Sporting Fingal to be offered First Division place

[higgins]

I don't think the answer to the lack of balance around the country is to promote teams from outside Dublin to the Eircom League!

If the FAI build up football in towns and cities without a tradition of football then over time we'll see more and more players from those regions with stronger teams who may want to play in the Eircom League.

If some mad men want to start up another Dublin team are are best placed of all teams who want an Eircom League team then whats the big deal ? Do people really look at the map of England when they follow the premiership?? It might be nice to have away trips to places like Kilkenny but if you're going down to sit with 20 Kilkenny fans (all that was there last time I visited) then you're have a Kilkenny team just for the sake of having a Kilkenny team, what makes sense about that?

I understand we only have the FAI's word on SF being the best placed team to go forward but if we trust that the process was a fair one then what complaints can we have?

The problem with a lack balance around the country won't be helped by promoting clubs who are not up to the mark.

[sullanefc]

No.
Why not include Drogheda then?

I don't think its necessarily a bad thing adding another Dub team but I'd expect them to struggle to establish themselves and recruit a following.

I mean the thing with Seery is why did he start afresh and not build on Home Farms considerable legacy or merely plough his money into Shels, Bohs, Pats or Rovers? Did DCFC put considerable money into the off-pitch infrastructure?

From a person who thinks there are too many clubs around the Dublin area, I don't think Sporting Fingal are a bad thing at all.

I really despised Dublin City. I wanted them to fail and I was glad that they did fail. They had no local area to recruit a following from, they just wanted to recruit from all over. Not only was this greedy, but it was also stepping on the toes of Bohs, Pats, Rovers and Shels.

Sporting Fingal seem different. They have a target area. If they do it properly, they can establish themselves in the community there and be THE local club in Fingal. If it is done properly then they have infinitely more potential than one other Dublin club that I won't name.

Slightly off topic, living in Kildare, I don't get back to Cork every weekend, so last year I took in a few Kildare County games. I thought the crowds were quite poor considering the population of Kildare nowadays.

They have a decent stand with a bar and seem to have a decent set up at Station Road. The worrying thing is that, from what I can see, the promotion of the club around the county is quite poor.

I don't see any marketing or recruitment drives for any new fans. The club seems to be stagnating and I hope it doesn't turn into another Kilkenny. It has great potential, but the club doesn't seem to have the ambition.

[Poor Student]

it appears that kilkenny will field a team in the u-20 league and rebiuld from there.good luck to them

Yeah, the Irish Mail on Sunday says that they'll enter the U20 league and may join in the A Championship in two or three years.

[Sonic]

And no one cared enough to set up a club anywhere else

Stop talking drivel there is ample amounts of clubs to choose from over and above Sporting Fingal. Even Mervue United. Two Galway clubs would surely be a better option then a nineth Dublin or whatever it is at this stage weve all lost count!

[Sonic]

Does the league need another Dublin Club ? No

Are there any non-Dublin clubs of the appropriate licensing standard ready and willing to step-up to the senior plate at this extremely short notice ? It doesn't appear so.

Having Spouting Fungus is therefore marginally better than having no replacement for Kilkenny City at all (and the fixture farce that would create). Hence why we are where we are.

In fairness it aint exactly too hard to obtain a first division licence. Im sure there are quite a few that could obtain one. A field and a team is about as much as is required.

[Dodge]

Stop talking drivel there is ample amounts of clubs to choose from over and above Sporting Fingal. Even Mervue United. Two Galway clubs would surely be a better option then a nineth Dublin or whatever it is at this stage weve all lost count!

3 clubs applied to join the A league, one from Dublin and 3 from Galway. These are the facts. At if you've lost count of the 6 Dublin sides, then there's very little hope for you...

[osarusan]

Dodge, your pm box isn't full by any chance is it?

[Sonic]

3 clubs applied to join the A league, one from Dublin and 3 from Galway. These are the facts. At if you've lost count of the 6 Dublin sides, then there's very little hope for you...

Yeah when I say that Im including Drogheda and Bray as Dublin clubs because lets face it they are basically are. Then why not one of the Galway teams. There are two Cork teams why not two Galway teams!

[onceahoop]

Thats a bus eirinn bus

Oops!!! It's a double decker so I just assumed it was Dublin Bus. Still, it's a bus from Dublin to Drogheda and there's a train service that's reasonably good (apart from the crush at peak times)

As for Sporting Fingal, I think they should build up their structures first before they move up from the a-league. Otherwise they might as well be standing on quicksand. Frankly they'll be trying to draw from the same pool of support as Dublin City did if they go straight to the 1st Division.

[higgins]

Yeah when I say that Im including Drogheda and Bray as Dublin clubs because lets face it they are basically are. Then why not one of the Galway teams. There are two Cork teams why not two Galway teams!

