QuoteCould not the same thing be said about the league up North though?Originally Posted by EalingGreen
(And again, I do agree with you about making clubs up)
But isn't the whole point about a pyramid that there shouldn't be too much of a gap between the different tiers, so that it isn't too much of a shock for teams moving up or down between them?
Presently your top tier is mostly f-t professional, while your second tier is basically p-t professional.
But if your third tier is little more than geerously-expensed amateur, the problem will come when the winners get promoted to the second tier and second tier clubs get relegated to the third.
How much money will this third tier generate, over and above what is needed for mowing pitches and hiring the team bus for away games? Sponsors aren't likely to flock to a brand new club in a small provincial town, nor paying spectators either, especially if the club is near the bottom of the league, losing more than they win. Nor are you likely to have many club stalwarts who will volunteer their time selling raffle tickets and organising social functions etc to raise money etc.
Where are you going to find 10 new stadia of a decent standard, with stands, turnstiles, floodlights, media facilities etc? Training facilities to senior standard? Sure you might have 2 or 3 Tralee Dynamos or Monaghan Utds who could step up, or the odd Cabinteely who might transform from youth to adult. But 8, 10, 12 such clubs?
While without the basic infrastructure of finance and facilities etc, the better and more ambitious players and coaches will likely be tempted away very quickly to bigger clubs who have the money and resources to allow them to progress their careers in senior football, especially if their existing club doesn't have the pull of being their long-established, home town club where their dad, uncles and mates etc all played down the years.
By contrast, if you look at eg the IL third tier, the youngest club is already 40 years old, while the oldest date from 1880, with all bar PSNI established in its own city/town/village, rather than a (vague) region:
https://www.nifootballleague.com/pre...022/standings/
Could not the same thing be said about the league up North though?
(And again, I do agree with you about making clubs up)
Not really.
Take the example of eg Portadown FC. They were always a leading provincial club, founded in 1887 in a proper footballing town, and joining the IL in 1924. They've won 4 IL's and 3 Irish Cups in the not-too-distant past and played in Europe many times.
Then a few years back they "fell on hard times" (don't ask why!) and dropped down to the second tier, where they scuttled around for a bit, before finally getting back up for last season.
The point being that they were replaced in the Championship by another Portadown club, Annagh Utd (founded 1963), who had won promotion from the third tier for the first time. And while Ports are struggling to escape relegation this season, Annagh, who have a great wee set-up (ground, reserves, youth, admin etc) are competing well at their new level.
Meanwhile, it looks as though Warrenpoint (1987) will certainly drop out of the top tier this season, but assuming they do, they should still be ok next season. While they'll likely be replaced by their near neighbours, Newry City (2012, but originally 1918), who might give it a decent enough go in the Prem - they've certainly been there before.
As for who replaces Newry from the third tier, it's looking like Armagh City (1963) or Bangor (1918), both of whom have played in the top tier previously, never mind the second.
All of which shows that these are all well-established clubs, who remain reasonably stable and competitive whether they have a good season and get promoted, or a bad one and get relegated. And that strength in depth runs pretty much through the top three tiers, with the Intermediate and Junior leagues further below generally doing ok too. And if this is at a lower overall standard than the LOI (or the best of it, at least), when you consider the relative size and resources of the two countries, the IL can claim to be doing pretty well (imo).
The overall point being that none of this structure was achieved overnight; on the contrary, it's taken many years of planning and hard work.
Last edited by EalingGreen; 09/02/2022 at 1:39 PM.
I think you're confusing two points here - one about creating new clubs rather than encourage existing ones (which I agree with) and one about the gap between tiers (which I think is a similar issue to the IL)
OK, Portadown get relegated - as did Cork. They'll be back. Annagh United got promoted - and of course we don't have an equivalent because our structure is silly.
