Can the eL continue its progress?

gimmick

Simple question really, has the eL peaked at the moment or is there more room for improvement? Is it possible that the eL will go backwards like it did in the late 70s right up as far as 2000?

While I dont think it will go backwards to the same degree as before, I unfortunately cant see it progressing any further that what it is at the moment. Why? Well there are many reasons.

1. The FAIs apathy and belligerence toward the domestic game. Without going into this too deep, as I have stated in many other threads, the FAI insistence that our players be nurtured abroad is counter productive and is not conducive to success for either the national team, or the domestic league.

2. The Irish footballing public. Now this isnt having a go, just a fact. The irish public dont care about Shels, Cork City, Derry City etc, as its far easier to watch the telly and see big grounds, big name players etc. Its the norm here to support a team from your living room/pub, rather than go out and support. Its just the way it is, and will most likely never change.

3. Certain eL clubs will not strive to move forward. Im looking at mickey mouse outfits like Longford Town, Finn Harps, Bray Wanderers, Waterford Utd etc. These clubs are happy in the little rut they are currently in, will do nothing to improve their grounds, over charge people into their grounds, not to mention are just happy to survive. Proof of this is people like Alan Matthews campaigning to get the eL season reverted to the traditional August - May format. Does he not realsie that since the inception of the summer league that the league has taken huge steps forward in terms of both style and european progress (though thats a dirty term in shameful Longford)?

4. Mick Devlin. How is it right that a manager of an eL club can be an 'advisor' to eL players with other teams eg Jason Byrne, John O Flynn, Liam Kearney etc? It would be like Sam Allardyce being an 'advisor' for Terry Henry, Van Nistelrooy etc. While this pimp is in eL circles, it wont go forward.

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The only way forward I see is an All Ireland League with a 16 team premier division. Only then can true progressive clubs thrive among peers ie City, Shels, Bohs, Derry, Linfield, Glentoran, Glenavon, Portadown.

KdjaCL

1. The FAIs apathy and belligerence toward the domestic game. Without going into this too deep, as I have stated in many other threads, the FAI insistence that our players be nurtured abroad is counter productive and is not conducive to success for either the national team, or the domestic league.

The Fai will only care when they get millions for the name until then the clubs fend for themselves, thankfully this season the "football" moved out of Dublin it needs to stay out for a while to keep the outside Dublin clubs creating players.

2. The Irish footballing public. Now this isnt having a go, just a fact. The irish public dont care about Shels, Cork City, Derry City etc, as its far easier to watch the telly and see big grounds, big name players etc. Its the norm here to support a team from your living room/pub, rather than go out and support. Its just the way it is, and will most likely never change.

It will change when an El beat club beats an English club in Euro club compo, and again its up to the clubs to get to that level. Atm it would be a lucky win etc: etc:

3. Certain eL clubs will not strive to move forward. Im looking at mickey mouse outfits like Longford Town, Finn Harps, Bray Wanderers, Waterford Utd etc. These clubs are happy in the little rut they are currently in, will do nothing to improve their grounds, over charge people into their grounds, not to mention are just happy to survive. Proof of this is people like Alan Matthews campaigning to get the eL season reverted to the traditional August - May format. Does he not realsie that since the inception of the summer league that the league has taken huge steps forward in terms of both style and european progress (though thats a dirty term in shameful Longford)?

Every league has clubs that some fans hate (ie you at the top , me at the bottom) have nothing to play for season after season, that will never change in any league. Middle of the road clubs they usually called.

4. Mick Devlin. How is it right that a manager of an eL club can be an 'advisor' to eL players with other teams eg Jason Byrne, John O Flynn, Liam Kearney etc? It would be like Sam Allardyce being an 'advisor' for Terry Henry, Van Nistelrooy etc. While this pimp is in eL circles, it wont go forward.


Money money and more money, as long as there is money in anything their will always be people around to suck up as much of it as possible. Pat Devlin is our equivlant to Rune Huage (george grahams best mate )

I never call it progress just next season.

kdjac

20 Times 20 Times

Great post Gimmick to start with, I agree with certain aspects of your post you have some very valid arguments. I think the eircom league is going to the next level myself it has up status in the last ten years and become a lot more professional that it ever was, this is down to some peoples hard work over the last number of years to get clubs to go full time, the unfortunate things that some clubs cannot afford a full time status because they haven’t got the financial backing and are trying their best to run day to day.


The clubs are always going to be selling clubs really and I cant see that changing for the foreseeable future due to players wanting to play at the highest level and also clubs not been able to turn down certain offers on their players. I cant see this changing for some time yet, it would take a lot for Irish clubs to say no to big money transfers, infact I think it would take certain clubs to cement their European football every season.


