2012 First Division structure?

[TheBoss]

Thats definitely wrong Fiorentina went bust and then a new club bought back the name.

Edit: Heres a bit of the story http://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-05-1...r-name/1854868

Just look up ''Lodo Petrucci''

[nigel-harps1954]

Well Over 100 games in the last three years FWIW. Not that I'm particularly pushed about justifying myself on the internetz.

Top tip: Things will sometimes seem utterly bizarre when you read your own meaning into them rather than what's actually there.

BonnieShels got it straight away and slk more or less nailed it in point three so I'm gonna leave it at that.....


On the structure of the Division (let's all go back there!) it's going to be a bit sucky, 28 games is gammy and I can see (at this early stage!) the division breaking down as follows:

Limerick - A cut, nay several cuts, above everyone else. Arguably the best player in every position in the Division and some solid back up to boot. We should absolutely stroll it. We won't.

Longford - Solid, workmanlike, a couple of years building now, will win a lot of tight games. They kind of remind me of Mick Cookes Monaghan at this stage.

Waterford - Possibly poorer than last year, but then the division is a hell of a lot poorer than last year. They'll do alright, always seem to have a little bit of extra quality at this level.

Harps - Will be Harps. "Physical", Northern, a fairly tough, fairly toothless, cookie.

Athlone - I've a sneaking suspicion (hope?!) they wont be as terrible as people suspect. Mike Kerley is generally able to get a good run out of even very ordinary teams if given time.... If he doesn't I reckon he'll be for the road either way. Will always try to play ball, which is refreshing in the First Division.

Mervue - Have probably gone backwards since last year, Ger Hanley gone, first full season without Gaffney, no sign of Tom King?? But then so has the Division so they'll probably stand still.

Wexford - Will be terrible. And we'll struggle against them.

Salthill Devon Galway - I know nothing about. They'd want to sign a few players to avoid being a bit of a joke though. Get browning points from me for moving to Terryland though!

Wow - 8 teams. EIGHT teams.

Just realised how rubbish it is typing there.

Hard to argue with most of that post LTID, going to be one absolute shocker of a division this year. Limerick will walk it. If you ask me, it's anyones game after that. Waterford have made one or two good signings, but they were very poor last year and it would take a lot more than one or two players to make them a much better side.
Longford are the side to look at this year by all means and Athlone should be there or thereabouts. I just hope to be pleasantly surprised this year by Harps and hopefully push for a top 4 finish, although seems unlikely, it's not impossible given how poor the division is.

[BonnieShels]

Harps will finally get a top-4 finish and STILL be mid-table! Sums ye up doesn't it?

[blue til i die]

Limerick - A cut, nay several cuts, above everyone else. Arguably the best player in every position in the Division and some solid back up to boot. We should absolutely stroll it. We won't.

I think I could probably make some arguments about that but yes, arguably, I guess. Very hard to compare every position when u see opposition 3/4 times a season though.

Waterford - Possibly poorer than last year, but then the division is a hell of a lot poorer than last year. They'll do alright, always seem to have a little bit of extra quality at this level.

Possibly poorer than last year? I wouldn't agree at all. The only concern is a keeper but I dont see us missing the likes of Wilson (barely played) and Kenny Browne (awful last season). Burns didn't have a great season but we need another keeper to go with Hughes. Murray was good but missed most of the end of the season and we had enough cover, with another defender to join soon. Dempsey and Frost coming in are good signings, especially Dempsey, who was simply brilliant last season in the Premier Division.

I don't think you'll dominate as much as your fans seem to be expecting, but we'll wait and see how this joke of a league turns out

Longford have a good squad and should finish third behind us but they'll beat us in the play-off.. After that, anything can happen tbh, but it's going to be a season that will seem to go on and on and on.

[BonnieShels]

...and Ariston...

[nigel-harps1954]

Harps will finally get a top-4 finish and STILL be mid-table! Sums ye up doesn't it?

I'm a glass half full sort of person.

[BonnieShels]

Glass half-full of Daisy's finest.

[legendz]

The First Division has been very competitive in recent years. Teams in that league have done ok in the cups and not hindered by being a level down.

[4tothefloor]

You're missing my point entirely. The ironically named LimTilIDie (really?) appears to be saying that he or she doesn't care what club in Limerick plays senior football as long as someone does. I'm saying that this is a very unusual way to look at football, where loyalty to a club and its identity is normally hugely important.

