Too many Dublin Clubs?

[Éanna]

The way to reduce the amount of Dublin clubs is for other clubs to produce better teams and pass them out.

exactly. I'd love to see a better spread of teams, if only to be able to not drive to dublin all the ****in time, but its up to other clubs to sort themsleves out

[crc]

I think there are too many Dublin clubs in the Premier (even if you don't count Bray), but you can't argue with them being there because they've all produced the goods on the pitch. Teams from outside the capital (they are NOT rural - they are almost all based in towns) need to get their own act together rather than complain about Dublin clubs. However I do think the tide has turned - a few years ago all the top five spots in the league were held by Dublin clubs and Cork City. But last season Shels and Bohs, and this season Shels, have been the only Dublin clubs in the top five.

I do think there should be expansion of the league into parts of the country where there is currently no eL team (like Kerry, Mayo) but this doesn't need to be at the expense of current clubs. The potential support base for a club in Tralee or Castlebar is not going to be affected in the slightest by whether Dublin City are in the league or not. Recently Longford and Drogheda (and previously Sligo, Dundalk and Athlone) have proven that provincial towns can support a successful LoI club if they are well run.

I also agree that the major problem the eL has is its low profile, and the low esteem which many people hold for it. The only way this will change IMO is through success in Europe. We saw it with Cork and Shels last year, but it needs to be sustained.

[Edit: spelling]

[Stevo Da Gull]

I have only read the first page of this post but still feel it's necessary to post this........ We are not a Dublin club!!!!! Some of our fan base is from Co Dublin of course and we are very glad of this, being on the DART line is a huge bonus and it's nice to see people in Co Dublin coming to Bray to support Bray Wanderers and Eircom League football. On the map we are in Wicklow with a lot of Dublin based support , on the map Liverpool FC are in Liverpool with a lot of Irish support- I suppose this make BWAFC Dubliners and Liverpool Irish.


Come on out to the Carlisle....... help keep Premier League football in County Wicklow!

(If anything that I said has been made irrelevant by previous posts I apologise for jumping the gun )


On the matter itself, there are 22 lge clubs and those in the Premier deserve to be there on merrit.

[Schumi]

UCD & shels are probably the only 2 Dublin teams that play football. You can't deny me that.

Pity we didn't on Saturday.

[NY Hoop]

[QUOTE=Ringo] we have fans & a club, get over yourselve.

Funniest thing I've read in months. Has your fan base got into double figures yet? My point still stands. There is no point in having a club if there are a dozen fans.


KOH