I hope your comment was as firmly tongue in cheek as mine was! Though with some Cork fans such a comment would in all liklihood be deadly serious lol.
We need all clubs to be strong, solid home crowds, large travelling away support, with a competative league and teams playing a decent brand of football. The league will then thrive. European progression grows both credibility with the wider public and dare I say it among media circles. It seems to be the bar by which the league is judged irrespective of how things are domestically. Tbh its away crowds that both boost attendances above what home club attendances plateau at. There are a number of good eamples so far this season, the 4k+ at Inchicore v Rovers and the match in Tallaght v Dundalk. It is also a vocal away support that often gets a home crowd to be more vocal and generates the atmosphere that we want and need to attract the non hardcore support. That and a contentious refereeing decision or some fiesty action on the pitch.
It is a trend though that crowds generally start off well and then fall off, possibly as teams move out of contention as the league progresses but also during the summer months with holidays and the like. They then pick up again at the business end of the season for the top few teams or the visit of those teams to clubs lower down the table. Bohs, is an eample where crowds have been grown not purely based on the teams fortunes. As a probable controversial comment I think that Rovers and Cork fans are pretty fickle and see the biggest drop of in attendances if not competative. Sligo have probably the most impressive ability to attract consistantly good crowds no matter how they are doing. I've said before that Dundalk's hardcore support is up at 1800 now and and has grown from the 1st Division of about 1200-1500. Though not enough is being done imo to convert the floating fan to that hardcore type for the future if we are not league contenders. Derry have had a great boost with the work done on the Brandywell so there may be some truth in the 'build it and they will come'. Waterford are benefitting still from the novelty factor of top flight football. It also shows the importance of the likes of Harps getting things sorted in Stranrolar.
Even Bray in the 1st Division has broken the 1000 mark this season which they werent always doing with a side pushing for Europe. Disillusionment with owners can have a serious impact as we eperiences during the blip year at Dundalk in 2012 where crowds dropped in to the hundreds as the owner threatened all sorts of things like demolishing the YDC and selling the materials as scrap and fans knew that money was going out of the club that should have been personal expenses though in saying that with what that owner put in to the club I can understand why he would feel he should be getting something back and especially as other business interests were struggling (he was probably stung by the sudden surge in crowds and income 2013 and a bit of speculating accumulated albeit on a tight budget with a top manager worked rather than his cutting back to the bones). Rare that this strategy worked in LoI I know.
I really hope what is happening at Pats is maintained, from about 1200 or so at games the last few years to over 3000 not factoring in away support is a hell of a jump and is indicative of the feel good factor around the club with a new management team.
As an aside I am sad enough to have done a head count of the Waterford fans last Friday and there was 70-80 on the away terrace (I didnt bother with the stand as it was too hard to tell who were Waterford and who were home supporters as there wasnt the strict segregation you would get with other visiting clubs). My first thought when I saw the Waterford support was 100-150 so was surprised at the lower figure when counted and goes to show how hard it is to guesstimate crowds in general. We all have a tendancy to over estimate support. That said the official figure of 2800 in general people in the vicinity were questioning. There was undoubtedly 1000 in the stand and on the shed side, and there was definitely more than just 800 between the Town Terrace, standing in front of the stand and behind the goals. Addeding in what was probably about 100 Waterford fans between the stand and away terrace too. Highlights of the game hasnt changed my thinking on that. We definitely need substantial away support to boost our average gate. For that reason, and the reasons mentioned above, the visit of Rovers and Bohs in particular, Drogheda when in the same division and the recent key games with Cork are very welcome indeed. The level of visiting Derry support has dropped in recent years but hopefully there will be more that will travel this season. The TV footage picks up the support from the shed and then the cameras facing the stand also adds to the feeling of a well attended game. A big away support helps cover up the dreadful looking away section. With some terracing begind the town goal and getting rid of the grass bank would be a big improvement in the overall impression that can come across in tv footage.
Ideally, for Dundalk, a competative Shamrock Rovers, Bohs, Derry, Sligo, Drogheda, Pats and to a lesser extent Cork bar the business end of the season would suit Dundalk from an attendance point of view. Conversly Dundalk have a pretty healthy travelling support to most away games, there was a comment here by a Rovers fan that the recent game in Tallaght was the biggest away support seen - would that include Bohs even?
I dont think sttandances say a whole lot about an individual club, Shels when winning leagues has abysmal support, yet the quality of the product was good in a decent ground. It should never be a p1ssing match between supports on whose crowds are the best (or least worst), strong attendances should be lauded by all LoI fans and not something to give a kicking over. We all know where improved gates can happen and where the greatest potential for growth is, Rovers being top of the heap there with the facilities and local population. But, bar Bohs maybe, we could all be doing more, regardless of the FAIs indifference, and not be relying on winning silverware as the way to get people through the turnstiles only.
