That's understandable, but would that be how an MSL for all of Munster look like, 9 teams from Cork and one from Limerick, none from any of the other counties? I would assume that it would be more diverse than that if it really covered all of Munster.Originally Posted by Real ale Madrid
Surely a Kerry team would be good enough - Tralee?
Are there no teams in Tipp, Clare or Waterford who'd be strong enough?
And would Limerick only have one team of sufficient strength? Based on recent FAI Cups, they'd have more surely?
It doesn't have to be a 10-team league either (although I appreciate that'd negate my point about new teams strengthening the league to an extent)
I suppose that is the argument that the MSL sides are stronger in general than the Limerick / Tipp / Kerry sides specifically. and that after a few years all the regional teams would drop down. When Tralee and more specifically Killarney played in the MSL in my memory anyway they always struggled to win more than a few games a season.
Ideally a Premier Division would include both Tralee Dynamos and Killarney Celtic, Pike Rovers and another Limerick Team or two, St Michaels from Tipp with perhaps a Peake Villa, Bunratty from Clare and I'm not sure the Junior teams in Waterford are traditionally that strong in the last 20/25 years. Getting that sort of balance is difficult - probably impossible unless the financial incentives are there so that the best players then gravitate towards them.
Considering we had a tipperary team briefly in the 1970s in loi does anyone know is Thurles town still in existence as a club?
Gary Cronin is he the right man to manage Longford Town?
Thurles Town played in the League of Ireland from 1977–78 until 1981–82. Their best performance was a ninth-place finish in 1979–80.
They are still active in the North Tipperary & District League, Premier Division, with fixtures and results reported for this past summer (while Level 3 was in place), but their website appears to be defunct and their Twitter and Facebook accounts well out of date.
They seem to be playing out of the Greyhound Stadium in Thurles, as they have since 1950.
It is hard to avoid the thought that they must have been involved in the abortive Sporting Club Thurles, which was elected to the planned new First Division in early 1985, but withdrew at the last minute, at a meeting of the League Management Committee on 23 August 1985. The reason/excuse given was that they hadn't been able to secure the use of the Greyhound Stadium - which was odd seeing that it had been in use for matches for the previous 30 years.
Went across to have a look at the Greyhound Stadium while down at the hurling last summer (19). Great facility, didn't know soccer was still being played, but that is good to hear. I take it there is no other Greyhound ground being used by a soccer team?
It was a glorious summer's day, and there was a large crowd their having their pre-match pints. Many of them were out on the balcony and viewing stand, and I tried to imagine how it would be like to have Thurles Town playing a league of Ireland game there.
Shelbourne v Galway cup game at Harold's Cross was the only game I have been at in a greyhound ground. I am sure many on this forum have been to good few. What do folks think of them as venues for LOI matches?
I've only been to The Brandywell before they renovated it but I felt the track took away from the atmosphere a bit. You felt a bit too har removed from the action compared to a traditional ground like say Richmond Park or Dalymount.
Went up to Saratoga, where my horse naturally won.
This is true if you think of it from the perspective of them being private clubs who can grow and sustain themselves as businesses.
If you look at it from a player development point of view, colleges are a great breeding ground for footballers who may not have gotten opportunities through the normal channels, and the number of players who have come through four years in UCD with an education and the prospect of a career in the game shows that.
Colleges all spend money on sport with no expectation of a financial return - it's just that rugby and athletics tend to get a much bigger slice of it. We should absolutely be encouraging UCC in particular to try and step up their programme.
To be fair, there was all sorts of stuff going on regarding the three Galway clubs that no competent organisation would have contemplated, and you couldn't really say they got there as a result of a 'pyramid' in any meaningful sense of the word.
I think a well-defined pyramid structure that brings together the best teams (ie get the likes of North End to stop being a big fish in a tiny league and competing in the LSL) with election to the top level for clubs that have won their regional league and have a serious plan for senior football would work well. It would mean reducing the entry requirements to the FD and that would bring difficulties to but I think it could be done.