It's important to me as a Waterford Utd supporter that I can trace the club lineage back to 1930, just as its important to Cork City fans to show allegiance to the club lineage from 1984 onwards. We can argue the toss about whether ouir claims are true or not, but we are at least agreed that the issue is important to us. Not so it appears for our Limerick brethren, one of whom has no problem with Galway Devon or whatever they are calling themselves taking over the identity of Galway United, and another two of whom have no problem who plays senior football in their city as long as someone does.

LOI never ceases to amaze me. Even its fans are mad.

What LTID means is that the current club Limerick FC is essentially the same club that has always existed, just a different name. Largely the same people involved, same fans, same colours, same people involved in the supporters clubs, same people involved in working to keep senior soccer afloat etc etc. The only difference really is a different chairman and name on each occasion. You will not find many people, if any at all, that attend Limerick's games who view the current club as something separate to the past incarnations. I've been going to Limerick matches since the late eighties and to me it's the same club.

I think what you mean is that if say, Pike Rovers or Fairview Rangers stepped up and took over as being the senior club in Limerick, would LTID still support them? I doubt he would, and I wouldn't either as neither of those clubs would mean anything to me and in my opinion wouldn't be representative of Limerick.

8 team league is ****e. And not really comfortable with this 'we'll walk the league' attitude. This is Limerick after all. I'll reserve my judgement until series one has been completed, but I do expect us to go up with the squad we have.

[gormacha]

What LTID means is that the current club Limerick FC is essentially the same club that has always existed, just a different name. Largely the same people involved, same fans, same colours, same people involved in the supporters clubs, same people involved in working to keep senior soccer afloat etc etc. The only difference really is a different chairman and name on each occasion. You will not find many people, if any at all, that attend Limerick's games who view the current club as something separate to the past incarnations. I've been going to Limerick matches since the late eighties and to me it's the same club.

Fair enough. LTID's original post didn't read like that to me, but if that was the point being made, then we're actually agreeing, which is a disappointment as I thought we were onto a genuine argument.

I think what you mean is that if say, Pike Rovers or Fairview Rangers stepped up and took over as being the senior club in Limerick, would LTID still support them? I doubt he would, and I wouldn't either as neither of those clubs would mean anything to me and in my opinion wouldn't be representative of Limerick.

That was my reading of the original post, yes. A case of crossed wires then. Shame!

Agree with everyone about the eight team league. Dreadful. Ye should win the division by 15 points though. And we should finish second. but I wouldn't bet on either of those outcomes.

[nigel-harps1954]

Glass half-full of Daisy's finest.

We'll leave Daisy out of this. She's done nout wrong.

[sullanefc]

It would be hard to argue that the current Napoli, Fiorentina, Aldershot etc clubs aren't the direct descendants of the clubs that went bust, the difference with Cork being that before now, a new club with a completely different name (FORAS FC was just a legal requirement) replaced the preceding team. Of course, what distinguishes the foreign clubs is they had to restart at a lower level of the pyramid, and while in Limerick's case the lowest rung was the First Division, FORAS and Derry could have been sent to the A Championship, but the risk to the clubs futures probably overruled that.

I don't think that is accurate. The A-Championship was technically not the lowest rung of the LOI ladder. It was basically a reserve league for where teams outside the LOI could compete in while they prepared themselves for the LOI first division. If Tralee, Carlow or anyone else could have attained a first division license during the years of the A championship, then they could have gone straight in. Cork City Foras and Derry City were successful in their applications for first division licenses and were hence admitted to that league.

[legendz]

The A Championship was the third tier. The route to the first division was to be the best first team, finishing in the top 3 of either group and qualifying for a promotion/relegation play-off against the team finishing last in the first division. Salthill beat Cobh in such a play-off. Tralee, Carlow and any other club could've obtained a first division licence but would still have had to qualify on the field of play, unless of course a position had become available.

[galwayhoop]

Both wrong but Legendz closer.
2008 Mervue bet Kildare in a playoff but Cobh took Kildares place in the A Championship.
2009 Salthill were to play Kildare but Kildare folded and Salthill went up.
2010 Cobh lost out in Playoff to Salthill so Cobh remained in A Championship
2011 No playoff as all teams invited to apply for 1st division but none accepted

[Lim till i die]

I think I could probably make some arguments about that but yes, arguably, I guess.

Argue away, it's what the internet is for.

Limericks probable starting eleven:

Goalkeeper:

Either Ryan - Hands down the best keeper in the division, can't see anyone having too many qualms.

