Different sporting profile areas though. Sligo do great work and I'm not taking away from that at all, but they've less competition. City are up against Cork GAA and occasionally Munster Rugby - the latter being a 5 minute walk down the road from the Cross.Originally Posted by EalingGreen
Connaught play nowhere near Sligo, Sligo has no hurling team, and their Gaelic Football team are a division three level side that hasn't competed seriously for any trophy of note for decades.
Hmmm. When you consider Cork (city and county) has around 10 x times the catchment, I still don't buy the "competition" argument as completely explaining the disparity.
Or do GAA and Rugby crowds also rise and fall depending on on-field success?
And in any case, don't many sports fans support more than one code?
(Not having a pop at you, Crosshead, or other regular City fans, merely curious)
Perhaps you can ask in the relative active Cork AUL thread on the forum or factor in the MSL? MSL is a de facto regionalised third tier of football in Ireland and all top MSL clubs are based in and around the city of Cork (would imagine the standard is similar to the Championship in the north). Cork City is the only LOI club in the city, but it would be incorrect to assume the club has a monopoly on the footballing public in the city. Galway, Sligo, Waterford doesn’t have a MSL- standard equivalent.
The Cork AUL Thread facinates me.
The LOI is becoming more mainstream these days but i used to regard myself as something of a niche loving lunatic who other people semi pitied.............and then i discovered there were people keeping a forum going about the MSL and started to feel like i was mainstream
Last edited by sbgawa; 19/06/2025 at 4:19 PM.
... and yet the fanbase voted him in.
Manager: Fergal, have you your boots with ya?
Fergal: Ya, I have them here.
Manager: Ah good stuff, well give them to this man so, he forgot his!
100% Reaping what we've sown.
To be fair only FORAS members voted him in, which is a few hundred people at most. It was also really pushed through by the board at the time, as was the previous attempt to sell to Trevor Hemmings which really put the club in a bad situation when he didn't follow through. I was very disapointed with how the argument was framed by the board at the time of that first vote. It didn't feel like both sides were given the same opportunity to state their case, and they used cub employees to guilt a yes vote. I didn't even bother attending the second vote because it felt like it was only ever going to go one way.
I dont think you can really point the finger at FORAS when any Cork fan was able to join FORAS and have a vote, its sounds like er passing the buck. I know the fanbase is bigger than FORAS but they were the owners at the time and had to make a decision, one that was probably the least worst option considering how the fan model backfired in this case rather than protecting the exstance of the club starting with not overspending on players and budgeting on a wishlist of income streams. Im conscious too that if Dundalk had been fan owned that we too could have sold to an Ainscough. It does bring back in to question things like due diligence and getting things like supporter group's reps on a board which I think helps guage an owners attitude toward a fanbase.
If there was an obvious onesided agenda yup its tough but was there any dissenting voices really? It certainly wasnt general knowledge if there was. Tke the Rovers example where its was known generally that there were issues behind the scenes on concern about ownership and supporters ability to remain in the decision making process, among other stuff.
Crowds at Cork are ok, enough to sustain the club, higher than many or most, its just relative to past peaks and potential, but cutting the cloth and numbers are still good enough to be a PD club. Cork have struggled due to recruitment and not resources.The odd arrangement with the previous manager as an example.
Well most teams increased attendances over the years in the LOI are based on success, which is a reasonable fact. I think that Usher and the club have a budget based on attendance figures of 3-4,000.
The fact is that the Cork soccer public will return to the TX if there is an improvement in form and results. If the new manager Nash can turn things around you will see this reflected in the home attendances.
There is a following for all sport in Cork, the GAA have an element that follow a winning team as they have only 4/5 games to attend which if they are lucky 2/3 are in the Pairc!
The Rogby have a set following who are tied to their clubs and Munster with a big following from Limerick even when the home games are in Musgrave Park!
