QuoteMostly because the majority of students would head home for the weekend. If UCD had their matches on a Sunday evening with free attendance for UCD students there'd be more of a chance of attracting students along.Originally Posted by peadar1987
UCD have 25,000-ish students at any given time. If they were a town, they'd be bigger than Tralee, Sligo, Wexford and Mullingar. It's always mystified my slightly why they haven't attracted bigger crowds.
Mostly because the majority of students would head home for the weekend. If UCD had their matches on a Sunday evening with free attendance for UCD students there'd be more of a chance of attracting students along.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
To be fair they have tried initiatives in the past but never really got much traction. Also most students long left campus before LOI kick off time and those still there are there for some other reason.
When students arrive on campus, they're either Bohs/Rovers/Galway fans, or United/Liverpool/Chelsea fans, or rugby fans.
Hard to convert people at that age. Especially when they have no money (except for drink)
Also...what's right with the League of Ireland?
Is cool.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
at least they sell them unlike Cabinteelys!
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
Much and all as I agree with the comment about the programme, it's a bit of a silly reason not to want a team in Premier
My opinions on what's right with the league:
Dundalk's style of football and innovation streaming games,
Corks support and ground,
Waterford's ,albeit slightly artificial, resurgence,
Rovers academy and glimpses of the style of play,
Bohs & Cobh stretching their budget to the max superbly,
UCD great football and setting their players up for life after football too,
Sligo having community behind them so much,
Drogs and Longford playing good ball.
Think thats it off top of my head
http://www.finnharps.com/fhfc/?p=6135
There's this too. Harps now have, in their academy base in Killygordon, under-12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 and reserve squads. A player pathway developed that includes late developers who would otherwise not make the squads at 13, 15, 17 and 19 level.
The club has a 5 year lease on grounds in Crossroads, Killygordon, where there's three pitches down there for academy sides to train on. It's less than ten minutes drive from Finn Park. Academy also has separate offices in Stranorlar, beside the new ground.
Full pathway and announcement of new coaches was done the other night before the Shelbourne game.
Harps have quietly gone about things the right way and are putting a lot of focus on the youth structures at the club to develop players for the first team. This season we've had six players who played underage at Harps coming through and playing in the first team with a further six featuring in match day squads after coming through our youth structures.
Shamrock Rovers get a lot of praise for their youth academy, and rightly so, but they're not the only ones putting in the effort.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
I hadn't actually heard abou the stuff from harps but it sounds like a good start
It's a uniquely Irish thing.
You spend 17years living with your parents in a sh!t-arse country village with nothing to do in the middle of nowhere, and then get the chance to study in a cosmopolitan and exciting major European city. So what do you do ?
You spend every weekend and free moment you have from college travelling back to the aforementioned country village, to do nothing hanging around with the same set of lads/girls you've been hanging around with all your life. Sure if nothing else your mammy will feed you and do your washing too.
It leaves the international students at Universities in Dublin utterly perplexed how campuses like UCD empty out every Friday afternoon. Feckin' culchies
Well it worked with the FAI and DVDs.
It wouldn't be easy, but it shouldn't be impossible either to create a sense of affinity amongst Irish people with their college, and then try to extend that over to its high profile sports reps.
Do you know if it has been properly tried before in the past (and not half-arsedly) ? If nothing else, it might help the college shift a bit more generic UCD merchandise.
Has the club ever drawn a crowd (apart form the 1984 cup run) ?
There's been promotional campaigns (posters on campus; free admittance for Superleague players; Superleague teams having half-time challenges), although I don't know to what extent that constitutes trying to build a sense of affinity as such.
The club itself of course runs other teams - LSL, Freshers, etc. 99% of those players don't stick around for games once they leave college either. It'd be a different club if even 10% of people who played for UCD in the last 40 years went to games.
Best I remember crowd-wise was with one of the early CPOs; it felt like there was a bit of an uptick for a season. Remember 800-900 for a game against Cork for example. But there's just no money for any of that now - and even the extra underage structures just take time away from promoting the club (not just for UCD of course)
I suppose it's a combination of many things that has kept UCD from gaining a substantial fan base.
They only joined the league in '89, so the other big Dublin clubs like Rovers/Shels/Bohs/Pats have had a massive head start in terms of gaining fan base.
They're based right beside Milltown, so any LOI fans in the area were likely Rovers fans.
They've never had any LOI success compared to their neighbours
Their ground is on the Uni campus so their immediate population are students on campus - and as stu said, probably already support Rovers/Bohs/L'pool/Man Utd/Leinster by the time they come to live in UCD.
Comparing them to Murcia University in Spain, who play in a 7k ground in the city centre, and in typically Spanish style the city is very compact and high rise, so there's probably 150k-200k living within 10 minute walk in all directions. There's also only 2 clubs in the city, and the other club (Real Murcia) play in a stadium outside the city and have had a heavy fall from grace in recent decades.
Even though UCD are always well-run and have a lovely little ground, the other clubs had a 70-80 year head-start.
As I said already, the only hope for UCD to increase their attendances would be to play on a Sunday in my opinion.
A chance to catch students arriving for the week, a chance to increase away crowds, and a chance to catch neutral fans of the other Dublin teams to take in a second weekend game.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
The locals wash their cars ( or have their cars washed )on a Sunday.
Having been there many years ago I often thought that a Thursday night with an associated social gig afterwards was the way to go .
Anyway... good things about the league...the best things about the league IS when fans from opposing teams can have a few pints together, slag each other without menace in the stands etc.
Other than the Jodi in Dalymount and to a limited extent in the stand in Oriel, and the stand in Drogs, UCD , I don`t see that happening any more. Some extreme bulls h 1 t segregation going on other than in grounds where its essential ( well just Tallaght really) including the Des Kelly in Dalymount, Pats, Turners Cross, etc.
What is good about the league is that most LOI fans you meet on international trips or in any walk of life , are usually sound enough, as obsessive compulsives go.
Mixed fans areas in stadia would be an interesting initiative.
There's no real segregation in Tallaght for teams outside Bohs, Dundalk, Pats and to an extent cork. Other fans are asked to sit in the normal away end but you can regularly see them walking around the ground. Its only strict for those 3/4.
And to be honest, you don't need to segregate the Pats lads either, they are generally good craic and no hassle
Yeah you can normally see pats fans wandering round too but the odd time the guards seem to keep them segregated for whatever reason.
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