Back Four:

Shaun Kelly
Paddy Purcell
Shane Guthrie
Andrew Bhandharkar

The first three there would walk on to any other team in the Division. Bhandarkar came on in leaps and bounds last year, to the point where he was starting to keep Frosty out of the starting eleven at one stage.

Centre Mid:

Joe Gamble
Stephen Bradley

Nuff said.

Attacking Players:

Gary Sheehan
Paudie Quinn
Rory Gaffney

Sheehan and Gaffney will be recognisable as quality to any First Division officianados. Quinn burst onto the scene last year, scored twelve goals I think it was, including two in Tolka, two in Turners Cross and two in Monaghan.

Striker:

Denis Behan

Nuff said.

Bench looks pretty tasty aswell, Shane Tracy, Dave O'Leary and Corie Tracy would walk into most other teams in the division. Stephen McGann (particularly Stephen McGann), Barry Sheedy, Sean Brosnan and Garbhan Coughlan are fellas to be watched this year aswell.

Possibly poorer than last year? I wouldn't agree at all. The only concern is a keeper but I dont see us missing the likes of Wilson (barely played) and Kenny Browne (awful last season). Burns didn't have a great season but we need another keeper to go with Hughes. Murray was good but missed most of the end of the season and we had enough cover, with another defender to join soon. Dempsey and Frost coming in are good signings, especially Dempsey, who was simply brilliant last season in the Premier Division.

I dunno like.

Frosty is a pretty decent signing, Dempsey is a good signing.

But if you take Kevin Murray, Kenny Browne and Kevin Burns out of a probable starting eleven and look to replace them with Peter White, David Breen and some youngfella, it's a pretty big step back.

I don't think you'll dominate as much as your fans seem to be expecting

As I said above, for my own part, I expect us to have a long slog, don't expect us to **** it at all (although I'll continue to claim otherwise at times on here for the purposes of winding people up right up until the big kick off)

At the moment the squad is high on quality, but low on bodies. If we get an insane run of bad luck like we did at the start of last season we could struggle.

[gormacha]

But if you take Kevin Murray, Kenny Browne and Kevin Burns out of a probable starting eleven and look to replace them with Peter White, David Breen and some youngfella, it's a pretty big step back.

On the face of it, that's a very strong point, but...

Browne, although capable of superb performances, was very ordinary for much of last season, and woeful for parts of it. His display against Pats in the cup was awful to the point of comedy. Ironic then that they should have signed him...

Murray was well below his usual standards as well. He seemed to be struggling for motivation, and missed most of the last third of the season with injury. There was no noticeable decline in team performance after he left, albeit that isn't saying much.

I do think Burns is a loss, although he is only a young fella himself, being the same age as Hughes who's replaced him.

Last season, we worried about midfield (which we right to do, as we were lightweight), but nobody worried about our defence which looked the best in the division by some margin. It wasn't though.

[legendz]

Getting back on topic regards "2012 First Division structure?" and going forward, I think the FAI should be open to expanding the first division to 12, just like the premier. If they went ahead with 10 this year, there should be an indefinite race for any clubs looking to take the final two places. I mean like, if the FAI were to come out and say the LoI will be capped at 24 clubs, two in each division, it'd force a few aspiring clubs to get their act together to get the available places.

[gormacha]

I think the FAI should be open to expanding the first division to 12

Are there 24 clubs that are up to LoI? as much as I disagree with how the FAI runs the league, one thing I think they may be right about (or at least the impression they give) is that there aren't 24 clubs of requisite senior standard. Even with eight teams in the current FD, there are arguably two or three teams in that who are unlikely, even in the medium to long term, to be a genuinely strong senior club.

[L.T.F.C.]

Blah Blah Blah...
Joe Gamble
Stephen Bradley

Nuff said.

Attacking Players:


Striker:
Denis Behan

Nuff said.

[legendz]

Are there 24 clubs that are up to LoI? as much as I disagree with how the FAI runs the league, one thing I think they may be right about (or at least the impression they give) is that there aren't 24 clubs of requisite senior standard. Even with eight teams in the current FD, there are arguably two or three teams in that who are unlikely, even in the medium to long term, to be a genuinely strong senior club.

I don't think there are 24 clubs ready at the moment either. What I'm suggesting is the FAI set a cap of 24 but it could take any number of years for enough clubs to make up that number. For example if Cobh and Tralee got in. There'd be only two places for any other aspiring clubs to fill be it in the near or far future. If GUST got in subsequently, it could take a few year for a 24th team to come in but once there would, that would be it.