But the gap between IL Premier (Linfield, Coleraine, Glens, even Larne with their purple bricks) to second tier (Annagh, H&W, Stute) is by and large as big as here, and when you go down to the third tier (which surely has to be "little more than generously-expensed amateur") you can even see a former big name (Distillery) who are, as you fear for the LoI, "levelling down rather than levelling up"
I think the arguments around the gaps between the tiers is very similar to the IL and is just something that happens when you bring in various tiers. I don't see that as a problem per se.
I agree that there is a danger that the top four or five clubs in the IL Prem could soon be out of reach of the rest of the teams in NI (support, European money, benefactors etc). Though that is happening everywhere eg English PL, Scotland (obv) and even the LOI Prem.
But that wasn't really what I was saying. For while the gap eg between Linfield at the top of the IL, and PSNI at the bottom of the third tier, is obviously so huge as to be completely unbridgeable, my point is that the gap between the bottom few IL Prem clubs, and the top few Championship clubs isn't that big. Ditto the gap between the bottom few Championship clubs and those at the top of the third tier.
Whereas there is a danger that if you suddenly introduce a whole third tier of 10 made-up clubs to the LOI, without their having any of the history, support, finances, stadium or infrastructure needed to survive at senior level, it could mean that clubs promoted from the 3rd tier find that no sooner have they "climbed Carrauntoohillf", than they find they're required to "climb Mont Blanc".
While clubs getting relegated from the second tier find themselves "dropping off a cliff".
Last edited by EalingGreen; 09/02/2022 at 2:14 PM.
Remember, too, that the LOI presently has only 19 clubs in the top two divisions, whereas the IL has 24.
Which means that if No.s 20 to 24 in the latter are that much further from Linfield than, say 18 or 19 in the LOI are to Shams, they must nonetheless be closer to the teams at the top of the third tier - not least because most of them were playing down there at one time or another!
To be fair, you're really oversimplfying things.
There's no reason the likes of a Kerry side, playing out of a decent facility in Mounthawk Park, couldn't be equally as successful as any long established junior or intermediate side. They've sown the seeds at underage level this past five or six years. They're on the edge of Tralee, a town of 25,000 people. It's well enough equipped, in theory at least, to host a LOI side.
Monaghan United would be in the driving seat to take one of the places. They're currently playing in the Ulster Senior League, and have long established links with the LOI already.
There was a Leinster Senior League club who mentioned big plans, was in Bluebell or Crumlin? Cabo departure leaves a gap for a Dublin side in the third tier. One of the thriving LSL sides might fancy a crack at it.
There's plenty of sides out there who could, and should, be able to step into a third division, if it were regionalised. The idea to fill up the rest of the spots with LOI B sides should be welcomed, and a regional North/South division would make it more cost effective for teams to step into.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
OK - but that's not the point that I'm saying you're making.
And in the LoI, you have UCD/Drogheda/Harps at the bottom of the Premier and at the top of the First you have Cork/Waterford/Galway. That's also not that big.
I think you're grossly overestimating the LoI First Division to think that promotion to it is equivalent to climbing Carrauntoohil. And yes, clubs being relegated from the FD could "drop off a cliff" - but no different to NI, as in the example of Lisburn Distillery that I gave.
And again, I agree that the jump would be better made by established clubs rather than brand new ones.
Ballymun United
Also important to note that promotion and relegation leads to a degree of 'trickle-down' across a pyramid. If you look at the non-league/conference scene in England now versus how it was when P&R was first introduced out of it in 1987 it is light years away in terms of the difference, Even if you look at the conference level in England 15 to 20yrs ago vs now, there is no comparison. It's only in the last 10 years or so that big clubs like Luton, Wimbledon, Bristol Rovers, Halifax etc started being at conference level in numbers, which has led since to the Conference Premier becoming an almost entirely professional league. And a lot of the clubs who replaced them in the Football League have become established there now (e.g. Stevenage, Forest Green, Crawley, Fleetwood, Cheltenham).
