QuoteWell i think wayside beat them twice this season in the LSL.So not a bother.
another dangerous non league team will be Cherry OrchardOriginally Posted by jorge
Watch out for them.
Well i think wayside beat them twice this season in the LSL.So not a bother.
Have just done a Google search and you're right Poor Student. The Polish Embassy estimate 40,000 Poles in the country, though because they don't have to register this is merely an educated guess. 3,000 Polish in Limerick alone.
I've also Googled a few other immigrant groups to check their size in Ireland. The Chinese appear to be the biggest - with an estimated 60,000 spread across the island. However - despite the fact they exist in decent numbers in pretty much every developed nation in the world, and in many cases have done so for up to and over a century, the Chinese as a community have shown no enthusiasm for organising football teams to play at a significant level in any of their host countries. I'd therefore rule them out as a community who could support a senior football team in Ireland.
After the Chinese, the Polish appear to be the only large immigrant community in the country (though I wouldn't describe 40,000 nationals spread across a country of 4million as being significant). I've Googled on Nigerians and got an estimated figure of 20,000 across Ireland - out of a total estimated African population of 30,000. Haven't been able to get any figures on the Portuguese community outside of the North, where they seem to predominate (although I know there are clusters of them in towns with certain industries in the south). There's an estimated 20,000 Romanians in the country (mostly Dublin-based) and a smaller number of Russians, but again not numbers of any significance.
Re the Polish - I'd still say that 40,000 people spread across the island as your absolute maximum target audience isn't a strong enough base of support for a senior football team. Only a percentage of those would be based in the town where the team itself actually played-in, and then within that only a small fraction would actually be interested in supporting the team in any active sense. We'd be talking hundreds here at most I believe, which wouldn't make it viable.
What i think would be interesting, however, would be if an EL team signed a player who was a member of a community that existed in decent numbers in their town. For example - with an estimated 3,000 Poles in Limerick, it would be interesting to see what would happen if Limerick signed a Polish player and actively courted that community as a result. Would it actually help to generate support for that team amongst the immigrant community ?
Is Ndo Nigerian ? If so - have Shels tried to make the Nigerian community aware of this to see if it generates any support ?
Last edited by dcfcsteve; 12/06/2005 at 1:35 AM.
Btw I was not going along with Gerrit's ethnic suggestion as I think the idea is devisive I was just pointing out we have a lot of Poles. I think we also have about 20k from one of the Baltic states, Latvia I think. Ndo is from Cameroon.
At the Shels messageboard there was a suggestion after the Ireland vs China game: buy a decent Chinese player that would actually make the team every week, and maybe part of the 5000 Chinese fans that were at Lansdowne would also come to Tolka Park. Interesting idea IF the Chinese guy would actually play.
In belgium, Genk and later their satellite team Heusden-Zolder hired a Japanese player, and despite the fact that he was on the bench most of the games there were Japanese people in the stadium every single week + the jerseys sold in Japan + Genk made a deal with a Japanese TV station to live broadcast their games in JapanSo commercially seen, the Asian market is something to investigate for sure.
I think 40000 Polish people are a decent number for a club, don't forget some EL teams also attract less than 1000 people every week. Maybe, given the amount of Russian, Latvian and Romanian people here, a cross-border Eastern Europe team could be viable - with a Polish dominance given their numbers.
I also don't think ethnic clubs are a problem, at least it would draw their attention to the EL. Look at Argentina and Australia where at least 30 or 40% of the league clubs have foreign roots (Deportivo Armenia, Espanola, Newell's Old Boys, Portuguesa, Croatia Sydney, Club Italiano, ...). They all attract decent crowds.
Not meaning to sound bithcy about our neighbours, but cavan has an extremely small population about 6k. The population of the County is about the same as MOnaghans but it is vry spread out. Would be great to have another derby game though
I hate to burst ye're bubble about Carlow but with summer soccer comes summer exams and summer holidays, so I wouldnt rely on the students.
At a guess Id say that the most likely places for a new eL club would be 1) Mullingar, as they were supposed to be the main rivals for the spot when Kildare got elected in, 2) Wexford, as Wallace obviously wants to get in to the eL act and could build them a lovely stadium. Im sure that he would get Dolan to be their number 1 fan too and elevate their profile, or 3) Tralee as the popularity of soccer there seems to be growing all the time, and Dynamos seem to be holding thier own in the u21 league.
As I say, we're just young & a bit nieve.
Insane idea Gerrit - sorry. Would never work and would appeal to no-one. There is no Eastern European identity.
The 40,000 Poles don't all live in the same town and aren't all interested in football. That's a smaller total potential audience than the Faroe Islands, for example..
The Chinese - and indeed Asians in general - are shockingly fickle when it comes to supporting teams. They chop and change almost on a seasonal basis, and can't be relied upon. For example - Even with a decent-sized Chinese community in Liverpool, and a Chinese player and last season a Chinese sponsor, Everton didn't get any significant increase in the level of active support from the Chinese community in the city (I have 2 friends who work for the club). It gained them a lot of token support in China - but they've probably all switched to Liverpool now since the CL final anyway. Chinese people over here tend not to be big on football - look around you at any games you go to in places with a big Chinese population (e.g. London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow).