The FAI are not giving enough money back into the league, where by the clubs can actually nurture young talent that is progressing through their ranks, but at the end of the day 14 year old boy approached by cork or approached by a 1st Division English club there is only going to be one winner in that competition for that signing. The FAI have to start getting back to the roots of Irish football and trying to promote clubs to keep a hold of their young talent rather then losing them to second fiddle English clubs, for this the clubs need more financial help.


You speak of the Irish public not caring about the eircom league, this is both down to the club and the media, there is not enough coverage of the eircom league to get people interested, if there was you would see attendances go up and viewing figures on TV also go up, I think a perfect example of this is the Derry vs. cork match at turners cross. Clubs need to start appointing PR people to take the club to local paper and national papers to report any activity to aertel and people in general. I think this will change when people lose their opinion from sitting on a bar stool of the eircom league.


I think Longford 5 years ago made huge leaps and bounds toward becoming a big club, I remember going down to there to watch Dundalk and arriving at this field with a small shed, and buying a program to show what they wanted to achieve in 5 years on the back of this program had all weather pitches stands and seated terracing, which is what they now have but times have changed since they lost their leader Stephen Kenny and no man that they got in charge was able to make Longford into the big club, but the fact is that Longford could have a huge fan base , they need someone to promote it the right way to get people interested.


Totally agree with the comment about Devlin, he should be in that position and should be giving a ultimatum, agent of manager?

Ronan|Raven

Longford fan here, we have a great ground, facilities. And last season despite the disaster at Carmarthen and the end of the run in saw us have a very respectable finish could have been a lot better if not for the ****ups at Finn Harps and Rovers. It is hard to see how to get the 1000+ crowds back, a lot were just there for the buzz of the cups andwhen no more cups were showing neither were the fans there for instant gratification. The style of footie hasnt helped either and lots of splits among fans of the continuation of Matthews.

Something needs to be done though to get people back in the gate as the drops in attendance cant be helping the revenue we have to play with.

I cant see much more progression without more revenue for all the clubs tbh.

dcarroll

gimmick wrote:

3. Certain eL clubs will not strive to move forward. Im looking at mickey mouse outfits like Longford Town, Finn Harps, Bray Wanderers, Waterford Utd etc. These clubs are happy in the little rut they are currently in, will do nothing to improve their grounds, over charge people into their grounds, not to mention are just happy to survive.

First of all a league will not be a league without the teams towards the lower end. Secondly the teams you mention all happen to be regional teams, with a much smaller population to draw their fans from. Now I am far from a demography expert but afaik the population is of dublin is somewhere near 1.2million. Waterford is maybe 45,000? Now how do you expect these teams to expand when they havent got the crowds going through their gates. If you look at figures I feel you will discover that a far higher percentage of the people in Waterford/Longford/Ballybofey etc. go to eL matches than in Dublin, Cork or Derry

Benedict XVI

gimmick wrote:

2. The Irish footballing public. Now this isnt having a go, just a fact. The irish public dont care about Shels, Cork City, Derry City etc, as its far easier to watch the telly and see big grounds, big name players etc. Its the norm here to support a team from your living room/pub, rather than go out and support. Its just the way it is, and will most likely never change.

That is all down to marketing.
If you want people to come to games you have to sell it to them, and that's primarly up to the clubs and the league to do.
Once they come you have to keep them coming, with resonalbe prices, good facalities, a decent standard of football and a welcome from the long term\existing fans.

It also cannot be a bad thing if the sucess is shared around the country, and not just among the Dublin teams

MrJoeSoap

I'll make a proper attempt at a post on this tomorrow, just letting you know in the meantime that if you want to put any of these q's to Pat Fenlon there is an online chat on the Shels site, tomorrow (Thursday) at 7.

http://www.shelbournefc.ie/news.php?id=225

Töpher

gimmick wrote:

1. The FAIs apathy and belligerence toward the domestic game. Without going into this too deep, as I have stated in many other threads, the FAI insistence that our players be nurtured abroad is counter productive and is not conducive to success for either the national team, or the domestic league.

It's pretty safe to say that the FAI blazers would sit in Tolka Park, or Turners Cross, or the Brandywell and cheer on an English team against the European representitive of the Eircom League in whichever competition it may happen to be. I can picture it now: Blazers, a scarf of the Irish club, cheering when the Premiership team score, offering a polite round of applause when the Irish score.

