While i would acknowledge Stus point that National league clubs are by definition non league no matter how good their facilities are.................. Notts county are the embodiment of a NON non league club. They were in the Premier league the year Leeds won it so they aren't exactly Accrington Stanley.Originally Posted by D24Saint
I think you can take one club as an outlier and say they don't really belong at a certain level.
But not a third of the league. The Conference puts the LoI to shame, by and large.
(1992 is a long way ago btw, sbgawa! You wouldn't find much to compare to now)
Doesn't seem that long ago to me Stu. It's OK for you young student types
Except it doesn't, as the the two aren't comparable really.
Yoiu may as well claim that Elon Musk puts everyone's Dad to shame.
Richer, more talented, and owns nicer digs? I'm not seeing the problem with this comparison. If we only compare the LoI to leagues with less money and poorer infrastructure, then the league probably does okay in that comparison. Only okay, mind you.
To get bigger crowds we need bigger capacity stadiums with better facilities. This would mean updating the big four in Dublin with Cork, Derry and possibly Dundalk thrown in. All to capacity of 8k-10k Everyone else will always be provincial and will never attract more than 3k-4k even if they were to go on a successful run or have domestic success for a sustained period. Our standard of football is at a very good level, throw in the atmosphere of a full stadium it will attract the crowds. Its wrong to compare LOI to the national league as there are fallen giants there with large capacity venues who are there due to overpaying players who didn't bring success and then crowds dwindled, income was smaller and they couldn't afford to pay bad players. Hence they are in the NL and struggling to get out of it.
Ah it's ok - I remember it too (and Luton and Oldham and Swindon and nice bouncy plastic pitches!)Doesn't seem that long ago to me Stu. It's OK for you young student types
Your Musk comparison makes no sense.
The two leagues have roughly similar crowds and roughly comparable attendances. The leagues should be comparable. The article, though, shows the financial differences. Facilties-wise too, the Conference streets ahead. The LoI Prem doesn't have a single four-sided ground for example. It does have Dalymount (half of which is condemned), Tolka (a different stand is shut each time you visit), Oriel (a club that was close to CL qualification in a ground that can barely host a European game), Finn Park (state of the art in around 1890), United Park (there's probably diseases as yet unknown to science to be discovered there), the Bowl (one passable stand, but that's it - and even then capacity-wise, that stand really belongs behind a goal, not alongside the touchline)
A comparison between the two is good to see where we lag behind and what we need to do as a league to improve. And getting away from that uncomfortable comparison by saying "Ah it's not fair to compare us with the Conference" is silly. I doubt the comparison with Salford/Harrogate/Forest Green - you know, the real non-league clubs - is much better
Last edited by pineapple stu; 02/06/2022 at 7:31 AM.
If only, though is suspect you were commenting tongue in cheek. More like concrete slabs covered in sandpaper and sprayed green, I probably still have the scars with skin grafts needed after every game. Maybe why i'm soft on todays artificial pitches as by comparison they are great!
So thats 2 LoI managers turning big moves to the UK, its like theres a new trend happening. At least Notts County are sleeping giant type club with bags of potential but still a poison chalice.
Last edited by Nesta99; 02/06/2022 at 8:13 AM.
With Nottingham Forest being promoted to the Premier League they are back where they were in 1992 the same year Notts County were in the Prem.
The grounds are as the crow flies probably 500 yards apart but even when they were in the same division Forest were always the bigger team.
Must be galling if you are a county fan though seeing Forest back in the Premier league while you are looking forward to trips to Ballyfaraway.
The RSC is a good facility, so 'build it and they will come' does not always hold for Irish soccer/sport. Having said that I still think some of the Dublin clubs plus Derry need to be a bit more ambitious re capacity.
Yeah but the RSC is an Athletics stadium with two sides and a running track round it , so while it's definitely better than a lot in the League of Ireland it's still not a proper football stadium with a good atmosphere
While RSC is a great facility, it's a brutal football stadium.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
I could think of a lot of LOI grounds that fall into that category!
