Gutted!

[Poor Student]

Less effort went into promoting the Shamrock Rovers game and we got a poorer crowd for the bigger promotion. And there will be less people there on Friday night for the St.Pat's match into the bargain.

This is specious reasoning is I've ever seen it. It pains me to continue this tedious conversation but it's hard to read this. You know as well as I do that the attendance at the Shamrock Rovers match had to do with their own fans coming to watch them return to the Premier. It had little to do with us or our own promotional activities. We had more of our own fans at the Longford game and that's the only relevant fact. Are you denying this fact? What is the relevance of the away support when talking about our own club?

[CollegeTillIDie]

......You know as well as I do that the attendance at the Shamrock Rovers match had to do with their own fans coming to watch them return to the Premier. It had little to do with us or our own promotional activities. We had more of our own fans at the Longford game and that's the only relevant fact. Are you denying this fact? What is the relevance of the away support when talking about our own club?

The bank manager doesn't give a rat's ass whose money makes up the club's takings when they bring it in on a Monday morning

[Poor Student]

The bank manager doesn't give a rat's ass whose money makes up the club's takings when they bring it in on a Monday morning

Your point was that more promotion went into the cup semi than the Rovers game and we had a lower attendance. Our promotional efforts by and large are only going to affect our own fans. More of our own fans attended the game we promoted for than the game we didn't. You're making up random tangental points again that have nothing to do with your original point.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Poor Student

More of our fans were at the Cup semi-final, even though the gate was smaller. The game was held on a Sunday. I suppose you're going to tell me that has nothing to do with it either ! I cannot see the club switching games to Sunday because we will have a larger portion of the support present if the gate receipts are smaller ..... Everything is connected to the bottom line, which is what attendances are all about.
The potential for advertising is affected by the crowds that turn up. That affects the bottom line.
Being live on Television affects the bottom line. It increases the profile of the club while potentially lowering the attendance. It all affects the bottom line. If you want to stay in the League as a club if you want to aspire to be somewhat successful you have to keep the revenues up.

[Schumi]

CTID, I'm confused as to what your point is. We all agree that the crowd at the cup semi was lower than at the Rovers game, and we all agree that that's bad.

Why was it lower? A number of factors:
1,100 Rovers fans who came to the Rovers game didn't come to the cup semi and 500 Longford fans took their place. Not much that could be done about that.

The game was on a bank holiday Sunday, both bank holiday weekends and Sundays have negatively affected our crowds in the past. Nothing could be done about that, it was an FAI decision.

The game was on TV so some lazier types may have stayed at home to watch it. Again, nothing could (or should) be done about that.

Taking all of those into account, the promotion clearly had a positive effect on the crowd, not as much as we'd all have hoped but a positive effect nonetheless. Large crowds aren't going to appear overnight, it'll take a lot of sustained hard work to make people know we exist and entice them to come to games.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Schumi

The picture on the semi-final is confusing for precisely all the reasons you mentioned. OUR support went up when the overall attendance went down.
The games was on a Sunday ( which may account for more of OUR support being present). The opposition partly accounts for the lower crowd, there are after all fewer people in Longford who support Town, than Rovers supporters.
It was a Bank Holiday weekend , which may account for the overall lower crowd. Live Television partly accounts for the lower crowd too overall. Around 2 o'clock it clouded over and looked like it was going to rain, I am sure that dissuades a small portion of potential attendees from leaving their Televisions for the real thing. The Bank Holiday weekend was a huge factor because the Bohs-Cork crowd was poor for a game of such importance too. There doesn't seem to be any answers to the attendance issue. On the one hand we seem to get a bigger indigenous support on a Sunday, but the bank manager won't be best pleased cause the gate receipts will be lower than on a Friday. Our attendances on Friday bounce all around the houses though, ranging from a few hundred to several thousand depending on whether it rains, who we are playing, how cold it is , whether it's a school night, whether there is a mid-term break beginning, whether it's during the College term or not, whether the L and H have a good debate on or not.

I just don't understand how a League Cup Final midweek in October( 2005 against Derry) is a more attractive game seemingly than an FAI Cup semi-final two years later at the same venue when any ordinary ELOI fan would tell you the Cup semi-final would be the more attractive fixture.

The point is, there seems to be no definitive answer to the crowd issue .