One plus is that there is way more public money going into sport now than in the days of Newcastlewest and Thurles Town. Special tax allowance for professionals, COE schemes along with grants. Plenty of gyms, astro pitches, floodlights around the country as well. Roads have improved, but public transport not really (see options for getting from Galway to Dublin this Saturday for example).
Negatives; costs and other expense for running any sports club have gone crazy in recent years. Big squads of course do not help here, could we ever go back to 2 subs allowed plus goalkeeper, with max 5 on bench.
Still it would be a great benefit for soccer in general and producing players for the international team if we had a 12 team top tier, with a first division of 20 clubs, spilt in north/south 10 team divisions. That would give a good geographical spread for players and fans. Unlikely to see this happening of course, the way soccer is going in Ireland these days.
803 in Athlone.
305 given for Longford v Harps. Didn't seem that much there at all. Around 50 Harps in that too
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
I think the commentators said 2073 for Dundalk v Waterford.
A sold out 5015 at Pats Bohs
Paaatrick's Agletic
All the weekend attendances:
St Patrick's Ath v Bohemians - 5,015
Shelbourne v Galway United - 3,643
Sligo Rovers v Shamrock Rovers - 3,187
Derry City v Drogheda United - 2,589
Dundalk v Waterford - 2,073
Cork City v Bray Wanderers - 2,026
Athlone Town v Treaty United - 803
Cobh Ramblers v UCD - 424
Kerry v Wexford - 390
Longford Town v Finn Harps - 305
TOTAL: 20,455
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
PREMIER DIVISION
Bohs - 4,261 (4,243 {2023}; 3,209 {2022};2,878{19}; 2,148; 2,006; 1,627; 1,724; 1,395; 1,597; 1,496; 1,488)
Derry - 2,807 (3,336; 3,184; 2,049; 2,297; 1,517; 1,563; 1,124; 1,106; 1,446; 1,460; 2,135)
Drogheda - 2,038 (1,916; 1,941; 721 FD; ; 377 FD; 850; 583 FD; 813; 1,064; 817; 977; 811)
Dundalk - 2,409 (2,636; 2,689; 2,775; 2,738; 2,674; 2,738; 3,158; 2,534; 1,997; 949; 1,355)
Galway - 2,966 (2,018 FD; 2,081 FD; 780 FD; 746 FD; 1,376; 1,169; 1,290; 975 FD)
Pat's - 4,532 (4,232; 3,489; 1,919; 1,621; 1,504; 1,088; 1,321; 1,386; 1,687; 1,474; 1,346)
Rovers - 6,235 (6,109; 5,379; 3,384; 2,749; 2,809; 2,041; 2,890; 2,269; 2,763; 3,127; 3,779)
Shels - 4,108 (3,393; 2,913; 1,071 FD; 654 FD; 496 FD; 554 FD; 596 FD; 713 FD; 1,114; 1,187; 781 FD)
Sligo - 2,756 (2,555; 2,166; 1,995; 1,853; 1,717; 1,750; 1,750; 1,959; 2,342; 3,007; 2,103)
Waterford - 2,868 (1,833 FD; 1,705 FD; 1,496; 2,329; 1,550 FD; 314 FD; 460 FD; 470 FD; 478 FD; 453 FD; 466 FD)
FIRST DIVISION
Athlone - 705 (872; 307; 382; 130; 154; 156; 314; 653 PD; 754; 271; 200)
Bray - 618 (663; 482; 773; 643 PD; 966 PD; 957 PD; 769 PD; 718 PD; 891 PD; 965 PD; 1,121 PD)
Cobh - 783 (1,020; 872; 268; 236; 358; 403; 366; 223; 439; 2008 - 1,122 PD; 681)
Cork - 2,959 (3,666 PD; 3,517; 2,505 PD; 4,245 PD; 4,559 PD; 2,533 PD; 3,263 PD; 3,777 PD; 1,965 PD; 2,786 PD; 2,128)
Harps - 1,075 (1,154; 1,293 PD; 1,154 PD; 708; 1,202 PD; 1,216 PD; 784; 449; 479; 429; 433; 644)
Kerry - 613 (784)
Longford - 491 (679; 500; 610; 449; 342; 488 PD; 803 PD; 567; 379; 365; 315)
Treaty - 1,376 (642; 695)
UCD - 318 (809 PD; 953 PD; 739 PD; 365; 236; 297; 216; 397 PD; 487 PD; 506 PD; 558 PD; 610 PD)
Wexford - 571 (689; 445; 235; 181; 338; 585 PD; 553; 331; 227; 302; 216)
PREMIER AVERAGE: 3,496 (3,289; 2,687; 2,185; 2,170; 1,902; 1,476; 1,681; 1,502; 1,566; 1,630; 1,547)
FIRST DIVISION AVERAGE: 953 (1,035; 1,193; 586; 413; 477; 476; 486; 495; 391; 372; 578)
OVERALL AVERAGE: 2,236 (2,162; 2,051; 1,500; 1,249; 1,387; 1,117; 1,249; 1,160; 1,140; 1,125; 1,110)
OVERALL PREMIER ATTENDANCE: 388,038 (592,093; 486,365; 393,238; 316,515; 376,627; 292,204; 332,805; 297,334)
OVERALL FIRST ATTENDANCE: 103,887 (186,369; 178,000; 79,115; 55,756; 53,461; 52,807; 54,474; 55,408)
OVERALL COMBINED ATTENDANCE: 491,925 (778,462; 664,365; 472,353; 372,271; 430,088; 345,011; 387,279; 352,742)
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
About half of them don't need reviving, as they still exist anyway outside of the senior game = St Francis, St James's Gate, Salthill Devon, Mervue United, Home Farm.Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Newcastlewest/United should never have been allowed anywhere near the LOI. I appreciate that the town has had a big population increase in recent decades, but it was not a big place in 1985. And it is too close to Limerick city.
