Attendances are down.
Quality is worst.
2 tier Premier Division.
10 team 1st Division worse.
I can't think of any positives to the 12 Team Premier aside from City top of the League
Do you have any evidence to support a correlation between decreased attendences and a 12 team Premier? Interestingly the extra clubs promoted due to the extension of the Premier, UCD and Bray are actually doing better than 4 of the teams who would have been there anyway. How exactly has it reduced quality? It's not going back to a 10 anyway.
A smaller league, as has been proven in the past created negative football, resulting in boring draws and a rethink to changing to summer football. The standard has not been better - your own team Cork are playing brilliant. Playing teams like Harpsgives teams the opprtunity to express themselves and builds confidence for tougher matches
Although Derry were very poor against Bohs, we are scoring goals and getting better results. If a ten team league was reintroduced it would become extremely stale again.
is the only future for soccer in this island.Strict enforcement of UEFA Licensing criteria and rules in relation to facilities for players and spectators. The league will prosper if tis is done at the moment its stagnating.
Ehhh ? Which league are you talking about Pete ?! Where has this view suddenly come from ?Originally Posted by pete
Attendances are down.
Quality is worst.
2 tier Premier Division.
10 team 1st Division worse.
I can't think of any positives to the 12 Team Premier aside from City top of the League
Firstly - are attendances really down, and is that directly attributable to the fact we now have a 12 team Premier ? The only vague source of stats we have on attendances is the thread on here that is continually updated. That is showing a whopping 2% drop in Premier and a less than 1% drop in First attendances this year versus last. Hardly statistically significant - especially given the fact that we're working off guestimates for much of that information. So there appears to be no proof that attendances are down.
Meanwhile, from that thread 55% of the clubs in the league have increased attendances this year - some of them very big increases (Derry, Harps, UCD, Limerick and Sligo in particular). 60% of the First division teams appear to have increased attendances - if there were 2 extra strong clubs in there to pad that division out and reduce 2 of the existings teams to non-contenders, do you really think that'd still be the case ? Would Limerick be registering such a huge increase in support if they were pushed 2 rungs further down the table ?
Secondly - again, how can you say the quality is "worst" (though clearly not as worst as your spelling...
This year is one of the more interesting in both divisions IMO. There's a proper 2/3-way challenge for the top of the Premier (Shels are by no means out of it yet), with neither Bohs nor Drogs ruled out of a top-3 finish either. There's also a great struggle at the bottom, and no team dead and buried yet.
Meanwhile, the First Division also has its usualy exciting top-of-table tussle - even with 2 less teams involved, so what negative impact has it had down there ? Meanwhile, for a change there isn't a club at the bottom of the First who are way dead and buried at this stage.
So how does all of this translate into a 12-team Premier that isn't working....?
Last edited by dcfcsteve; 04/08/2005 at 11:04 AM.
Pats read out official attendances at the end of every game
1800 v Shels top of table
1300 v Cork top of table
we hoped for home crowds in the region of 2,000 this season
attendances are fcked in the club thats honest enough to admit it - anecdotally I can say shels attendances are also muck
its nothing to do with the format of the league - Irish football isnt working! (and never has)
Well people often state facts that summer football does not work or 10 team league does now work so thought i'd state my facts.
Last season there were few foregone results but this season is clear divide in the league & at least 2 to 3 certain results every week. I just don't remember so many one sided contests in the last few seasons.
Official attendances don't end in two zeros.
wws, you've been God awful this season and are languishing in the bottom half of the table. This following a poor season last season too. You're attendences are hardly surprising. The clubs doing well like Derry and Cork have high attendences.
Our attendances are down this year. We were likely to get better crowds watching more competitive bigger teams than turkey shoots against Rovres, Harps, Pats etc..
It's hard to gauge though. You've so overbloated your attendences in the past that we're only gaining a real perspective now the club is publishing figures. They're still relatively high though and I'm sure if you remain on top there will be plenty of bandwagon jumpers to swell your attendences in the Autumn.
Irish football has to put in a decent effort before it can come out with stuff like that ..... again ..... if you can show me a club in this league that has a half decent advertising campaign and are actually working on improving the product they have (i.e. Standards of football and facilities) ... then i'll listen, until then .... its a no brainer !!
The SFAI are the governing body for grassroots football in Ireland, not the FAI. Its success or the lack of is all down to them.
Of course. 3/4 seasons ago when Cork weren't doing as well their attendances were a lot worse than now.
As for the 12 team league, it has its weaknesses. Playing a team 3 times is ridiculous, the future has to be a league big enough to sustain 2 meetings a season. A weakness of the 12 team over the 10 team league is that clubs are effectively swapping a big gate (eg. V Shels) for a small gate (eg v UCD etc).
I hated the 10 team league though. I don't want to see UCD/Finn Harps 4 times a season. I think we played Drogheda about 7/8 times in one season. It also diluted the atmosphere of the big games as the sides were meeting too frequently, often within a short period of time.
The next change in the size of the league should be to accomodate Northies.
So that's it - that's your proof that attendances are down, the quality of football is worse and the 12 team Premier isn't working....?
How can you say there were few forgone conclusions last season. What about games against Dublin City ? Derry were also fair game in the first half of the season. As for this year - no-one expected Derry to be 4 points off the top, so where's the forgone conclusion in that ? Even when people realised we were a good team, it was a shock for us to get thumped by Rovers at home. How about your dour home draw to Longford - was that a foregone conclusion ? I could go on....
Anyways - surely having all teams playing at the same lower level would suggest a greater lack of quality than having a small number of clubs playing significantly better football ? So If Chelsea, Arsenal, and Man U played like Portsmouth and Fulham every week the EPL would be of better quality.....?
You really haven't provided anything that goes near to supporting your very strong assertion Pete
I could suggest Shels did worse in Europe as they are playing lower level of football this season in the league so couldn't up their game?
BTW i thought Dublin City last season were better than Harps & Rovers this season.
The Derry City & Cork City home games this weekend are as close to certainty home wins. I don't think it was that one sided last season.
Are they? What is that based on? Bohs attendances are down but I was under the impression that there was a sizeable increase in attendances?Attendances are down.
I don't agree with that at all. Unlike most recent seasons when only Bohs and Shels could play a bit of 'ball there are several decent teams this year.Quality is worst.
That is a good thing. More teams, and a chance for sides to rebuild in mid-table and for good sides to turn on style/experiment against poor teams2 tier Premier division
1st division is a joke, I couldn't care less about it.10 team 1st Division worse.
if two nil is a "turkey shoot" than o flynn better lace up his shooting boots!
to whoever posted re the two noughts- pulllllease.....they announce the attendances - they are in the public domain - i cant recall them to the exact number but 18 hundred and something is a tad more accurate than - there was 3,000 at it last night - which you find in the guesstimate thread on this board.....
in reply to the post re pats not doing well
Pats wanted crowds in the 1500 to 2000 bracket at least -
they are getting 1000 - to 1400 on average
crowds are down - end of - not even the visit of the "galmour clubs" (giggle) can raise the average - a division is only as strong as all its members and basically there are no consistency in support - except for one - consitently poor
More to the point, you're comparing an average mid way through the season with one by the end of last season. Attendences will rise for the last series of matches when the season is reaching it's climax and bring the average up.
And you can't compare a game v Cork and a dublin derby attendence wise even if both clubs were top of the league at the time.
assume you refer to my post of those attendances? well I'm not comparing they were the attendances from THIS season .... both **** poor - for the visit of the el's top two teams mustered no interest in Dublin to speak of
Ah I thought you were comparing them with each other.
Yeah fair point then.
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