Too many Dublin Clubs?

[drummerboy]

I see no need for Dublin City other than Rocky’s ego. I admire the guy for his endeavours to keep the club going but they have no ground, no supporters nothing to offer. UCD on the other hand is a different story. Although the crowds are small they have their own ground. Are run very well. They also provide a platform for players who would possibly not get the chance of a university education with their scholarship scheme. I know one young lad who was being courted by some of the lesser clubs across the water who has decided to take an offer of a scholarship with UCD instead. A very wise move IMO.

[tiktok]

there are 10 clubs ( I think, might have forgotten one or two) in the greater London area with a Pop. of close to 10 million - there are 7 in Dublin - I'm including Bray - for 1.2 million.

There are at least fifteen league clubs in London.
No Irish club looks to get 30,000 people in the gates.

1.2 million people is ample to support 6 EL clubs.
Even if all 6 were to get 5,000 for every home game, you're still only talking about getting roughly 2 people in every 100 off their backsides every second weekend.

Pete's post is spot on, the M50 is your cut-off point, it's up to the clubs and the league to raise interest and the profile to get people into the grounds, if shels can fill Landsdowne once, then that proves the interest in live football is there to be tapped into.

Saturation isn't the problem, interest is.

[Ringo]

Short answer, yes. Dublin is about as big , very roughly, as Manchester of Liverpool and Turin and a good bit smaller than Rome or Milan each of which have two big clubs (I know, Tranmere, Trastevere etc. I said big clubs) - put another way; there are 10 clubs ( I think, might have forgotten one or two) in the greater London area with a Pop. of close to 10 million - there are 7 in Dublin - I'm including Bray - for 1.2 million.

An all Ireland league with 2 from Dublin, 2 from Belfast I each from Cork, Derry , Limerick, Louth, Lisburn/Portadown and Waterford would have a chance of producing a decent fanbase for each team and a viable existence for clubs.

The problem is, i want to support Dublin city. If i'd wanted to follow one of the others i would have. Until other counties start producing good teams , its going to stay that way.

[Macy]

In the Greater Manchester connurbation...
United,
City,
Bolton,
Wigan,
Bury,
Stockport,
Rochdale,
Oldham
And if you want to push it Macc Town too.

[pineapple stu]

Hmmm...I think BohDiddley is the only one to take this thread the way it's meant to be taken, but still - was never one to turn down a good argument...!

It's time for the Shams, Dublin City and UCD to go away and die. They are just a drain on the rest.

How are we a drain? Does our massive support base take away from yours? 'Cos I can't think of any other way that claim makes any sense...

If there was one big Northside club and one big Southside one ..... they would do very well, as regards crowds etc. .... It'll never happen, which is great.

Pity - now we'll never catch up on the field with the masive Cork City...oh...wait!

UCD still suffer from the thinking that you have to have gone to the college to support them, so they can't get kids supporting until they reach college age, by which stage those that will go to EL games will probably have picked their teams anyway.

A lot less now. We have links with some of the junior clubs who all get season tickets, which is helping crowds. It's not going to change overnight, but there is more home support at games. The college aspect of it isn't a concern for them. In fact, it seems the only people who actually hold that opinion - and you're not alone by any means - are opposition fans. WHich doesn't really matter!

Supporters of dublin teams will use excuse of too many clubs for poor attendances but will also complain if suggest they move or merge.

True, but other fans will moan at the likes of Dublin City, pointing out that they're a franchise club with no history (don't intend opening that debate again...), yet they'll turn around and suggest the Dublin clubs should merge or uproot - bit of a conflict there surely...?

Dublin is about as big , very roughly, as Manchester of Liverpool and Turin and a good bit smaller than Rome or Milan each of which have two big clubs (I know, Tranmere, Trastevere etc. I said big clubs) - put another way; there are 10 clubs ( I think, might have forgotten one or two) in the greater London area with a Pop. of close to 10 million - there are 7 in Dublin - I'm including Bray - for 1.2 million.