The dynamic is a three-way thing. Firstly some bigger clubs fall down the pyramid - though still retaining the potential they had in terms of support, sponsorship etc. That therefore generally over time lifts the quality of the tiers they fall into - by having more established clubs with better stadia, bigger actual/potential fanbases, larger gates at games home and away etc. Portadown were outnumbering the home support at pretty much every away game they played whilst in the IL second tier.
Then secondly you have the movement the other way - with smaller clubs rising up the pyramid and getting more established there, which helps them to grow both fanbase and facilities (though it takes time). An example of this in the IL would be Dunganon Swifts - who first got promoted to the top tier in 2003, and have become an established top tier club since then. With Stangmore Park greatly improved, and the team making an Irish Cup Final and also playing in Europe twice. Would Stangmore be the ground it is now if they'd never played in the IL top tier ? Obviously it wouldn't (because it wouldn't have needed to be).
And then finally there are clubs who have never played at a high level in the pyramid but aspire to do so - and therefore invest in their facilities, team etc to be in a position where that would be possible some day (ratehr ths win promotion on the pitch and then get refused on the basis of facilities). Harland & Wolff Welders with their fantastic new stadium would be a good example of that. Which again improves the whole eco-system and lifts the bar across the level they currently play at.
The net result of the three dynamics above is that the ebb and flow of clubs up and down lifts the standards slowly across all levels of the pyramid. It's an undeniable dynamic, but does take a bit of time to naturally occur/evolve.
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 09/02/2022 at 2:49 PM.
Why are you assuming that an LOI 3rd tier would be an entity made up of entirely new. rootless clubs ? It's likely that a number of them will be existing clubs taking a step up. Either clubs already paying senior football at the non-league level, or clubs currently in the underage system who would just evolve to add a senior men's team as well. And even in the cases of new clubs, they wouldn't be literally pulled out of thin air. They would have some existing support structures, stadia etc etc. A bit like how Kildare County was a 'new' club when it joined the LOI, but in reality wasn't really. Same if a Monaghan/Cavan club joins the 3rd tier.
No-one as far as I can see is proposing to have a third tier entirely made up of Sporting Fingals playing out of non-existing stadia.
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 09/02/2022 at 3:34 PM.
Fair enough, that's 3 or 4 teams who should comfortably step up to the 3rd tier (though how long before they could survive in the second tier is another matter).
But you're looking for another half dozen of similar standard if a 10 team(?) third tier is going to be reasonably competitive in itself, never mind capable of proving an adequate feeder to the second tier.
Regionalisation would certainly solve some problems, but it would surely exacerbate the wider problem.
Namely, even if you only had two regional leagues of, say, 8 teams each, that would still require 16 teams to be promoted from their present status, or created from scratch.
And considering the FAI couldn't even come up with a single, serious 10th team for the second tier in time for this year, where are you going to get another 10 or 12 for a single division third tier by next year, never mind 16 or 20 or more if regionalised?
Last edited by EalingGreen; 09/02/2022 at 4:07 PM.
I think you're being unnecessaruly pessimistic in essentially writing off the idea of a Third Tier before its even been born/launched. Particularly as you'd have to accept that you're not up to speed with the current non-league and underage scene in the south (as shown by your assumption that every cluh in the 3rd would be made up from scratch, rather than any existing clubs stepping up or adopting a new name).
So probably best to wait and see what actually transpires before writing it off ?
Agree, but that wasn't really my point. FD clubs may climb to the Prem and v.v., but that gap is a sight less than climbing into the FD from eg junior football in Kerry or youth leagues in Mayo (or whatever), especially if it's a brand new club.
I mean, when the FAI couldn't get a 10th club for the FD this year, where are they going to get 8 or 10 3rd tier clubs, with reasonable aspirations to the FD, by next year?
They may prove me wrong, but I just don't see it.
Hang on.
You're saying that the jump from FD to Prem is not that big (I agree), while at the same time "grossly overestimating" the FD? Doesn't add up.
