Sporting Fingal

[SunderlandBohs]

I hope they don't succeed. They are saying that it is too much to ask people to travel all the way from Swords to see a decent Dublin-based football team, and that they prefer the north Dublin yokel model.
Finging Sportal, or whatever they call it, is a cosmetic exercise by some local politicians and bureaucrats who should be working to support and conserve what already exists in Dublin football.
PS: people from north county Dublin are not 'boggers'. They're just odd.

What's odd about peple from North County Dublin? Because we work for a living & live in nice house? That doesn't make us odd. Unlike are city centre brothers who rather sign on the dole & hang around Luas stops drinking Dutch Gold. This the problem with the LOI. Fighting among ourselves, hoping other clubs with a bit of ambition fail & take joy in it. Just look at how many people bitch about Drogheda Utd on here. Let Sporting Fingal have there little moment. If they fail they fail. But it would be worst not to give them a chance at all. Just because other clubs have falling by the way side doesn't mean Sporting Fingal will. If I'm honest I don't think they'll make. But come lads & lasses, let them have a shot! Is that to much to ask for?

[Poor Student]

for the first time in years it feels like all 22 teams in our league have a place there and are determined to keep it.

You only have to be vaguely competent to keep your place at the moment. We need the Fingal whatevers of this world to keep pressure on current league clubs and let them know that someone actually wants to take their place if they're not willing to do enough. How many clubs in this country are currently willing and pushing to step up to the big league? If the entity has enough planning and organisation it can survive on little enough. Small clubs are only a problem when they spend wildly like Dublin and crash out mid-season.

[CuanaD]

Good name. I hope they do well. If they do they might get a decent support base from Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk & Swords. I think Fingal is one of the fastest growing areas in Europe! It won't be a new Dublin team. People from the City think we're boggers anyway.

Fingal Population:
1986 - circ 138,500 (?)
1996 - 167683
2002 - 196223
2006 - 239623
Incease of 100k in 20 years. !!!!! 43,400 in last 4 years.

Swords pop: - 33,998 in 2006, but probably nearer 40k

Fingal also has the lowest population 'average age' of any county - average age is 32.2years



If Sporting Fingal build a stadium near Swords they should get a good support - with the Co.Co. offices there the swords people are more likely to have an affinity to the County name
+ should draw a reasonable interest from the 'environs' - Swords is already a large night-life draw for the local area.




Anyone know where the team will be based?

[Billy Lord]

Why would anyone identify with a county that only exists in the minds of megalomaniac councillors?

[dcfcsteve]

Why would anyone identify with a county that only exists in the minds of megalomaniac councillors?

Exactly ! It's disturbing how many peopole on here are of the mindset of 'Ah sure - it'll work', without any sensible rationale as to why and despite strong arguements to the contrary.

The same type of mindset that gave us Thurles Town, Newcastle West, St Francis, St James's, Dublin City etc in the first place .....

[onceahoop]

Actually Fingallians are very proud of their Heritage. So what if we have a funny accent and some of us drive tractors. If I got a fiver for every time members of a visiting club called us a pack of culchies I'd be happy

I think some of you are secretely afraid it might actually succeed and take potential fans away from you.

In fact it'll probably end up as a feeder club for the bigger clubs in the greater Dublin Region.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Good name. I hope they do well. If they do they might get a decent support base from Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk & Swords. I think Fingal is one of the fastest growing areas in Europe! It won't be a new Dublin team. People from the City think we're boggers anyway.

You are boggers you live in COUNTY DUBLIN according to An Post
Only possible alternatives to Sporting Fingal as a name would be Fingal County , Fingal F.C. or Dublin County

[BohDiddley]

I think some of you are secretely afraid it might actually succeed and take potential fans away from you.