I think that's oversimplified, to be honest. You can't draw the line at big clubs - for a fair comparison, you should count the number of clubs in each city down to the standard of Bray or Dublin City. You'd get a hell of a lot more than ten in London for a start. You say (or imply, anyway) there are ten big clubs in London, but seven clubs in Dublin - you're not comparing like with like, so the comparison's meaningless.

Bottom line - 4 million people in Ireland. About 1.3 million in the greater Dublin area. That's nearly one-third of the population. Seven teams out of 22 - nearly one-third of the teams. Seems fair enough.

[sonofstan]

Tiktok ...Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Palace, Fulham, Charlton, West Ham, Millwall, QPR, Orient, Brentford .. that's 11

Macy, you're right about Manchester, although a place like Oldham is more of a town in its own right than Bray

[Poor Student]

In the Greater Manchester connurbation...
United,
City,
Bolton,
Wigan,
Bury,
Stockport,
Rochdale,
Oldham
And if you want to push it Macc Town too.

My English geography is poor but do Blackburn and Burnley not fall in there too?

Tiktok ...Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Palace, Fulham, Charlton, West Ham, Millwall, QPR, Orient, Brentford .. that's 11

Macy, you're right about Manchester, although a place like Oldham is more of a town in its own right than Bray

Could you add Luton into that group?

[pineapple stu]

Tiktok ...Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Palace, Fulham, Charlton, West Ham, Millwall, QPR, Orient, Brentford .. that's 11

Barnet, AFC Wimbledon (technically not a league club, but they may as well be size-wise, and they will be in a few years), Wycombe Wanderers (?? - I found a few websites mentioning them, though I don't really know where they are. Some websites mention Luton as a London team as well though...)

Then you've got the Conference and possibly the Conference South to come down to Dublin City's level - plenty of London clubs in there...

[Poor Student]

Btw, I couldn't find a figure but if anyone can, there is some astronomical amount of clubs in Buenos Aires. Some right massive ones too.

[tiktok]

Tiktok ...Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, Palace, Fulham, Charlton, West Ham, Millwall, QPR, Orient, Brentford .. that's 11

and Watford, Luton Town, Wycombe, Rushden&Diamonds and Barnet make 16, and I'm sure there's probably more

[BohDiddley]

Btw, I couldn't find a figure but if anyone can, there is some astronomical amount of clubs in Buenos Aires. Some right massive ones too.

Dasrih. Those Argie geezers play a lot of football, and you may have noticed that, while they have a weakness for the odd spot of egg-chasing, they don't do much in the way of GAA, or the Argie alternative, AAA.
Hmmm, can there be a pattern here? Does this tell us anything?

[Bald Student]

they don't do much in the way of GAA

http://www.hurling-club.com.ar/

[sonofstan]

and Watford, Luton Town, Wycombe, Rushden&Diamonds and Barnet make 16, and I'm sure there's probably more

Watford and Luton aren't in London, neither is Wycombe; all three are safely outside the M25 - Barnet and R&D borderline but even if there were 20 clubs in London that would still give each a much bigger potential fanbase than 6 between 1.2 m in Dublin

[Poor Student]

Dasrih. Those Argie geezers play a lot of football, and you may have noticed that, while they have a weakness for the odd spot of egg-chasing, they don't do much in the way of GAA, or the Argie alternative, AAA.
Hmmm, can there be a pattern here? Does this tell us anything?

They do love tennis and basketball though. While they are passionate for the game so are we. Our problem is we have a tendency to support foreign clubs. While the Dublin clubs could do with spreading out a bit we certainly do not need less of them. How will people not going in Tallaght or Blanchardstown to any of the big four be more likely to go if you took two of them away and left the other two in the same place? The amount of Dublin clubs reflect fairley the demographics and we need to look at why people do not go to games in general.