Meanwhile, if I may digress onto Distillery, they are an outlier and their decline has nothing to do with the pyramid, since their problems long predate IL reorganisation.
Briefly, as the first professional club in Ireland, their heyday was in the early 20th Century, with periodic revivals, and with Tom Finney playing for them in a 3-3 draw with Benfica in the European Cup(!) being a last hurrah. By the 70's, they were Belfast's 4th or 5th team when the Council compulsorily purchased their ground to build the Westway, The Troubles then followed, hitting West Belfast particularly hard. The ground compensation having been inadequate, attempts to purchase elsewhere in Belfast were scuppered by cost, or the police (security reasons), and they had to move out of the city completely. -
Eventually they decamped to a trotting stadium in Ballyskeagh, a country location a couple of miles outside Lisburn, itself never a football town. The fact that they're still going, even at so modest a level is, if anything, a testament to the pyramid, since it has allowed them to continue to exist into the 21st Century as a third tier club, no more no less.
Indeed.
If you look to NI, even considering all our other problems (size, population, economy, Troubles etc), the one thing that has sustained us is that we have always had lots of long established clubs in most towns and areas to build upon. For example, I seem to recall reading that at the time of the split in 1921, the Co.Antrim FA had more member clubs than the whole of Munster and Connaught combined.
Meaning that even when we lost two major clubs in Belfast Celtic and Derry City, or clubs like Bangor and Ards declined, what were formerly junior or intermediate clubs like Crusaders, Carrick and Larne were able to step up, followed by the likes of Ballyclare, Dungannon, Ballinamallard, Institute, Warrenpoint etc.
And while not wishing to overstate the level of achievement - we're still "small fry" in modern professional terms - nonetheless this progress towards a viable, thriving pyramid across the whole of NI has still taken many years of hard work and planning to get us even to this level.
But as I say, maybe the FAI will prove me wrong.
I think the point you are missing is that there are already 5 or 6 underage "clubs" like Kerry who have a strong identity as they have been competing in LOI but at underage level for years.
The step up to first division is to much for them in one leap but a 3rd tier with similar costs as running an under 19s team would be welcomed by them as it means they have a home for the players when they hit 20 (many of whom have been playing for the "club" since under 14 or 15).
The costs in the underage loi are kept down by simple things like the home team has a physio there but the away team don't need to bring one.
Promotion to the first division would need to be contingent on minimum ground standards but having a competitive 3rd tier if the costs are kept low is an easy enough win i believe (plus 1 or two reserve teams).
All of which is very true, but actually rather supports my case, not the FAI's.
For the lack of P&R in England until 1987 had two effects: 1. to artificially protect failing clubs in the 4th Division, and 2. to artificially suppress progressive, ambitious new member clubs from rising non-league.
Often the former were Northern and the latter Southern, reflecting the shift in economic fortunes and population since the 1970's. The English population has also grown overall by 10 million since then and is wealthier, meaning that England can now comfortably support rather more f-t professional clubs than the original 92.
Meanwhile, with the exception of MK Dons (outlier), virtually all of the new FL clubs you mention were already established semi-pro clubs, in existence for decades, if not a century or more, and so were well able to make the step-up to f-t status in the EFL. And even then they didn't all step up at the same time, with just one years notice.
(Note, too, that those clubs you name were just the best of the up-and-coming clubs. England has literally dozens of other solid non-league clubs in provincial towns up and down the country, who like eg Kidderminster or Borehamwood, come to our attention in the FA Cup, and might one day climb to the EFL.)
Everything you say is entirely correct.
But my point is that you cannot have the powerful dynamic you identify without a basic core of established clubs to make it happen. And I struggle to see where all those clubs exist in ROI for a viable third tier of 10 clubs (minimum), without a good proportion having to be created from scratch.
And the LOI's record in "magicing up" new clubs overnight is not a good one - Irish Sea FC anyone?
But we'll see.