Irish people don't even go to EL games - so expecting any other community to flock to the terraces is a bit naive. Again - we have more fundamental issues to solve here. The game in Ireland overall has to be made much more attractive before we could have realistic hopes of any significant numbers of non-Irish taking an interest in it. Dreaming up makey-uppy teams for large towns will also solve nothing. Longford, Monaghan, Bray, Kildare and Derry are all relatively new entrants into the League, and gave it a better regional spread. Yet it's done feck all to the broad level of support and appeal of the game. Again - the fundamental problem with our league is its image - not it's regional footprint...
Last edited by dcfcsteve; 12/06/2005 at 11:33 PM.
I see your point, but also note that Ireland vs China (a friendly game nota bene) attracted 5000 Chinese fans, so a good representation of the Chinese community went to the stadium to see their team play. It were all Irish-based Chinese people, no one was travelling from China and back for the game. So stating they're not interested at all in sports is also not the complete truth.
And Polish people, though widespread, do care about football, though I notice with the Polish I know that most of them don't follow EL but follow a domestic team (Legia Warsaw and Wisla Krakow seem to be quite popular) via the internet and media. Maybe if they'd have their own team it could fill a gap...
a word of warning.
County Kildare has the highest population outside of dublin,cork ,limerick & galway and yet our eircom league team only averages 200 in the first division.
It aint about catchment or population. Its all about how the club is put together and run.
KCFC is effectively run by the same people who run the Kildare junior league.
There is a lot of self interest involved and its smothering the potential of the club.
The people that run kildare county are a joke and I would have grave concerns about their being a club in existence in the next few years. From what I heard they are losing money by the bucketload.
Most people I know wont go and watch them because they are perceived to have too many "blow-ins" and "journeymen" who wont die for the shirt if you catch my drift.
With regards the potential for the club our highest crowd was a top of the table first division game against waterford in our first season.
1200 people. Brilliant by first division standards.
Interesting example - but with the possible exception of Sweden, football teams based upon immigrant support tend to be in countries with very very large numbers of immigrants from those groups concerned. Germany has a 9% 'Auslander' (immigrant) population, of which 2 million are Turkish - and that doesn't measure 2nd and 3rd generations ethnic Turks now treated as nationals (even with the fecked-up passport qualification system the Germans have in-place). Within that, certain cities have a huge immigrant population - 25%+ in Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. There's 0ver 120,000 Turkish-born Turks in Berlin alone, and then they'll have 2nd and 3rd generation families.
Meanwhile, neither Ireland nor Dublin have such large immigrant populations in total, let alone from a single country. I don't know what the actual figures are, but I'd be surprised if there were more than 10-15,000 members from any single non-EU community based in Ireland. (e.g. the 2002 census recorded less than 20,000 Muslims in the whole of the island). I don't believe that represents a sufficient potential supporter base from which to make a senior football team financially viable, without doing a Spurs or an Arsenal - and having certain communities each overwhelmingly supporting a different existing EL team. Also - immigrant groups like the Turks will have primary loyalty towards teams in their homeland (e.g. I live in an area of London with 40,000 Portuguese, and the place went mad the night Benfica won the league last month).
Finally - from a personal point of view I'd prefer it for the purposes of social cohesion if those of non-Irish origin supported local sides, regardless of religion or race. Just look at the venom that exists in Scottish football due to the presence of a team from a large immigrant group.
P.S. Sorry Gerrit - I always seem to be disagreeing with you in my posts ! It's nothing personal !
I was watching a prog on tv a while back and it said that Dublins Chineese community had grown to 50,000 over the past 5 years.
Finn harps wont move to letterkenny. I believe they were given that option some years back and a free site to build their pitch, just outside the town. but apparently they didnt want to move.they were founded in their current location and that's where they'll stay. a move to letterkenny has obvious benefits but i suppose they want to stay loyal to their home beside the river finn which makes sense too.
As stated above, the Chinese Embassy themselves estimate the population in the whole of Ireland to be 60,000.
I think Countyman talks a lot of sense. It is not as simple as looking at the map, seeing where has no team and picking a local team with a good record to elevate to league status.
Crowds won't appear out of nowhere. Potantial fans will have been exposed to the premiership and gaa, and so will be in for a shock when they turn up at a eL First Division game played in front of a couple of hundred people.
The cost risk is massive (hence Newbridge town never entered, but rather Kildare County was formed), with travel expenses and players wages.
Here's a website with populations for nearly every town in the world:
www.world-gazetteer.com
This is the page with a list of the largest Irish towns:
http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.ph...pnan&col=aohdq
Caller to Radio 5 phone-in: There are too many foreign players in the league.
Mark Lawrenson: Why do you think that is?
Caller: Because there are a lot of them.
well.. .
in tralee there is indeed the dynamos. back in the day there was almost no soccer news in the kerryman but now there 4-5 pages a week of news of the u-21 leagues, kerry league etc. there was even a big full page article on some lad who went to southampton.
the gaa still has a massive hold on the county however and I'm not sure there's enough people who would really make an effort to support/organise even a part-time team that travelled nagiton wide.
I could be under-estimating them but I think it's at least 4 or 5 years off.
Ideally I'd like to see tralee dynamos get in as kilarney has all the main gigs on in the county and if football was on there as well tralee may as well pack up with regard to being the county capital.
would be great though - first division games against waterford, cobh, limerick, galway and kilkenny are all reasonably close.
I should point out that I reckon a 16 team top division with a 12 team bottom tier is the way forward I feel.
I long for that day too!
As I say, we're just young & a bit nieve.
hehe
I will be seriously pi$$ed off if we are still in the First Division in 4 or 5 years time
I read that there were very big home crowds when the Kerry League played in the under 21 league last season.?
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks