It was sold out for the game in April and for the friday night game last season. Unless dundalk are limiting the tickets they give us and not giving us the full capacity of the away end but surely thats not the case with all the crying dundalk fans have been doing.Originally Posted by dundalkfc10
That's the one.I am struggling to understand what the Dundalk whining is about.?Tallght is, along with Limerick and Waterford , the best policed and stewarded away trip in the league.
If Rovers want to maximise their last minute walk in crowd that's their prerogative.
Of course we are. Didnt we keep the toilets closed for an extra day just so you couldnt use them either!
I remember this game, final match of the season, Pats fans were free to roam the ground from memory, def no more than 500 home fans at it. Possibly the worst defence of a league title in modern times, 1995/96, Dundalk struggled most of that season and just avoided the play off I think.
#DundalkFC - First Irish club to win an away game in Europe (1963), only Irish club to win a game / points in Europa League Group Stage (2016).
Wasnt it our first game in the Premier Division after a 100 years in the first division...well it felt that long!! There wasnt any real home or away section back '96 era. Apart from watching the game the side show was watching the antics of opposing fans charging at each other 'taking over/taking back' The Shed. But yeah even as Champions there were probably more attending 1st Division games post 2002 cup win than were going to games mid 90s.
Its a bit damned if you do and damed if you dont with the away section in Oriel. If its filled to its safe holding capacity many will have a severly limited view, maybe a good lot of the Town end of the pitch. People will crowd to the front for a better view which wouldnt be safe. It's that or further restrict the capacity were people could see the majority of the pitch, bar the corner in front of the home terrace in relative safety. It's not an abritrary decision on capacity depending on who is visiting. Not suggesting that other clubs do the same.
Its still goes back to the point that the biggest the crowd can be at a game should be fully embraced. There was the example of the photos of 2 full stands in Tallaght c couple of weeks ago and how ell it looked. Change the angle of the photo slightly and there is a half empty stand. Without compromising security a number of things can be done to facilitate larger crowds the main being properly communicating to fans well in advance that tickets will only be on sale in advance, and that clubs co-operate well on agreeing the numbers of tickets going on sale. I dont see, if handled as it should by the clubs and association, a big difference between managing 800 or 1200 in a stadium like Tallaght. The difference between say 600 and 800 in the away section in Oriel is a different story!
That's correct Nesta, Dundalk crowds were terrible for most of the 90's really, a decade that returned two league titles (91 and 95) but a slow relegation also from 96, finally going down and finishing rock bottom in 1999.
The crowds in the second FD existence (02/03 to 2008) especially from around 2005-08 were prob around 1k, some games as high as 1800 I recall reading before, the PD period after the 1995 league win were terrible in comparison. There were plenty of reasons, locally and nationally the period from 88-95 were dreadful jobs wise, a generation of support (myself included) went to work abroad, took a long time to recover that support, (same for a lot of other clubs) I think Irish unemployment peaked in 1991 at around 20%.
I think Dundalk have sold 3,500 tickets on Wed, that's the max seats in the ground, and probably the max core support too. This could possibly get to 5k for a Tallaght euro game (if any this year, but did in the past) and possibly around 12k for an FAI cup final, but the latter is a family day out, completely different scene, tickets far cheaper also, everyone / every club loves a cup final day out !
Last edited by oriel; 08/07/2019 at 9:16 PM.
#DundalkFC - First Irish club to win an away game in Europe (1963), only Irish club to win a game / points in Europa League Group Stage (2016).
Can understand some but why would so many away fans turn up without tickets ? Not like it’s across the road is it ?
Honestly, if people want to attend a match get a fcuk in ticket 🤔 if you take a chance on turning up without one don’t whine if you don’t get in.
Can never understand why ANY club would turn away money to deliberately leave seats empty- its always AGS, Health and safety or some legitimate reason.
Last edited by marinobohs; 08/07/2019 at 10:28 PM.
I wouldnt have taken the chance myself based on previous experience. I suppose when you have a modern stadium with 8k capacity and fans know it wont be a sell-out there is a presumption that tickets will be on sale at the ground as would be the case at the Aviva and Croke Park.
Maybe AGS, SDCC et al dictate things, but that would bug me if I was the club that could add 2-300 to the gate at €10-15 per ticket. But more importantly imo is to be as close to ground capacity for a top of the table clash for an overall benefit to the league. I'm sure Bohs hardcore get tickets early and once there is talk of the 'sold out' signs going up the floating fan rock up in numbers in fear of missing out on Dalymount being the place to be that Friday. I have no issue with SDCC being prepared for 800 away fans and not then in a slapdash way try to fit another 2 or 300 in. The last time that was done there were delays entering the ground and dare I say it, overcrowding initially until additional blocks were made available. With that previous experience in mind a strict no tickets on the gate is totally understandable subsequently as spectator safety is paramount!