Last edited by EalingGreen; 10/02/2022 at 12:07 PM.
I'm not, just a good proportion.
And what happened to them?
Meanwhile, Salthill, Mervue, Kilkenny, Monaghan and Cabo weren't all-new clubs, either, but they couldn't hack it in senior football.
Last edited by EalingGreen; 10/02/2022 at 12:20 PM.
Ealing - no harm, but sometimes more is less.
Half your post is about the benefits of established clubs over new ones; I've said umpteen times I agree with that point. I'm not sure why you're rehashing it.
A quarter of your post is a sob story about Distillery - it doesn't matter why they've "levelled out" in the third tier; the fact is they have done so, so the concerns that the same may happen here are irrelevant. If, say, Cobh drop to the third tier and can't find their way out they'll have a similar sob story. But so what? That's football.
And that leaves only a quarter of your post that's actually relevant - and yet it's not, because you've quietly shifted from your view that the move from FD to PD is like going from Carrauntoohil to Everest, and now you agree that actually it's not that big.
And the gap from what currently is the third tier - LSL/MSL, say - isn't insurmountable either. FD clubs get knocked out by non-league clubs in the Cup for example. There's plenty of teams around the country who could step up. The problem is that the proposed structure (and I've said on here before that I don't agree with the third tier in its current format, as it's just adding an extra layer onto a failed system) isn't catered towards finding them. The top clubs in the LSL/MSL are unlikely to want to jump up from their small pool where they can lord it, and into a national league where they're also rans. That's the key issue that needs resolving.
So the small point that I queried at the start of all this was -
This, to me, is still very similar to the IL, and not an issue in the proposed set-up. What is an issue is that the clubs for the third tier aren't necessarily the best ones for it - and that's because adding a third tier onto a stand-alone pyramid still leaves you with a stand-alone pyramid. That's the real problem.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 10/02/2022 at 12:45 PM.
Sorry for being off topic, but I am just wondering if this feeling still holds through for the LSL and MSL anymore (Genuinely don't know). I seen a post on twitter about all of the LSL teams in the top divisions going bust, and others falling through the divisions, and basically how there is less local prestige for the clubs, and got me wondering, that things are also very different for them now, than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
Delaney (and his promises and protection) is gone, the power of the youth DDSL is diminishing, and the overall reputation nationally of the League of Ireland is increasing. Just got me thinking that the top LSL and junior clubs might be a lot more in favor of reforming the system into a pyramid too, to give themselves a some more opportunities.
Last edited by Kiki Balboa; 10/02/2022 at 1:26 PM.
Looking back to #145, either I mis-stated it, or you have misunderstood, but what I meant was that if the step-up from eg LSL or MSL to a third tier is Carrauntoohil, then subsequent promotion to the FD for such a club would be Mont Blanc.
I certainly never mentioned Everest.
I'll take your word for it.
You seem to be agreeing with me, while appearing to be determined to be seen to be disagreeing with me!
Agreeing, that is, when I speculate that the FAI will have a helluva job finding 10 clubs by 2023 - whether existing or newly-created - which will all be capable of operating a 3rd tier to a standard which is not so far below the FD that P&R becomes unsustainable, even farcical.
(As for Distillery, whom you brought up, I was merely trying to illustrate that they had the legs cut under them by events which were nothing to do with football, the basic set-up of the then existing in the IL, or the restructuring into a pyramid more recently. Meaning that they are/were in no way relevant to this discussion.)
FAI more concerned with a continuing pathway that bridges the gap between u19 and senior football rather than just creating a pyramid for the sake of it and as such I'd imagine the new 3rd tier will be made of a mix of existing B teams - Rovers II being the obvious template - junior clubs that want to make the step up and groups like the Kerry League.
Mark Scanlon's comments yesterday seem to support that - “Whether it’s a B team from a current club, a partner club, or a brand new geographical area where some clubs are already in our underage leagues."
https://www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soc...-long-26188317
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