Should UCD be in the league stuff

[pineapple stu]

Originally posted by Colm
Please explain how they "deserve to be in the top flight"?

Emm...we've been there for nine years now. Therefore we deserve to be in the top flight.

Just on Éanna's point - if the league does end up going fully pro (which is a while away at best), there's no reason we can't go pro as well. Bring youth players in, give them their education while they get up to Premier Division standard and then, instead of going out and getting jobs, offer them a professional contract. That way, they'll be able to train full-time, but they'll still have their degrees should anything hapen or for when they retire. Perfectly possible.

[pineapple stu]

Incidentally, you might want to take away the thumbs up at the start of this thread!!!

[Schumi]

Originally posted by pineapple stu
Incidentally, you might want to take away the thumbs up at the start of this thread!!!

Forgot about that! I'm not quite sure whether the new one is embarrased or yawning, either works I think.

[CollegeTillIDie]

THis discussion thread has taken an interesting twist these past few days. Since it began we have gone from being the 5th Dublin club to being the 4th. In terms of facilities for training and for playing we have been in the top 4 since around 1987 anyway.

We have never come close to being bankrupt and have never had to beg the FAI for a bale out funding since 1979.
We have either won or participated in the finals of every major competition in the State.
1/ Leinster Senior Cup : Winners 1980/81; 1994/95;1995/96
Beaten Finalists 1983/84

2/ League Cup: Beaten finalists 2000/01

3/League of Ireland Shield : Beaten finalists 1983/84

4/ First Division Shield winners 1991/92, 1994/95

5/ First Division Champions 1994/95

6/ F.A.I. Senior Challenge Cup winners 1983/84

and even as a non-league club we won the following major trophies from 1895-1979

7/ F.A.I. Intermediate Cup winners 1944/45

8/ I.F.A. Intermediate Cup winners 1914/15

We have been in the Premier Division since 1995 on merit. Should we lose our place in the Division this season we will do so with a relatively healthy bank balance. We are one of the most efficiently administered operations in the League. As Dodge as pointed out a model for other small clubs.

Oh and unlike many clubs. Our ground is very unlikely to be sold for property development. In fact it has the potential to be developed very easily up to the level required for the new U.E.F.A licensing requirements.

We may not have the largest amount of fans in the league but there is one difference between U.C.D. and other clubs.
We can bring our fans anywhere and they won't get the club's reputation tarnished.

We have provided an educational opportunity for young football players for the past 25 years and have in the Late Dr. Tony O'Neill and latterly Brendan Dillon, provided competent administators for both League and F.A.I. since ourt advent to League membership.

There are few if any clubs in the Premier Division that do not have a former UCD player on their books, and indeed the same can be said of a lot of the First Division clubs as well.

So all in all we have made a major contribution to League of Ireland football both on and off the field since we joined the League 25 years ago and as our fellow Universities in World football have shown:- e.g. Universita Catolica (Chile) and Universitatea Craiova( Romania) there is room for a well run university based club in professional leagues anywhere .

[@ndy]

Hello. Long time no speak.

Just wanted to comment re the posters and advertising of the club. I hate the attitude, oh it did absolutely no good putting posters up etc etc, they need to be in local areas....blah blah.

How does anyone know? Surely advertising that the club exists and matches take place is essential at all times in as many places as possible. The club should be advertising in the college and local areas, starting with that deemed most important and continued as far as money stretches. This doesn't seem to happen tho. At the moment with the licensing and the push of the big clubs to go full time we are looking destined to fall back.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Sticking posters up outside the UCD environs requires three things
1/ Posters - You need hundreds of the damn things to put up

2/ Sites- You will need to be able to persuade some local shops to either put the posters in the window or use spaces adjacent to them. You might even have to ask Dublin Bus for permission to stick them on the frosted glass panels of bus shleters

3/ People to put the damn things up!

Maybe the new Supporters club could provide item 3 on the list.
And when you are back in the real capital @ndy then you too can play your part

But ye should discuss all of the above with Diarmuid McNally I am sure he would welcome any help ye could give him on that front.

[@ndy]

Club promotion/advertisement is/should be nothing to do with the supporters club.

I fear that we're gonna be left behind if we keep going the way we are. I think we need to branch out badly, and i think that if we get relegated which, in fairness, looks a big possibility, we're gonna really struggle to get back up.

[pineapple stu]

Couple of points @ndy -

1) We tried putting posters up all over the College for years (and I know, because I had to put some up!) The cost wasn't worth the end result - i.e. me, Schumi and John83. With summer soccer, there's even less point strongly advertising around the College. I reckon the Observer, with Aberdonian Stu having a strong influence (and using it well, going by last year), the Supporters' Club newsletter to the entire Superleague and the Soccer Supporters' Society (again, all receiveing the newsletter) is enough attention to give UCD.

2) We should have more posters in the locality - but someone has to put them up! Only Maccer's full-time in the club, and he has his work cut out with fundraising (responsible for 90% of our income), contracts, soccer camps, managing U-21 and inter teams, organising Superleague, etc. The programme is the next best way to get contacts - i.e. advertise in us and we'll give you a discount to put up posters in your shop window. Due to sales numbers, the UCD programme has always struggled to get advertisers, never mind get them to put up posters. Sad but true. However, I do agree that we should have local posters up in certain places, wherever they are.

3) Whether or not we come up next season (if we go down this year) won't have much to do with crowds. So much of our income is from sponsorship - the Alumni dinner, the Golf Classic, etc. - that our income won't drop that much if we do go down. All players are on one-year contracts (as far as I know), so we won't ever get lumped with huge wages in the First Division. We never have to spend much money on new players with the scholarship scheme anyway. So we'd actually be better off financially if we went down!!!

4) We'll meet UEFA licencing. We're possibly the best-run club off the pitch; there's a new stand going up at the end of the season, and the rest is just nit-picky stuff which might cost a bit but won't be too hard to put up. We're grand on that count.

The next step I see the Supporters' Club taking is getting regular match reports in the Southside News. That'll raise our profile across our target area (the Southside), especially if we mention it in the newsletter every week.

We do have a decent future as a club - the huge problem we have is manpower. Maybe if we had a magic clone hammock or something??

[ger121]

I think UCD have done a great job over the years. It's just a shame they might get relegated as they've shown how a small club can be successful and well run. I believe they are the only University team playing in the top league of thier counrty in europe.

[pineapple stu]

Originally posted by ger121
I believe they are the only University team playing in the top league of thier counrty in europe.

There's also Universiti Craiova in Romania and Universitat Baku in Azerbaijan. We're the only College side in the fop flight in Western Europe though.