Do or die for Summer Soccer!!!

[Sonic]

Plus there is alot of demand on the PART-TIME players with young families as the one time before with the winter soccer that they had for summer holidays and general family time is disrupted

[patsh]

Plus there is alot of demand on the PART-TIME players with young families as the one time before with the winter soccer that they had for summer holidays and general family time is disrupted

Maybe they could play cup competitions between December and March, Longford would be thrilled with a 4 month season......

[Da Real Rover]

Personnally i rathered winter football, it had a better atmosphere to it but if we do go back to it then all the hard work Cork and Shels did last season will be destroyed. Improvement in Europe is the only way forward and the only way to get those barstoolers to games. If we achieve in europe then we can be compared to the English teams and on a par with them, we wont be seen as the local pub team whos only fans are scumbags. If we go back to winter football then we ll be back at status quo and downhill from then on.

[pete]

This is the same old eL discussion. Change to 10 team league but change back before have had time to evaluate. Now people are at the same thing with summer football. People say attendances have not increased but it could be said that no decrease its own kind of success.

Winter football means zero chance of european progression. Setanta will not be interested in live eL in the winter as will have ****** League rugby. In summer football even Bray looks inhabitable - during the winter is like some sort of artic observatory.

Personally i'd swop football in may, june & july & drop december january & february!

Anyone suggesting a summer break is insane.

[sligoman]

I prefer summer soccer because of the better weather and not having to stand out in the pouring rain and cold wind blowing but as someone mentioned earlier I think dark nights does add to the atmosphere and they are missed in my opinion

PS. How about setting a poll up on this?

[mypost]

I prefer summer soccer because of the better weather and not having to stand out in the pouring rain and cold wind blowing but as someone mentioned earlier I think dark nights does add to the atmosphere and they are missed in my opinion

PS. How about setting a poll up on this?

If you want real night summer games, then they should kick-off later than they currently do, e.g. 9.00. Lbh, how often in this country are floodlights needed for games with 7.45 ko's in June, and July?

[mypost]

Plus there is alot of demand on the PART-TIME players with young families as the one time before with the winter soccer that they had for summer holidays and general family time is disrupted

How many players have families? Most players don't. The ones that do, can take their holidays at Christmas instead.

[Macy]

I think we should seriously look at the overall benefits of summer football if there isn't significant progress in Europe.

I actually find it's harder to get to summer football with more competing distractions rather than less. And to me, there doesn't seem to be any increase in people getting off their bar stools.

If it's not working for the league in general, should we really be having the league based around 3 clubs? European progress is seen as some kind of panacea (as much as any of the other changes that pete used as examples), yet the one club that made significant progress last year hasn't benefitted even medium term, certainly the league hasn't.

Patsh - you're just turning into an extremely boring troll - I don't expect a Cork mod to do anything about a Cork troll though .

Shels Tim - only shels are seeing the benefit of increased TV coverage. Fook all benefit to the rest of the premier, let alone the rest of the league.

[patsh]

Patsh - you're just turning into an extremely boring troll - I don't expect a Cork mod to do anything about a Cork troll though .

Get a sense of humour Macy, don't be taking yourself so seriously....

[Cosmo]

From a totally selfish point of view, summer football has to stay. Nothing like sitting out in a beer garden on a friday evening on a lovely summers day drinking a nice cool point of bud and then off to the football on a nice summers evening

[pete]

Clubs that have the facilities should be setting up marques or beer tents to avail of the summer weather.

[jorge]

What would the crouds be like if there was'nt summer football?Imo they'd be worse.Lets leave it for the next few years and see what happens.One thing is for sure the quality of the football has improved immensly.Lets hope Cork and Shels can go on a good European run and get even more attention.

[garykelly]

Summer football is grand. Cant just make a decision on it in 2/3 seasons. the success of summer football can be questioned 5/6 seasons into it.

Lets be honest here. if we had winter football, this thread would be advocating summer football. as has been said it's the same old discussion on the eL

In terms of atmosphere. well any team complaining about that never had an atmosphere in the first place. fans arent gonna stop singing suddenly becuase it's bright. Sligo Rovers for example have had no atmosphere in the showgrounds for many years, yet ppl now think there was and that summer football has affected it. We're top of the league so ppl complain about atmosphere. look at derry city, they just havent stop singing cos it's summer. I'm sure its the same for lots of teams, but derry are the only ones i've seen this season (on tv). ppl complaining about this dont even sing themselves.

[pineapple stu]

Let's be honest here - if we had winter football, this thread would be advocating summer football.

Correction. When we had winter football, the threads were advocating summer football.

Anybody who thought summer football was a cure-all for the league is a fool. It's a benefit, but it still needs the work of the clubs and the FAI to take advantage of that benefit. Think that's where we're falling down.