Thurles should also not have been the first choice location for an LOI club in Tipperary either. On the basis of both population and GAA dominannce. Though obviously they were the only ones there who were innterested/keen.
Fortunately things seem to have moved on a bit from the days of taking any team from any village that wanted to join. I wonder how many expressions of interest to the FAI they have actually sought to dissuade?
Last edited by EatYerGreens; 01/07/2024 at 12:33 AM.
Presumably that's at least 10% below the capacity of Tolka, and isn't a sell out?
Given the season Shels are having they should really be packing out every game.
According to this the capacity is 5,750. The closest they’ve got to reaching that capacity this season is around 4,700. I agree with you, given they’re top you’d expect better crowds than they’re getting
https://shelbournefc.ie/update-tolka...upgrade-works/
Paaatrick's Agletic
The Riverside Stand side has had approximately 500 additional standing spaces either side of the covered seating stand which has also seen recently repaired seating added. The Ballybough end has improved terrace standing for approximately 800 away fans, so while there has been decent improvements for standing and seating at the ground, it can't be the facilities!
If not Thurles than Tipperary as a whole should have been excluded, id be interested on your thoughts on alternatives in Tipp. With exception of the location of Semple Stadium Thurles is a football town much more so than Nenagh, Cashel, Tipp town, county boundaries aside they are not far from even more football friendly spots. One side of my family hail from North Tipp predominantly and if they arent swinging sticks about the place soccer heads gaelic football in interest. Those that visited from Thurles always wanted to get a game in Oriel in those from Nenagh no interest in anythin but hurling. The tiny village my Nan was from, Rearcross, now has one of the strongest football clubs in the region from youths up, Id never have seen that potential in 1985. Wrong time, small population maybe, but not a lack of interest on this occasion. To much well intended ambition too quickly when, for example, Meath has been very very slow in trying to bring senior football to the county if using GAA type boundaries which I dont think works that well as a catch all catchment at the expense of more focused attempt in denser ppopulated urban centres. Thurles would have been a smaller version of Navan in 1985. Navan now ticks all the boxes bar that being a major commuter town a lot of people hailing from Dublin who will already have their colours nailed to the mast. Lenihan, McGrath, Ferguson being the 1st Meath senior Irish caps and all ver recent, Bit nuts to think. Offaly I dont think have ever had a senior player with Leitrim but Offaly with Tullamore and a stones throw from Portloaise, Mullingar, North Topp et al could be a centre of interest for development of a club that could move toward senior level.
I'd a granny from south Tipp, but apart from that I won't profess to know the county all that well.
For me it would be hard to look past Clonmel as the location for any LOI team if the county really had to have one. Purely on the basis of population (I don't know how strong football is there tbh). Clonmel is by-far the largest town in the county, with a population approachoing x3 that of Thurles. Plus it could develop great local rivalries over time - with Waterford 45km down the road and Kilkenny 50km away in the other direction (assuming a team form there gets into the 3rd tier). Football is an urban sport and senior teams generally need decennt population catchment areas to thrive.
Surely this is missing the whole point?
That is, you don't just look at somewhere with a reasonable population but no LOI club/history and say: "Right, we'll create a new LOI club here". For if nothing else, there is likely to be a reason why the place has no such history. And even when it has a decent claim like Thurles (or Tralee Dynamos?), the conditions have to be right for that club to survive in the beginning, before going on to thrive. And that won't happen if there is no pathway into Senior football from the levels below.
Which in turn cannot exist unless you have a proper pyramid, so that clubs can find their proper level at each step along the way, so that the best and most ambitious of them can eventually aspire to Senior/LOI status, after having proven themselves in the divisions (plural) below.
And if you accept those principles, then the next question must be where are those clubs likely to come from? If you look at the Attendances on this thread, it seems clear that the impressive recent growth has primarily come from the four Dublin clubs, with the other four clubs (i.e. excluding promoted Galway and Waterford) actually having seen a small decline.