The first comment misses the point - there were no complaints about the stewarding or policing for the most recent Rovers - Dundalk match (although there certainly were stewarding safety issues from over-crowding in the first fixture in March, before another section was opened 15-20 minutes into the game).
The latter point is more relevant - the visiting numbers were restricted but not a single home fan ended up in the half of the East Stand that was left empty. The walk-ups argument holds no water - only about 60% of the capacity was actually used. It's simply not credible that Rovers officials seriously forecast the possibility of an extra 2,000 walk-ups
It is absolutely the case that it is their prerogative to do this, but there are potential financial and safety consequences to this, including an inevitability of having visitor fans mixed in the home sections
It's not the first time - Rovers have limited numbers previously in similar circumstances, as have Cork City when Dundalk won 1-0 last September
It also seems unlikely that AGS or Health & Safety considerations have changed significantly since Bohs had about > 20% more visiting fans safely accommodated in Tallaght in April,
It seems to me that the more likely reasons are based in pettiness or a fear that the away team support from title rivals could dominate the stadium atmosphere - maybe that is a 'legitimate' reason to leave seats empty instead of taking additional paying fans.
Last edited by Ezeikial; 09/07/2019 at 11:18 AM.
It does seem strange that Dundalk were limited to 900 tickets, Bohs got 1,100 for their game in Tallaght and Pats got 1,000.
Here on a technicality.
Fan per toilet ratio?
Its always said the league had **** grounds.
Maybe the club didn't want to take any chances in the happening again. If Dundalk had sold out their allocation earlier maybe it would have been extended who knows.
900 is a generous allocation and probably covers all your season ticket holders. Tickets were available on Rovers website since the start of the season like they are for all clubs apart from Bohs. Any dundalk fan that didn't get one probably wasn't that interested in going.
If it helps..you're all welcome in Finn park and can stand wherever you like.
To be fair it does appear that lessons were learned from the March game - there were certainly less front rows voided by netting, and that probably helped easier flow of people. Nevertheless the more obvious solution was to simply open up the next section for sale (the netting / seat voids was already in place to separate this section from the next empty section further down the stand)
Another fair point.
There was an expectation that tickets could be bought at the ground based on previous experience. It should have been communicated at an early stage by the clubs that the tickets were limited to 900 and therefore tickets would not be available at the ground if they sold out in advance. It does not reflect well on either club that it was late afternoon on Friday before this was made known. Without knowing the inter-club communication, my biggest criticism here is reserved for my own club for not being proactive in clarifying this with Rovers and communicating this.
'Generous' implies that the number was plentiful, lavish or reasonable. Maybe it was in terms of restricting vociferous opposition support, but not in terms of meeting demand. The fact that Dundalk fans ended up in the home section makes this clear.
The bottom line is that, for reason that are still unclear, there appears to be a growing phenomenon of it becoming more difficult for some paying punters to get in to matches that are very far from sold out.
I get this point in a way, as its true tickets were online for ages, i bought mine for Rovers v Dlk at least 2 weeks before the game, other family members 3 weeks before, I wouldn't say any who missed out weren't that interested, more so probably a bit lazy, left to last min, if that's the case they can have no excuse, as they missed the boat, plus DFC advertised it for over a week. The online ticket sales from most clubs these days is so handy, buy, save to your phone, zap it on the way in, easy.
#DundalkFC - First Irish club to win an away game in Europe (1963), only Irish club to win a game / points in Europa League Group Stage (2016).
Maybe they just didn't want to leave in anymore stinkin dalk fans than they had to....
The always the victim complex is unreal here.
At the end of the day Rovers, AGS, SDCC were given no indication until a couple hours to go to the game that the 900 allocation was insufficient. At that point the allocation size is locked in and not changing because when you do last minute changes is when stuff goes wrong. So the blame lies solely at the feet of Dundalk for not telling fans that 900 was all the tickets and Dundalk fans for travelling without tickets. If dundalk fans had bought tickets in advance maybe accommodations could have been made but 3 hours before kick off nothing can/should change.
Selling out the allocation a few hours before the game doesn't suggest that there was much demand past 900.
To me it would have been a waste getting volunteers to sit outside the away end in case 1 or 2 dundalk fans showed up without tickets while the queues for the home end were big.
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