It speaks volumes for the Eircom League that a game involving the top team in the League can barely break the 500 barrier in terms of attendances.
I know a lot of the normal Cork travelling support were not there owing to saving there Euros for the Lithuania trip.
It seems a lot of our semi-regulars couldn't be arsed to attend last night !
We got bigger gates than last night on a couple of occasions last season when we were still a First Division side!
Is summer soccer an overhyped product? Has it really improved attendances?
I have serious doubts that it has made any significant impact on the attendance front. When you factor in people on holidays in July and August, I honestly believe that a winter season with a short break at Christmas and slightly later finishing time would have achieved as much.
Last edited by Schumi; 05/07/2005 at 9:29 PM.
Wow, I can't remember the last time the team got beaten so bad. I think the attendance thing hurts UCD more because there's a ready-made fanbase of what 25,000 people but they're not there for most of the season and I've never really seen an attempt by the club to advertise games or even its existence to the local populace.
The advertising the game to students thing was tried for years and failed to elicit much of a response except to the extent that we now have a Supporters club and STIG and those guys started to come to games some years ago when they started studying. Students either go home for the weekend during term time, are GAA or Rugby heads or are like the vast majority of so called Soccer fans, in this city, more interested in booze than going to gamesOriginally Posted by el tk
It's not the students of the college we should be aiming at really, it's the people of the locality just like all eL clubs should. Sadly we're in the heart of rugby land though. Then people have stupid perceptions of the team like that we're just a bunch of students literally and assume they can't follow us like any normal club. Plus I think the summer thing really could be knocking attendences. Last two home league games have been quite low. I myself have been missing for 3 weeks.
I live fairly close and admittedly, I do like rugby a good bit, but i still think if the club actually got off its arse and tried advertising the fact that a football team in the Eircom league plays nearby they'd get a response, I mean even the ground is basically hidden away in a corner of the campus. If people know there's a match on they'd be more likely to maybe wander down. The last time I ever found out anything about the club without having to search myself was when we were in the Inter-Toto cup and the club made those discount offer thingies (which I actually delivered).
True. The problem is that there are actually so few people involved in running the club that things like this are hard to organise. I suppose we have to hold our hands upand say it's something the Supporters' Club should be more involved in. That said, the tickets for the InterToto Cup you mentioned got a very poor take-up.
However, the likes of the summer soccer camps are great - all the kids get season tickets (for the second half of the season, of course) and also membership of the Supporters' Club - I send out a monthly newsletter to about 120 e-mail addresses (which is probably 200+ people).
I suppose it should be noted that four years ago when we played Cork, we got two crowds of 250. Galway (twice) and Monaghan were below 200. In 2002, Derry was 300 and Bray 350. Now 500 is disappointing. There were about 100 Cork fans - and 100 away fans at the Derry and Waterford games, which had similar crowds - so our base support is now up to 400. That's 33% up on our average for last season. So something's going right at least. It's a slow thing to build up and increase a support, as any eL club will tell you, but I think we are going the right way. Which isn't to say that we couldn't be doing more.
Perhaps there should be a specific effort made to raise awareness during Freshers Week? Maybe free entry or ridiculously cheap entry for any UCD student for the first few weeks of college. Perhaps even some of us still in the college could perform the embarrasing task of going around before lectures and making an awareness announcement and dropping a message on the projector? Maybe some of us should get the finger out one week and drop leaflets and a few others things and see if it makes a difference in the following match.
We've only been in the League for 26 years... is this another abject lesson in the unimportance of the National printed media?
You sound like your volunteering. The club would apreciate any help you can offer.
The me would appreciate any money you would offer in return. If you actually try something I might be interested.
Sounds like a plan is coming together. Any specific ideas post below.
P.S. el tk, good luck with your 'money in return'.
That's awfully optomistic. I've recently started having the Southside People delivered to my house again, you could try a full page ad with upcoming fixtures or somesuch. Towards the front though.
As for the Inter-Toto ticket things not working, if memory serves the thing was horribly organised, I got the things to deliver the day before the match and I got them out but I knew of others who weren't able to or didn't bother.
Another thing you could do is advertise in the Sports Centre, with all the summer camps, Crunch Fitness and the rest of it there's a fair amount of people going through there on a day to day basis. The women's team put up posters with match dates there.
Also someone should liaise with the Montrose Hotel. Maybe some of the American tour parties might like to see a University team , who uniquely in Western Europe are playing " major League soccer " while they are here!
P.S The Women's team are the reigning Champions of the League and barely manage an attendance numbering 50.
I've tried on a couple of occasions to have regular match reports - similar to the ones here really - included in the Southside People. No luck, unfortunately. They never got back to me.
We've spoken with Diarmuid McNally, the club's development officer, about this in the past. His view on that is illuminating - the club's tickets, even given away free, don't interest the students. Part of the problem is that they're just some text printed on coloured card. Giving away professionally made, high quality tickets might get a larger response, but it's just too expensive. The Soccer Supporters' Society got a tiny (read: ~0) response during Freshers' Week in 2003/04, even though we were offering discounted entry to games and access to our allocation of Ireland tickets. Students suck at supporting things. They need to be hit with info at every turn before they'll think twice about anything - which is why I like your next suggestion.
Even just droping a slide on the projector might make a difference if we're doing it for every match. I'd definately be up for that.Perhaps even some of us still in the college could perform the embarrasing task of going around before lectures and making an awareness announcement and dropping a message on the projector? Maybe some of us should get the finger out one week and drop leaflets and a few others things and see if it makes a difference in the following match.
I'll actually try to do that if I'm a tutor next year. When the college year nearly starts I'll post up again and see if some of us left in the college can try this. Though if I recall correctly all the big societies like C&E are vying for pre-lecture announcing and projector space and students are generally apathetic to these announcements. It's a pity Victor Connerty isn't still around as he'd have dropped a word in is lectures if asked.
As a matter of interest what was the attendence at the Inter Toto game?
Ah crap, I was looking at the fixture list. Unless we're involved in a home tie in the FAI Cup quarter finals there isn't a home game until two weeks into the college year in October and that's against Waterford.
Fairly large from what I recall the lads saying (I didn't start coming to games until the following season). It's the return rate of the flyers (which had discounts associated IIRC) that was poor.
About 1000 or so at the Velbazhd game. Looked larger at the time, but I think it was seated only, so the AIB stand was packed. A couple of thousand tickets were dropped out around the neighbourhood; less than 1% went to the game.
Remember thinking about that when I was in college. Can't remember why we didn't go ahead with it - whether it was just cost/organisation or whether services had a problem with it. The latter is quite possible.
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