I thought that fear was expressed openly rather than secretly.
Where is the sense in officialdom so closely sponsoring a new club when existing historic clubs are already struggling? Are we going to have a Dynamo Tipperary North Riding soon? A Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Rangers?
The notion of new clubs being conjured from nothing other than local authorities' corporate egos is simply nonsense.

[Poor Student]

A Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Rangers?

Nah, that particular council has wisely decided to get behind their existing club.

[A face]

I think its a great idea, divide and conquer .... that's what it say

[Boh_So_Good]

Hold on a sec lads. I think a lot of you are missing the big picture.

Fingal is trying to create a eh "fingal" indentity for the area and its residents. Part of this is putting together a football club. This is a very clever tactic.

And we as soccer supporters should not shoot it down, because it's about the only place in the country the GAA cannot get their disgusting greedy hoofs on. No way would the Dublin and Meath GAA councils allow a Fingal County team in the championship and the GAA central committee are far too British in their geographic administration to allow Fingal in. So this is a serious oppertunity to develop the home game on virgin ground which will never be Thomas Davisised. So fair play Fingal CoCo.

It won't effect Bohs at all. Sporting Fingal is a good name and managed and promoted correctly should survive.

Within 10 years we should have Bohs, Rovers, Sporting Fingal and Pats on the Dublin Metro and Luas systems. This means young kids can get to games on their own and not depend on a lift or wait till they have L plates. Look how many kids go on their own to the Charlise Grounds on the DART. This is a huge advantage the capital has over the likes of Longford Town and Wex Youths. LOI soccer will never be more avilaible to people in the Greater Dublin Area. The metro population will be 2+ million and mobile. There is a big enough pot for all and the grounds will be easy for all age groups to reach.

Forget about the previous generation. They are going to buried with their Chelsea and Arsenal jersies on their coffins - they will never support LOI even if one of our clubs went on to be a top European side. We need to work on this current generation and I see Sporting Fingal as part of this approach.

So I welcome them and good luck to them. I am sick of GAA pubs in new towns getting all the funding and robbing the kids from real sports. This is a way to avoid this in Swords and region.

[Larry 'da' Wyse]

The same type of mindset that gave us Thurles Town, Newcastle West, St Francis, St James's, Dublin City etc in the first place .....

It is the same mindset that gambled on bringing DCFC into the league and that was a success.
I'm not sure it will work as I reckon many people living in 'Fingal' who support LOI alreay are associated with Bohs, Rovers Pats etc but given the population increase it might be worth a go. Why shouldn't we have the likes of SF (see, I'm use to 'em already) and Wexford Youths trying to get a foothold on a national basis and not just sticking to junior level. Sure Newcastle, EMFA, HFF/Leeds/Vikings, Thurles Town didn't work out but thats not to say a new club with a bit of decent planning can't keep up with the pace of Div.1

[BohsPartisan]

It is the same mindset that gambled on bringing DCFC into the league and that was a success.

Derry City was an already existing club with a bit of tradition about it.

[dcfcsteve]

It is the same mindset that gambled on bringing DCFC into the league and that was a success.

Where was the gamble on bringing DCFC back into senior football....?

Derry City was to be the only club in the country's 4th biggest City - a city that is soccer first, second and third in terms of its sporting loyalties. It was a club that had already happily existed in senior football for 44 years, leaving only for political, rather than financial or footballing, reasons. A club that already had a substantial pre-existing fan-base from its Irish League days. So where was the gamble ?

Before formally applying to join the LOI, those behind the move to bring City back into senior football held a friendly game against Shamrock Rovers in the Brandywell in 1984 - to test local support levels and raise funds to help achieve their objective. A couple of thousand turned up - showing the idea had support, and providing the funds and confidence to proceed. So yet again - where was the gamble ?

Contrast that with a room full of County Councillors dreaming up schemes to desperately create a community identity for a b@stardised Council region, deciding upon launching a soccer team from scratch into a struggling and under-supported league as their preferred route to do this.

