts come from wikipedia)
2. The combined capacity of Anfield and Goodison is 85,000.
3. Even if Anfield and Goodison are 3/4 full (63,750) and if only half of that number is from liverpool (31, 875) that makes an attendance rate of 3.9% of the population of liverpool attending premier league football.
4. The population of Greater Dublin is 1,045,769 and 3.9% of that is 40, 784.
Demographically, culturally, Liverpool and Dublin are quite similar. 40,784 divided up between the five Dublin Area clubs is 8,000 each. Why isn't this happening? How can it be achieved?
Last edited by born2bwild; 06/03/2011 at 10:31 PM. Reason: Forgot a full stop.
I take your point: football in liverpool doesn't have the GAA to compete with and the LOI has never been within an ass's roar of the group stages of European competition.
So you've answered my first question but that was the easy one.
When I talked about the similarities between liverpool and Dublin I was thinking about the following: both have large urban, working class populations and this is where support for football is rooted. The GAA isn't so ingrained in Dublin that it cannot be taken on and beaten. Look how Shams faced down Na Fianna.
My second question, rephrased is: 40,000 per week at games in place like Dublin is possible - how can we make it a reality? By the way, I'm really talking about anywhere in Ireland where football can be popularised - not just Dublin. There is a football loving public out there - stand in the arrivals hall on a Saturday night in the airport and you'll see people who are going to crazy lengths to watch 22 blokes kicking a ball around.
According to Wikipedia, the population of Derrys urban area is 85,016. 3.9% of that (if my calculator is right) is 3316. Last season we were in the 1st Division so naturally that reduced our gates. In previous years our avg. gates were : 2,436 PD; 3,363 PD; 2,614 PD; 3,229 PD; 2,698 PD. which isn't to bad on its own. It looks a darn sight better when you remember that being a divided town, some parts of the city would never consider going near the Brandywell and would support Institute(IL) out in Drumahoe for their fix of local football. I don't know what Institutes avg. gate is but they are getting stadium work done ahead of us so they must be doing something right.
The population of Sligo Town including its environs according to wikipedia is 19402.
The average attendance last season was 1807.
According to my calculator that is 10.74%.
The only other club in the premier that comes near that id say is Dundalk.
But comrade Rasputin we most not forget about our the supporters from the countryside which makes up a fairly large percent of our fan base.
Misfits
Bad form not to have a match programme as required in the Participation Agreement.
Not quite so bad, but very annoying, was the fact that the press box at Longford Town had no team lists until AFTER the game had started. So eventhough there were programmes, we could not put numbers against the names o the team lists in the programme.
The first goal was missed by those in the PB, while they were trying to write out the team lists from a bad carbon copy of the referee's team list, which had just arrived.
The pA was eventually in a position to give the team line-ups at half-time. NOT GOOD ENOUGH !!
Well you started a thread about pineapple so you most be excited about it?
Misfits
[QUOTE=Lim till i die;1461397]I agree, both Liverpool and Dublin have huge traditions of success in Gaelic Games and football at the European level.
I don't think Liverpool would have done that well in Europe with average home attendances of 2,000. (I'd also be curious to know how many people at Liverpool's home games travel over from Dublin)
. And if every other country in the world played Gaelic Games, Ireland would be ranked about 35th in Europe, and Irish people would be following GAA teams from Manchester, Glasgow. and Liverpool.
The answer to to your original question is - Irish people are event junkies and have no imagination.
[QUOTE=Straightstory;1461667]That's right: they need bells and whistles - I loathe the GAA and much of what it stands for but look at how they advertise. See that ****e last month with Jedward and four GAA matches in Croke Park?
The FAI could fire Trappatoni, hire Pat Fenlon, spend the millions saved on serious, sustained advertising - the level and quality of Guinness's ads for bogball, bogstickball and touch - pause - excuse to touch other men - ball(s).
10% of the population aren't even Irish - they could easily be got in the doors by advertising in Polish, Russian, French and Portuguese.
There is no good reason why that target market of 40,000 people in Dublin is not being aggressively tapped.
Or maybe there are three reasons? F A and I?
Sligo would be on their own for this type of ratio/pecentage, as even with the second highest crowds in the PD last season (1,900) the population of Dundalk is either 30k or 35k (including Blackrock) so it would be a much lower ratio/percentage than Sligo.
Pineapple I think I may have posted first about the good opening week crowds, I didnt say they would continue, just making a comment that 'it was a great start'
And it was.
Thats all
#DundalkFC - First Irish club to win an away game in Europe (1963), first Irish club to win points in a group stage in Europe (2016).
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