There's been a fair bit of sourness from various people about Dundalk doing well that I find amusing.
No fanfares and no despair around Oriel tonight.
Although it was a disappointing end to a brilliant odyssey chasing the improbable, the season is far from over for Dundalk. With a bottom half budget Stephen Kenny has assembled a team who have played attractive football and displayed commitment and resilience in abundance. A Europa League place remains probable and the FAI Cup Semi-final is imminent
Even in the unlikely event that Dundalk lost every remaining match through October the season has surpassed all expectations.
The future - both short term and in the next number of seasons - looks full of exciting possibilities
There's been a fair bit of sourness from various people about Dundalk doing well that I find amusing.
Delighted for Athlone as well. A great addition to the Premier Division.
Going to enjoy watching them and Roddy next year.
It's them Shamrock Rovers fans, I swear. If they're not waving umbrellas and sending in pensioners posed as Pat's fans to rattle gates, they're being sour on the internet.
Congrats Athlone Town players, staff and supporters. One of the, if not the oldest clubs in Ireland back in the division they have waited so long for. Will be a great addition to the league. The attendance tonight shows that one of the really football towns still have the following that was there in the 80's after so long in the wilderness. Talking to so many supporters of the club in work yesterday, the attendance will be exceptional next season too.
+1 looking forward already to our first visit to your new stadium next year. Well done to all its great getting out of the graveyard!!
Congratulations to Athlone. Looking forward to our trip down there next season, hopefully we go there as Champions. It's not over yet we still have tricky games where we have to pick up points.
Here on a technicality.
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
At the start of the season the teams with a substantially bigger budgets were
Shamrock Rovers
Sligo Rovers
St Patricks Athletic
Derry City
Limerick and Cork were also generally acknowledged to have had bigger budgets
Stephen Kenny probably started with the 7th or 8th highest budget and was certainly ranked number 8 in the pre-season bookies odds.
Dundalk were expected to finish in the lower half of the table by most observers and will certainly have exceeded expectations by seasons end
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
Fair play to Athlone. Have some good memories of visting St. Mels as a young lad so looking forward to seeing their new ground as Ive never been in it. Another trip away from Dublin too aint a bad thing either.
Manager: Fergal, have you your boots with ya?
Fergal: Ya, I have them here.
Manager: Ah good stuff, well give them to this man so, he forgot his!
Athlone town fans were great supporters of us in our top flight days so I have no problem goin to their games if i am still workin in Dublin nxt season... Athlone was always more of a soccer hotbed than Longford ever was.. We wont go up either this year and it serves us right for turning down Roddy Collins five long years ago now.. what goes around .... btw massive congrats to Athlone and to a few of the long term fans that I have the pleasure of knowin over the years.. ye will be a superb addition to top flight.. Why TC let go James O Brien and Aidan Collins I never know.. The man should be shot!
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
Yeh i think Aido proved last night that TC letting him go was a terrible move. He has been the best defender in the league by a long shot this season. Our player of the year easy imo. James O'Brien has been fantasic too. Since his debut away to Harps 14 games ago we have not lost. He controls the game so well.
Not looking good for Longfords playoff chances at the moment. Mervue have 2 very winnable games left while Longford have us in Athlone. Will be an interesting end to the season for sure.
Athlone Town AFC 1887-2017
No midlands clasicos next season... will the economy collapse?
Pat Dolan said every time he was on MNS "limerick spending the money" in fact he couldn't even say "limerick" without saying spending the money.
To be fair to Pat, every team in the league is spending the money. Except for Dundalk, whose budget I hear was so low they had to use imaginary numbers.
Ciaran Bond, Chairman of Dundalk publicly said what it was costing per week to run the club including team budget, couldnt be bothered looking for it but certainly was on the more modest side and a lot less than what previous managers including John Gill had to spend. How is it though that so much seems to be known about the budget of clubs by supporters throughout the league? Do you have a network of spys infriltrating the boards of every club Dodge?
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