It is therefore clearly ridiculous to compare the return of Derry City to senior football with the likes of Newcastle West, St Francis or Sporting Fingal.

Sure...EMFA didn't work out....

They did. Kilkenny City.....

[Larry 'da' Wyse]

[QUOTE=dcfcsteve;796780]Where was the gamble on bringing DCFC back into senior football....?


I would suggest that any team joing the LoI is a gamble. It is not as if any team is flush with cash and has a massive support base. Derry have had financial problems and the Brandy is not always sold out. So in that sense any team joining are taking a bit of a leap into the unknown

[galwayhoop]

You only have to be vaguely competent to keep your place at the moment. We need the Fingal whatevers of this world to keep pressure on current league clubs and let them know that someone actually wants to take their place if they're not willing to do enough.

I could be wrong here but I thought that Fingal FC/Sporting Fingal are applying to get into the A Championship (third tier of senior football) if and when that happens. Thus not immediatly threatning any established league clubs any more than any of these other proposed 'Conference' clubs.

[Dodge]

A team looking to represent that area of outer Dublin will face the same problems as Shels, Bohs, Pats, Rovers, UCD, Dublin City, St Francis etc do/did - namely, the locals won't see them as "their" team

How many times do you have to be told steve. Pats (and Bohs, and Rovers in previous years) absolutely do have a place in their communities and absolutely do garner support from people who see them as their local side. We've just told you in countless arguments that the greater Dublin public doesn't care about Pats, but the people of Inchicore, ballyfermot, Crumlin (and surrounding ares) DO CARE about their local side. The difference is that whena bandwagon arrives, one town teams like Cork or Derry or Sligo will obviously have more potential for the floating event junkies.

It's no accident that clubs like Cork and Derry attract bigger crowds than any single team in Dublin, despite the population disparity between those cities and chunks of Dublin

And this in particular is total and utter ********. I've been at games in the Brandywell with considerably less than 1,000 people there. I've been at games in Cork where there's been less than 500 people at it. Derry and Cork don't have good crowds because of any sense of community they have decent crowds now because they're relatively succesful. When Pats were winning 3 leagues in four years our average gate was about 4,000. I've no doubts if Rovers were winning leagues they'd top that figure.

Irish football isn't simply a capital v country thing, and stop trying to make it out to be.


As for this farcical notion of Fingal becoming a county… Idiot local politicians looking to make a name for themselves. Good luck to the new club.

[dcfcsteve]

Where was the gamble on bringing DCFC back into senior football....?

I would suggest that any team joing the LoI is a gamble. It is not as if any team is flush with cash and has a massive support base. Derry have had financial problems and the Brandy is not always sold out. So in that sense any team joining are taking a bit of a leap into the unknown

But with that frame of mind, any change of any sort in life is therefore 'a gamble'. If we didn't have the ability to assess the likely size of 'gambles', and the bottle to jump when it seemed right, then we'd all still be living in caves in loin clothes and clubbing our dinner to death.

City coming back to senior football was a gamble in the sense that any change/leap into the unknown is. But it was a much lesser gamble than Sporting Fingal would be, for the reasons I detailed above.

[onceahoop]

I could be wrong here but I thought that Fingal FC/Sporting Fingal are applying to get into the A Championship (third tier of senior football) if and when that happens. Thus not immediatly threatning any established league clubs any more than any of these other proposed 'Conference' clubs.

Correct.

[Sam Savic]

I was talking to someone in the know yesterday about this. I believe Sporting Fingal will be a success. They ( Fingal County Council ) have some good ideas which involve promoting football at ALL levels in the area. The Council are prepared to put the few bob in while also looking for people to invest in the idea.
Their plan is to start next season playing in Morton Stadium. While long term they intend to make it to the Eircom League premier division, there is no rush ( as in hurry ). Eventually, there will be a 10000 seater stadium, soccer academy, all weather pitches etc.
I'm sure there will be a press release detailing the plans.