I actually know someting (at least 1 side ) of the story as my family are originally from North Tipp and often had relatives go to Oriel over the years when visiting. The greyhound people wanted a cut of the gate + the flat rent in the original agreement. A rent increase was offered but not a cut of the gate every other week on top. I dont know whether this is true or was an assumption but it was said that with the novelty factor and sides like Derry visiting, it was going to mean big crowds and some people saw the $$ and wanted a piece of that. The merged teams of Sporting Club I dont know, eg Town FC/AFC or Peake as like the LoI side but I doubt it was a cosy arrangement in the first place just going on how parochial they are in general and wouldnt have taken much for things to crumble. I know the GAA gets blamed for plenty but minutes from Hayes Hotel and Semple Stadium right beside - if large crowds were turning up to soccer games, well I cant help it myself to consider that maybe there was more to demands for rent + % of gate income.
Last edited by Nesta99; 26/11/2020 at 4:41 AM.
Were they wearing hi-viz vests?
*years!! I hope not or we'd have a walking dead situation going on
Derry hadn't joined the league at that point though, and nobody knew then that they would have the big crowds that they initially did.
There was actually a lot of apprehension about Derry joining the LOI, as the Troubles were still blazing away at the time and a lot of people feared it would impact the football and there'd be problems at games. Especially with the proposal of having no police at games in the Brandywell. So there is no way anyone in Thurles would reasonably have expected Derry to result in big crowds. If they had any expectations at all re them, it would probably have been of a more negative variety.
Only Rovers drew 'big' crowds in those days really (and no bigger than today IMO).
You may well be spot on and it was retrospective thinking and a long time ago. Whenever we went to Oriel with visitors the general chat was wishing that there was a team from Thurles/North Tipp (even Nenagh) playing. Unfortunately that generation of family are all gone so there is no one to ask. Big hurling family so the level interest was a bit unusual thinking back though they travelled up and went to European games with my Uncle and top of the list was obviously the Celtic game. I loved the stories about that as I was months old about then, but its possibly where and why their interest was piqued. Bit of glamour going to Oriel Park on European nights back then too when Oriel was one of the top grounds in the league!
(Originally Posted by EatYerGreens)
"We have a fundamental problem in Irish football. If we go down the pyramid route, we end up with teams that are good on the pitch at an intermediate level but will struggle at a senior level - and invariably have no fans. Worst still they'll end up all being from the same place - like the one time when we actually did have a pyramid and we ended up with 3 clubs in Galway city. Ridiculous."
If you think about it, a pyramid system incorporating P&R and supported by proper Licensing system would actually have solved the Galway problem before it even arose.
That is, the best of the three teams would play at Senior level (Championship?), the next best at Intermediate level and the third at Junior level, with all three having the potential to move up or down, depending on how they perform over time.
I think so too, but it'd be a big effort to sync all that up, especially with Mayo being the next biggest football area in Connacht and operating on a summer season while everyone else in junior football is on a winter schedule. If they could iron it out and have an intermediate league spanning Connacht and Donegal, it would be a real improvement, but it would need serious leadership and support, financially and otherwise, from the FAI, which we can all dream about.
Realistically for a pyramid you’d be looking to consolidate smaller/weaker leagues into about 20 district leagues, feeding into four regional intermediate divisions, feeding into a north-south regionalised first division, then the premier, all on the same calendar. From regional up, that’s 70-80 teams. Easy peasy, just add millions, proper governance and oversight, and a Corinthian spirit for local mafia dons to vote themselves out of existence.
We can but dream…
Hello, hello? What's going on? What's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here!
- E Tattsyrup.
This exactly it, there's no point in thinking about this without being utopian.
What needs to be done is a doomsday book of Irish football. Every club in the country consulted about their desires of a pyramid and categorised into either junior, intermediate and senior.
oh boy I'm not good at football forums
You mean like in NI (except the regionalised 1st Division)?
https://www.irishfa.com/irish-footba...ucture-project
No millions for us, nor any shortage of local mafia dons, but we're making progress.
P.S. I'm not saying the IL system is perfect (far from it), nor am I seeking to score points etc. But I am concerned that if/when an AIL ever comes about, I wouldn't like to see the IL tied to another league which is still financially and structurally unstable.
Last edited by EalingGreen; 01/12/2020 at 2:25 PM.
Some in Donegal have never accepted it with the "Go back to your own league" Banners.
Last edited by DCSIL; 02/12/2020 at 5:11 PM.
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