Do you even know or care how close Drogheda is to their closest Premier Division neighbour or are you just on some anti Dublin/Drogheda/Bray rant ?

Maybe you can explain why 6 teams from Dublin is too many ?

[Sonic]

Do you even know or care how close Drogheda is to their closest Premier Division neighbour or are you just on some anti Dublin/Drogheda/Bray rant ?

Maybe you can explain why 6 teams from Dublin is too many ?

Look mate can you honestly apart from the fact you yourself are from Dublin see any positives for the league in having yet another Dublin team involved. Its nothing to do with an anti dublin bray rant its just this is our national league of which half of the premier division alone are all within a stones throw of one another. Get a grip will ya! I just think it would be a good thing thing to give a team from somewhere else a chance like what was done when Wexford Youths joined up!!

[pineapple stu]

Anyone else enjoying the irony of a Longford fan calling Drogheda a Dublin team?

[Terry]

having another club from Galway would be disatrous for both of them. Its hard enough for united to manage by themselves.

[higgins]

Yeah it looks good on the map and I'm much happier to go to Kilkenny for an evening than to another Dublin ground but you do realise a large chuck of the population live and/or work in Dublin ?

Of 22 teams you are going to have 1/3 or so in Dublin.

I want the best prepared teams to make the step up and while I'd like it to be a Kilkenny or a Mayo or a Clare etc there's no point if the football base is not there. You can't get support from an area that has no interest in football. What the FAI need to do is take a 10 or 20 year long term view of counties such as Kilkenny and build strong local leagues before you'll have the kind of support there to sustain a professional team.

Maybe there is too many teams in Dublin. Maybe SF will go the way of Dublin City but I don't think they should be told they can't enter on the basis they are from Dublin and we have some Dublin teams already!

My problem with you saying Drogheda was because they are miles away from any Dublin club. Their supporters are not about to follow Shels or Bohs if they went bust tomorrow. They have an area to get support from thats seperate to ALL other Dublin clubs. Apart from the extra costs for some clubs of coming to Dublin to play games every second week I don't see why it matters in the short term where these clubs are based.

Again, I'd like to point to the fact that if the FAI want football to grow in other regions they need to take a longer term view of what is going on in those areas.

Fingal is an area of Dublin with over 250,000 people and no football club there. I don't think in this case it's stupid of the FAI to allow them into the league but of course nobody is to know if the people of Fingal will get behind their team or not.

As a Shels fan who is going to be in direct competition with SF and who have already lost key members of the club to SF it would be easy for me to knock them too.

[GavinZac]

you've touched on the problem: shels, bohs rovers and pats, the historical dublin teams, are virtually interchangable in terms of support, especially with clubs hopping from ground to ground and even rovers moving out of Dublin-proper. Strong clubs have strong bases; 2 or even 3 premier division dublin teams would fare better even by creating a strong "us and them" feel to derbies rather than fragmenting things by having those four plus the likes of UCD and Bray and the random st. francis/home farm/dublin city/fingal parade of failed clubs.

[KianD]

Is there a bus to Newbridge? Pretty sure there's one to Celbridge anyways.

Yes, but its a ****e service. Celbridge is the other end of the county, North and mid/south Kildare don't mix much (theres only 1 bus a day from Maynooth to Naas, for instance - yet about 100 to Dublin).

[dcfcsteve]

In fairness it aint exactly too hard to obtain a first division licence. Im sure there are quite a few that could obtain one. A field and a team is about as much as is required.

If it was that easy Limerick FC would've stayed in the league....

Bottom line is that there is no stampede to join the senior ranks. Not even a waiting list now, by the looks of it.

We can play Fantasy Football First Division all we like, but the reality is that Spouting Fungus appear to have been the only team ready, willing and able to step-up to the level.

It's a shame Mullingar Athletic appear to have lost momentum/interest since Kildare beat them to St Francis's place in the league back in 2002.

[Block G Raptor]

Sporting Fingal seem different. They have a target area. If they do it properly, they can establish themselves in the community there and be THE local club in Fingal.

Fingal is not an area or a community it is an electoral area or CC area encompassing a huge amount of North Dublin Suburbs, I live in Fingal and the fact of this rarely enters my head, I'm a Dub thats it, same way as someone who lives in the Dunlaoire/Rathdown or South Dublin CC areas are dubs
Fingal will struggle to get any kind of Local Community Identity

[WoodquayBoy]

3 clubs applied to join the A league, one from Dublin and 3 from Galway. These are the facts. At if you've lost count of the 6 Dublin sides, then there's very little hope for you...

A little guilty of losing count yourself - 2 clubs applied from Galway, 2+1 (Dublin side) equals the three clubs that applied

[Philly]

SF have signed Steve Williams. They must be in the money, judging by some of the players they are looking for?