How did 70% get conned by it? A blind man could have seen through it despite its biased framing. And it was a bad biased framing at that. As a former member, the result of that vote turned me off the club and I’ve been to only 1 game since. It made no sense and city are now in the predicted death loop. These things are totally connected.
The price of Cork GAA tickets varies depending on the competition and the type of ticket. For the Allianz Leagues, adult tickets are €20 with student/OAP AT €15. In the Munster & All-Ireland Championship, stand tickets for games are €50 while terrace tickets are €40, and U16 tickets are €10.
According to the Munster Rugby tickets can start as low as €20, with family packs of four at €55 also available for certain games.
Not really up on GAA but I don't think the respective counties of Athlone, Longford, Bray, Dundalk, Drugs or Monaghan and Kildare when they were in football were setting Croke Park on fire in my lifetime and most of those places expect maybe Bray are culturally if not geographically distant from ruggers without packing out their football stadiums.
Kildare were definitely significant GAA players in the late Nineties/early 2000s, Monaghan had an excellent decade-long run from 2008-18, and Westmeath did win their only Leinster title in 2004. As for Louth, they're proving at the minute that it's possible for local teams from multiple sports to be simultaneously successful.
So long as it doesn't involve any geographical navigation
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Hey now , Dont get us CORK AUL people confused with the MSL people . the MSL thread is dead just like the CBL threadThe Cork AUL Thread facinates me.
The LOI is becoming more mainstream these days but i used to regard myself as something of a niche loving lunatic who other people semi pitied.............and then i discovered there were people keeping a forum going about the MSL and started to feel like i was mainstream
I didnt know whether to laugh or cry!! The most Louth GAA...thing...ever and thats saying something, like putting a landmark in Meath on the Louth crest, having that pointed out, but the county secretary being so sure he was right he ordered thousands of repica shirts so the crest had to stay for over a decade...that level of stupid!So long as it doesn't involve any geographical navigation
Im not too worried about an improving Louth impacting on our LoI clubs, certainly not until the county ground is built (ye know how quickly these things get done) and games could clash. Horse and dog racing is the main competition on Friday nights. There is a good rugby tradition in Dundalk, even in AIL for a season or 2 not so long ago, towns cuo gets crowds up to Mill Rd, but not having a top class stadium in the county means nnot having the provincial side roll in every so often like in Cork.
I suspect Usher will sort Cork out in the end. He has made it very much a personal issue for him and he has the money to sort it.
Unless of course he gets fed up with the abuse.
Why would the new stadium in Dundalk have any issue, compared to now
Club games will still be played the odd Friday night
Louth will have at most 4 maybe 3 home league games in the league, plus no more than 2 or 3 champ games at home a season all played on a Saturday or Sunday
Just an opinion of course, but if the Cork fans want they're club to stay in the division they are gonna need to get behind their players and team not spend their time chastising the owner.
Cork need to find a way to finish 9th and then they should have too much for either cobh or dundalk in the playoff.
The frustration is obvious and probably well needed on a club ownership level but in my opinion it won't help the team, and cork will bounce around the divisions for years to come.
In general I dont mean in a head to head way. But people follow success and for many still it will be a choice GAA or fooball, Louth or Dundalk/Drogheda. Louth have been for most of our lives mediocre at best and truly awful until now, a sustained period of real success, now moving on from just winning a provincial title and I think a signficant number of people will get their glory fix to the detriment of the LoI clubs. Add to this a new stadum exeperience at Louth games at all levels, high profile county games, maybe even other sports, if done well, it should be a concern for what Oriel and United Parks offer. Louth GAA will schedule games head to head if they take the notion and that will impact Dundalk most when the County Ground is built.
I dont think its unusual in LoI for 'fans' tp abaandon ship when they are needed most. Its easy supporting a winning team but who is left when things are floundering on or off the pitch is what a clubs support should be evaluated by, not really attendances at the height of success or potential crowds. Its fickle, I consider a good chunk of Dundalk support to be fickle and Cork in relative terms to be even more so. Bohs and Sligo I consider the opposite end of the spectrum.
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