Here's a map of how much we suck as a football supporting nation. (Apologies if this has turned up before - I failed to find it in a search.)
Interesting... Turkey seem to be worse than us - and they have good crowds, I believe. Despite their much larger population, still seems a bit odd.
But yes, we suck big time.
There's nearly 80 million people in Turkey. They only need a tiny fraction of our percentage to sell out their stadiums.Originally Posted by Straightstory
The egg chasing is the only sport in the country that gets decent regular crowds, our support is poor and the gaa is full of day trippers.The mentality about supporting a team is to slap on a shirt and go to the boozer.
Would have thought the GAA got more overall in general. Egg chasing is the 4 provinces so must larger support base.
The GAA would still be ahead of rugby, but crowds for the league especially outside div 1 have declined. For example Offaly v Waterford football match in Tullamore last Sunday week had reports of just 250 at it. Cork footballers would be behind the soccer club down there in terms of getting fans in the gate.
Yet I was at a hurling game on Sunday with a attendance of over 6k; Galway v Clare, a derby I know but still better than the average Connacht egg chasers get.
No doubt about it soccer crowds here are disappointing and well behind Scotland for example.
I would have thought the rugger was far more full of day trippers than the GAA. There's a kinda core GAA following in places that rugby or football has never penetrated at the highest level like Tipperary, Laois, Offaly, Roscommon, Cavan etc.
Compare the league attendances with the 2/3 Chmapionship games they play and you'll see what he means.
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So we're lower midtable for attendance in a league thats ranked nearer the bottom in Europe. We certainly have higher average attendance at league games, per capita, than much of Eastern Europe and some of Western Europe.
In terms of actually playing the game we have one of the highest percentages of registered players in the entire world.... this despite the ubiquity of the GAA and the fact that football is run in an utterly incompetent way. Even without counting the thousands and thousands of unregistered players playing regular 5-a-side soccer is the largest participation sport in the country, well ahead of Gaelic football.
We're not as bad as we like to think sometimes
Fair enough.
The vastly reduced Munster rugby crowds this year do point to a certain bandwagon element in their support base. Human nature I suppose. People will support a succesful team regardless of the code.
Munster IMO is a strange one. Yes, attendances are down in line with performance, but what Munster have largely done is disassociated themselves with their largest market. Lot's of people in Cork that did care, no longer do.
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If by "some of Western Europe", you mean "Wales", yes. Only Wales, Moldova and the Baltics are significantly lower than us west of Russia (which has about a tenth of our population density) and the Caucasus.
Worth noting the Welsh figure presumably excludes the teams in the English pyramid - Swansea, Cardiff, Wrexham, Newport County, etc. That'd bump them right up.
Surprised Finland is so low.
Exactly. Pointless map really. A country could sell out every stadium every week and still have a crap %.
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!
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