Oriel Park & United Park to start with, not much has changed with them over the last 25 years, other than an odd lick of paint!
A couple of European Cups probably stung the odd County fan too!
There has actually been a lot more done to Oriel Park than a few licks of paint, albeit that was needed too for a while. Its not a defense of the place but that trying to maintain an aging facility to any half decent standard is a sinkhole for money and at some point it makes damn all sense to do much more than just enough until a redevelopment is done, either in entirety or phased with sections of a ground done as part of an overall plan. Even the quick fix of covering an area and what that might entail with planning/fire officer et al and the can of worms that it could open maybe costs more than ye'd be ok with in the short and possibly medium term. Over the 25yrs (more like 12 or 13 yrs tbh) period mentioned there has been €3mil ? worth of work done on Oriel Park at a quick guesstimate. Sure a single bulb that suited the old floodlights were costing a fortune - I think it was €15k or so to replace just the blown bulbs on one pylon head alone circa 2013....and we hadnt got near puddles never mind an away section. A lot of small and not so small stuff has added up and not being part of some sort of facilities development plan, will mostly be dug up if or when redevelopment does happen.
United Park is the opposite IMO, a terrible facility but a great football stadium.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
No obstacle blocking your view at the RSC which is a big plus, and a good grass pitch. It has a Euro/Continental feel to the place which I like. I been lucky with the weather when I was there, so a windy/rainy night in winter may change my opinion, but for now I like the place.
I'd much rather the RSC even with the athletics track than most of the grounds in the league. Some of them haven't changed in decades and a few have got worse with age!
United Park is by far one of my favourtie stadiums to visit, as both a home and away fan. Always a cracking atmosphere, the roof is pretty low, and the pitch is very tight to the stands. Great location in the center(ish) of the Town too. The hospital overlooks it, so when visiting the Grandfather, you have something to look at. For the home fans, Oriel Park is not bad either. The Shed and the Main stand are really not bad places to watch football. Good sightlines, the Shed is right on the pitch, and also hold a pretty good atmosphere.
Problem with both is that they are so so aesthetically unpleasing. Both are probably the ugliest grounds in any top-division in Europe. Droghedas main stand looks horrific and is the major problem with the ground (while the big poles are annoying too). Again though, I think they both lasted so long , because at least for me, they arent bad places to watch a game of Football (if you are home Dundalk fan). You rarely hear too much Dundalk fans complain about Oriel, because the experience of going to the Shed or Main stand just isnt that bad (the two sections both sides of the main stands are terrible though).
Another unpopular opinion I have, I think stadiums with Racing tracks are some of the nicest I have ever been too. Adore the Olympic Stadium in Berlin and Dukla Pragues stadium. And While I am on the subject of personal perference, Tallaght stadium is really fantastic, but I would still prefer (only as a fan) to have unique stadiums and not just copy the design. The Aviva, Wembely and the Emerites in London all just feel too similar to me, have no character and are ugly and too corporate feeling.
Stadiums with running tracks can be nice, no question about that. But the obvious disadvantage is that you're further away from the pitch, so it is harder to create a proper atmosphere. Take the Olympic Stadium in Berlin that you mentioned: For years, Hertha Berlin has been working on plans to build a proper football stadium next to the Olympic Stadium because they feel a proper football stadium would create a better atmosphere. They can't convert the Olympic Stadium into a football stadium as it is a protected structure and it's also regularly used for international athletics events.
Thats not true. The atmosphere inside the stadium for Hertha is not the issue at all, and the stadium has a good reputation for atmosphere in Germany.
It is rents that are the issue, Hertha is the anchor tenent for decades, but pays multiple millions a year for the Olympic Stadium. The problem is they rarely fill it. There last okish season was 18/19 and they had an average attendence of 49,000 (higher than Chelsea and Liverpool that year), but that still means there was on average 26,000 unsold tickets. So they pay top dollar for a stadium they cannot get full use of, hence, they are looking to own their own 'football' specific stadium.... (But it might all be a ploy for rental deal to be lowered for the club).
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