[BohDiddley]

it's hard to get people from Santry (soon to be remedied) to identify with the 'city center' teams. people

Eh?

While I'm on, can we knock this Bohs must move to Blanchardstown thing firmly on the head please?
Blanch is a direct and, at match times, short drive or bus ride to the holy ground of Irish football, and is full of Bohs fans, as is its hinterland stretching well into the wilds of Meath. Three miles more from the M50 carpark is not going to deter most people, but moving out may.
Any Bohemian who has an issue with getting to the current location isn't worth having as a fan and sounds to me much like your feckless, thorougly shallow and rootless Shels type.
If this moving out to the M50 lark made so much sense, why doesn't every commercial entity in the city centre evacuate? Dalymount/Phibsborough is part of Bohs and we would be a much poorer outfit if we relegated ourselves to the sticks or, God forbid, Donabate.
Dalyer, a mile or so from O'Connell Street and well served by roads that are not cluttered on Friday at 7.15 on, is the natural physical and spiritual home of the one big Dub club.
KBAD starts here!

[sonofstan]

Eh?

While I'm on, can we knock this Bohs must move to Blanchardstown thing firmly on the head please?
Blanch is a direct and, at match times, short drive or bus ride to the holy ground of Irish football, and is full of Bohs fans, as its hinterland stretching well into the wilds of Meath. Three miles more from the M50 carpark is not going to deter most people, but moving out may.
Any Bohemian who has an issue with getting to the current location isn't worth having as a fan and sounds to me much like your feckless, thorougly shallow and rootless Shels type.
If this moving out to the M50 lark made so much sense, why doesn't every commercial entity in the city centre evacuate? Dalymount/Phibsborough is part of Bohs and we would be a much poorer outfit if we relegated ourselves to the sticks or, God forbid, Donabate.
Dalyer, a mile or so from O'Connell Street and well served by roads that are not cluttered on Friday at 7.15 on, is the natural physical and spiritual home of the one big Dub club.
KBAD starts here!

Well said. Part of the problem with support for Dublin clubs might be the opposite of what has been said above; only two of the big clubs still play in their heartland; the others have no clear territory anymore.

[tiktok]

Watford and Luton aren't in London, neither is Wycombe; all three are safely outside the M25 - Barnet and R&D borderline but even if there were 20 clubs in London that would still give each a much bigger potential fanbase than 6 between 1.2 m in Dublin

There no further out in relative terms than Bray is.
Be consistent and compare like with like.

6 clubs / 1.2millions people breaks down a 200,000 people per club, only Shels and Bohs are regularly getting more than 1% of their 'cut' out to support them, but you're going to insist that it's the saturation of clubs that's the problem?

200,000 is pretty much twice the population of Cork (123,000) where there is one club, that regularly attracts 4,000 (3% of their 'cut')

No matter who you compare it to, or how you write it, attendances in the EL is down to lack of interest, and there are plenty people in Dublin to support 6 clubs if they got off their backsides.

[dancinpants]

Btw, I couldn't find a figure but if anyone can, there is some astronomical amount of clubs in Buenos Aires. Some right massive ones too.

What about Serbia!!! . 7 of the 16 team top division based in Belgrade

Partizan Beograd
C. Zvezda Beograd
Zeta Golubovci
OFK Beograd
Zemun
Buducnost Podgorica
Radnicki N. Beograd
Hajduk Kula
Smederevo
Obilic Beograd
Zeleznik
Vojvodina Novi Sad
Borac Cacak
Cukaricki Beograd
Sutjeska Niksic
Hajduk Beograd

[sonofstan]

What about Serbia!!!

there's no answer to that

Tiktok - you're right of course. If any of us could get what Cork regularly get we wouldn't have threads like this

[Da Real Rover]

Look at Rovers. On a good night in the first division we attract up to 2000 people and thats just in the First Division. Now sligo town has a rough population of 20000 to 25000. So look at that for a percentage, roughly 8% to 10%.