This suggests to me that you should build from where you are strongest, so as to maximise all potential support and resources, before looking to expand to new areas for support and resources which may not even exist. Which must surely mean eg the Leinster Senior League*, or Cork region, rather than scratching around in places which have never shown much interest in football before, other than eg at Youth or Community level.
That is, build upwards first, then build outwards.
* - And yes, I know all the enormous barriers to LSL clubs making the leap to Senior/LOI football etc. But no-one is saying it would be simple or quick, but surely it's better in the long run to remove those barriers, rather than try hopeful experiments like eg Kildare, Cabinteeley, Carlow-Kilkenny etc, or the 'A' League, only to see them fall away a few years later?
Perhaps, but some of the recent last FAI Junior Cup winners (which is actually the highest tier available to the majority of leagues below the LoI) have come from areas that are non-traditional soccer heartlands, namely the Tipp and Clare leagues, so ideally you'd create a truly Munster provincial league, and align the junior and senior calendars accordingly, but if bureaucracy renders that impossible, then the only other alternative to maximise the potential of local talent would be a representative Tipperary club.
Aye, but if it is "bureaucracy" (or whatever) which is blocking Plan A, then you sort that out.
Rather than just concluding that that's all too hard, and reaching for Plan B or C because they're easier, while blithely ignoring the fact that they have no chance of ever succeeding.
It is true that some of the best run clubs are now in the Junior leagues. The FAI Junior Cup has shown how the popularity of the game has really spread out from the major urban areas. There are now many big Junior clubs in regards their facilities, the number of teams they field and the playing membership associated with the club. It would be a bad move to use these clubs as a method to extend the current league structure. Maybe a league consisting of the top 10/12 junior clubs with the option of promotion to the First Division for a year, but it would need to come with some real financial incentive, a club decided to go back to its Junior ranks after.
Personally I think that the current state of Junior football around the country is working fine. The Intermediate Cup and the FAI Junior Cup or sufficient for the so called big junior clubs to challenge themselves. Maybe allowing more Junior clubs into the FAI Cup is an option as can be seen this year, while making any possible new league clubs to have an amalgamation with local junior clubs in their areas as part of their structure. This is the most sensible plan to insure future support and continued structures for future new league clubs with its formation. The old league cup could be another competition that could be opened to Junior league clubs if it was revived with proper sponsorship.
No Im not missing the point tbh, I agree with a lot of what you say. In this specfic example of Thurles, it was suggested that it was the wrong club or area. If there was an area of Tipperary that could have a senior club it would have been Thurles. If thurles is a no go than you could exclude the rest of the county by the same assessment. Thurles's failure was trying to do too much too soon. Not wanting to accept what Kerry are in that being a basement club is a reality until it can slowly be grown in a number of way, player development patchways from youth taking a minimum of about 8 years pr player. Developing off field facilities and income streams that gradually allow better recruitment, growth of attendances is the main income and if that isnt success driven initially then it has to be done by creating a buy in from the locality - do a Bohs job of building crowds with limited footballing success. I think errors will be made by parachuting clubs in to senior football, not dealing with why club are resistant to beng in a pyramid structure where they can naturally and sustainably find their own level and thats fine if it is 5 or 6 tier in the structure.
We do look at urban centres that dont have an existing long established club as potential but all it is is potential, a rudimentary metric. Im now guilty of hammering the point that I dont think broad attempts to attract a large catchment ie a county is a good idea, we have more examples of fails there. Kildare County could well have been better building as Newbridge Town and gettin the people of the town to forge an identity there than as Kildare. Kerry is an interesting project to watch on this issue.
Ive said before that too much too soon is a greater risk to the whole 'project'. In many cases things will need to be mandated by the FAI where all levels and all leagues are tied in and if they excluse themselves then they are excluded from supports, not recodnised for SPGs by the governing body. A start has been made with national underage leagues which gave credibility to the senior game that helped deal with the small mindedness and dismissiveness of the senior game by junior and intermediate clubs. The change of the pwoerbases at AGMs has started since a former CEO wasnt dishing out cheques for votes.
Its very hard to get junior ranks to come in under the seior game when there are so many infrastructural issues in the senior game but such development projects were blocked in the past by voting blocks of junior, intermediate, and grassroots/youth clubs that were ging to lose their child labour trade.
Get clubs from all levels tied in and let them find ther own levels as time goes on. Its not a big contry and Meath people for example could follow a successful Navan rather than expecting Trim and Athboy to be under a Meath United based out of Navan. Maybe on merit Trim could climb the ranks better than Navan on footballing merit. There may be a role for som frenchise clubs early on. Invest in what you have while restructuring grass roots etc. Ultimately that time needs to be taken to get it right, once in a generation opportunity or we will just end up with a closed 2 or 3 league senior game because we couldnt find a balance between progressing structures and sustainability. When I hear of players being paid at intermediate levels i kinda think wahts the point - win a LSL or AUL .....WOW!
Should this essay tennis not belong in the Third Tier thread rather than the 2024 Attendances thread
Paaatrick's Agletic
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