Last edited by Nesta99; 11/03/2019 at 9:47 PM. Reason: 6 finger and toed typos
Good post from Nesta. One should taper crowd expectations and expect a normal drop off, like every other season. He makes a good point about large away traveling support at a number of games so far. With regards Rovers, currently, one, if the not top of the attendance charts so farm have a yearly average of c.2800. Always thought that should be a higher figure, given their catchment and now stadium, but perhaps it's already growing attendance wise, especially with the new stand creating a bit of a buzz, we shall wait and see. With regards Shels, there were so many matches back in the day, either live, or news reports, or (shudder) Eircom League Weekly where I wondered "Is there even a 1,000 at this game?", and comparing that with Dundalk's televised matches and attendances, things have definitely got better, attendance-wise. Speaking of Dundalk, I watched a bit of the match last Friday on that awful trackchamp camera stream, so the sound was an issue, but I thought there was a lot more than 2832 there. In fact I thought it was 3,832 that was called out, but as I said, picture AND sound were terrible. Overall, happy to see relatively big attendances so far, but it's likely to drop off somewhat and return to normal before too long. If the title race is interesting (stays interesting) for the duration of the season, it might be the best year for crowds across the League in quite some time.
Bohs numbers were restricted in the past due to space in the West stand and the need for segregation. Given they will have the whole east stand they could bring up to 2500 fans for our game on Easter Tuesday..
Given their recent success over rovers curiosity 're new South stand I think a big support is likely.....if it wasn't a Tuesday I would be expecting 6k +
http://hoganstand.com/Forum/Details/...TopicID=106675
Looking at the GAA attendance thread over on Hoganstand, shows we are doing very well!
Some of the crowds are shocking (counties play 4 Home League Games a year) and Cork one of the biggest are not even getting 3,500 for home games in Hurling!
Not sure about that but Bohs could well break the away attendance for a LOI game that evening 1500 plus is possible. If we were going in the apposite direction to a ground of a similar standard we would bring a similar number, lots of Rovers fans wont go to Dalyer because of the away end and the poor view.
Ah, I don't know. We're still a good bit off. The league isn't even the main competition in GAA. There's no direct equivalent in LOI but in terms of importance it's probably halfway between the League Cup and FAI Cup. It's spoken about as important for preparation for the championship. And we're miles off.
I'd use GAA attendances as an indicator that match going fans are out there. I go to both and see a lot of the same faces at Bohs and Dublin games. If LOI top division could match GAA top division it would be amazing. Even if that meant splitting Dublin GAA attendances across the Dublin LOI clubs.
Similarity I don’t think you’re exactly equating like for like. If we take the main participation sports as comparotors in a purely Irish sporting event context then you’ve got to surely base your comparison from the top down?
If you’re doing that, then the top
Level for rugby is the national team, same for footie, but for gaa it’s ch/ship.
The next level down for rugby is different again because it’s the h/cup, for gaa it’s league and for us it’s the LoI.
Wouldn't say any rovers fans boycott dalymount, we sell out the des Kelly every time and used to bring at least double when we were in the Connaught street side.
Doubt bohs will be given more than 1000 anyway.
If any dundalk fans are still interested you had 798 in fans Tallaght according to the people in the ticket office at Rovers[FONT=arial, sans-serif][SIZE=2][COLOR=#6a6a6a].
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[QUOTE=Asterix;1994669]Wouldn't say any rovers fans boycott dalymount, we sell out the des Kelly every time and used to bring at least double when we were in the Connaught street side.
Doubt bohs will be given more than 1000 anyway.
If any dundalk fans are still interested you had 798 in fans Tallaght according to the people in the ticket office at Rovers[FONT=arial, sans-serif][SIZE=2][COLOR=#6a6a6a].
Didn't think so (RE Boycott) suspect we should be able to bring 1000 but difficult to say with it being a Tuesday night (I mean WTF ???). Always a great buzz, and both sets of fans enjoy each game but was surprised at the figure of 2,500, just seemed unrealistic for ANY LOI club on a Tuesday night. Honestly wish it were true !
I did'nt mean that 2500 would be traveling i meant that there would be no restrictions, so "up to" that amount could be accomadated.....in other words more than would be needed!
I did also make the point that it was a tuesday so expectations would be lower. It is Easter Tuesday so at least the kids are off school so the large family contingent that come to Rovers matches might still come (those that arent away)
also re Dalymount , boycott is a strong word , id say more that some people just couldnt be bothered , if the new Dalymount is ever built with facilities etc i could easily see 3-500 more Rovers fans traveling over so 1300-1400 rather than the current 900 ish.
If the Dundalk support at 798 was repeated at each match it would be phenomenal,
Last edited by sbgawa; 12/03/2019 at 1:08 PM.
I don't think your assertion on the ticket office numbers are pertinent or even particularly credible.
Anyone who was in the away section that evening was aware of the incompetency around accommodating the numbers admitted.
It was clear well before kick-off that the number of seats allocated was too few for the visiting crowd, yet it still took 20 minutes into the match before the dangerous overcrowding was resolved. The solution of opening the unoccupied adjacent section was so simple to implement that it beggars belief that it took so long to action.
If there was a goal scored in that time (or any other major incident causing a crowd surge) the consequences of the overcrowding could have been serious.
I hope Shamrock Rovers, AGS and SDCC have learned from this and review the issues (maybe this also includes the ticket office ticket counting system)
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