[Macy]

Anybody who thought summer football was a cure-all for the league is a fool. It's a benefit, but it still needs the work of the clubs and the FAI to take advantage of that benefit. Think that's where we're falling down.

Is it any benefit for the majority of clubs though? Anything to do with marketing would be equally applicable for a winter season. I mean, money thrown at advertising may make summer football a success - it could've made winter football a success too for all we know.

Surely sticking with something once you realise it's not working is just as big a problem as not giving changes a chance to work?

[EnDai]

Not working? Inter-toto quarter finals, and QR3 of the CL. How is it not working?!

[patsh]

You're a very boring troll at that. Jealous of our cups, playing surface, fantastic grounds, continued success in the EL. You see you guys are full of the "oh great to see little Longford progressing" for a short while - after which you want us to go back down the bottom from whence we climbed. It pi$$e$ you off bigtime that we're still here. Hey - it's not meant to be like this. The upstarts! What are they at?? What, they come to the cross and beat us one nil ? With their third choice keeper ? Whaddya mean we didn't score against them for over two hundred minutes - we play total football like. Sure we're the league champions elect boy

Hoorah for plucky little Longford!
A little advice.
1. Get a mirror
2. Sit in front of it
3. Repeat your username over and over again until you get it.

[Jerry The Saint]

Media coverage down? How about miles more games shown live then ever before on 4 different channels. How about more prizemoney and sponsership not to mention a whole new cup with huge prizemoney. As well as Glens v Shels on TV, when would that have normlly been done?

No real evidence that the increase in TV is due to summer soccer though. Setanta is a new entrant to the Irish market and has already had a major affect on the other stations. Just look at how TG4 suddenly (and successfully) started showing Wimbledon and the Tour de France. These are events that Setanta would surely have bid on but TG4 (thanks to RTE/taxpayers money) are expanding their offering to try and squeeze the new boys out. This season's TV deal is more a consequence of the new sports broadcasting dynamic than a gap in the summer schedule.

Anyway, Setanta have stepped up their coverage of (Shels) games recently but RTE and, to an extent, TG4 have put their broadcasts on hold until the GAA championships are finished. Don't forget, Setanta viewing figures are typically going to be way below what RTE used to get on the rare live TV occasions.

Summer season actually hinders the growth of the Setanta cup because of the mismatch of the seasons - neither league will agree to too much of an extension because it may cut into their close-season.

Europe only slightly better? First time any Irish club gets past 2 rounds in Europe and two teams do it in one year. Not to mention 0-0 against Depor, the whole catalyst for the increased attention, which was caused by summer soccer.

I'm still not convinced, which is why the upcoming games are so important to the success or otherwise of this experiment. Shelbourne had an exceptional season last year to get to the final qualifying round - given the draw they'll have to raise their game significantly from last year to even match that achievement. Longford and Bohs last year, and Bohs again this year, have had worse results in Europe than on recent occasions during winter/transition seasons.

Maybe crowds are down, but considering the money that will be made up in prizemoney, sponsership, europe and TV deals I think it's a price worth paying for summer soccer.

Shels have gone on record as saying that the best ever run of an Irish team in Europe has not led to the expected increases in sponsorship levels. Failure to match the gate receipts/prizemoney of last year will leave them in deep sh!t, given their increased expenditure.

Better pitches too and the standard of football has definitely increased, whether that's due to summer football or not is another question.

As has been said, some of the pitches have been disgraceful this season. Clubs training on the main pitch, playing U-21 games, ground sharing, lack of adequate groundskeeping have caused problems during the summer era as much as in Autumn to Spring season.

Increased standard of football has more to do with better players in the league now (returning from England/Scotland, heading over later like Doyle/Murphy) and full-time training, IMO.

It's also important to note that fixture congestion has been widespread in recent seasons and, with a little help Ollie, almost scuppered Cork's excellent end-of-season run, as he tried to do with Pats a few seasons before, by enforcing the playing of all games by the final day of the season. Mid-summer break which will probably be needed during World Cup will add further problems.

The playing of the showpiece Cup Final before the end of the season in October and now in December appears to have devalued it in the eyes of the public/bandwagoners from the teams involved (Waterford, look away from the Big Boats, I'm talking to you! )

[garykelly]

Correction. When we had winter football, the threads were advocating summer football.

Anybody who thought summer football was a cure-all for the league is a fool. It's a benefit, but it still needs the work of the clubs and the FAI to take advantage of that benefit. Think that's where we're falling down.

Spot on pineapple stu !!!

[pete]

Summer Football Judgement:
Attendances - can't tell if summer football is good for this or not.
Facilities for fans & players - better weather, pitches etc...
Standard of football - much better, dry pitches encourage passing.
TV - more tv but can't tell if summer thing.
Europe - improvement.