Have to look at the government too, sure didn't they pump several multiples of what all Eircom League clubs got last year into Greyhound Racing?

gimmick wrote:

2. The Irish footballing public. Now this isnt having a go, just a fact. The irish public dont care about Shels, Cork City, Derry City etc, as its far easier to watch the telly and see big grounds, big name players etc. Its the norm here to support a team from your living room/pub, rather than go out and support. Its just the way it is, and will most likely never change.

Alot of it is down to media and marketing. However, even when games are on you have alot of people with comments like "sure why would I watch that? it's shíte". How are you meant to get through to people with these nonsensical preconceived notions? They won't watch when its on telly, why would they pay attention to any advertising. Speaking of advertising, television adverts are essential.

I don't buy into this whole I support Man Utd because my Daddy does lark. It's highly likely that in the 70's your Daddy was in Dalymount with 30,000 other people watching Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians play out cup finals.
The problem nowadays is Irish media bought into the Premiership rebranding, and that was that. English football is talked about the be all and end all, while Irish football is lucky to get a mention. Its just an unfortunate fact of the times, Irish people don't care about Irish football. Most are happy to wear their Premiership jersies and then boo the English national team, and cry about the thoughts of God Save The Queen being played in Croke Park make them ill, but they won't bat an eyelid when they queue up for the FA Cup Final.

gimmick wrote:

3. Certain eL clubs will not strive to move forward. Im looking at mickey mouse outfits like Longford Town, Finn Harps, Bray Wanderers, Waterford Utd etc. These clubs are happy in the little rut they are currently in, will do nothing to improve their grounds, over charge people into their grounds, not to mention are just happy to survive. Proof of this is people like Alan Matthews campaigning to get the eL season reverted to the traditional August - May format. Does he not realsie that since the inception of the summer league that the league has taken huge steps forward in terms of both style and european progress (though thats a dirty term in shameful Longford)?

Not a fan of Alan Matthews, but like Longford as a club. Smaller clubs exist everywhere, sure look across the water where teams like Fulham and Portsmouth are in the top tier of football. It's not so much lack of ambition to strive forward, more like ambition to do as well as they can within their means. Looks at Bohemians a few years ago for a good example of why not to do the opposite! This all goes back to the point above, if Irish people insist on pumping millions and millions every year into British football without putting anything into their own domestic league, then the clubs worst affected will find it hard to get out of those ruts. Not that they're not good teams etc, but they can't all afford to have Jason Byrnes and George O'Callaghans lining out every week.

gimmick wrote:

The only way forward I see is an All Ireland League with a 16 team premier division. Only then can true progressive clubs thrive among peers ie City, Shels, Bohs, Derry, Linfield, Glentoran, Glenavon, Portadown.

That would be sweet. I seriously pray that in 10 years we are making regular trips to Belfast and Portadown etc.

As for progress, I believe it can. Particularily in Europe, where teams are performing better, and becoming a bit more consistent. If we have another 3 years like the last 2 we'll move up a fair way in the rank of European Leagues.

The Gecko

Great Post Gimmick:

But all responses so far have failed to answer your question and I aint sure if I will do any better but will give it a go.

The reason for this is “forwards or backwards” doesn’t really apply in the context of the current league. For 19 years I have been going to support Bohemians and have stood at the school end with about 40-50 others against Finn harps in the early rounds of the cup or sat in the stands with a few hundred members watching a LS cup match.

I have also had the pleasure of being among thousands to celebrate league wins and cup wins (not often enough mind you) but one thing is consistent, crowds come and go as quickly as success for any team in the League. For example look at Shels the crowds they get considering there recent success is a disgrace. Bohemians have a more solid fan base but numbers dwindle at lesser games and treble for matchs against rovers (shame they where relegate).

To a certain extent it is a case of making the league seem more attractive to potential football fans or marketing the league in a better light.

However it is definitely a case of your second point being true “The problem is at the feet of the Irish Footballing Public?”

Unfortunately the average Joe in Ireland that Dons a Premiership team Jersey genuinely knows very little about supporting a team. Yes they can talk the hind legs of a donkey about the beautiful game and tell you who won what over the last 20 years etc but they haven’t stood in Old Trafford or Anfield on a freezing cold Wednesday against a lower league side in the Worthington cup/carling cup, they haven’t spent every second Saturday match watching an average game for 90 minutes in the cold with a crap pie and average cup of tea (you can get a nice fish & Chip in Dalymount by the way).

They where brought up on “highlights” and “Saturday morning Shows” that just show the best bits / goals of matches. They don’t realise that if you go to every home game of any premiership club the majority of match’s you see will be below average in terms of entertainment.

I have had this debate before with friends and they all respond by saying I watch every match that’s on telly and the standard is so much better … This in my view is “expletive deleted”…….. How many of these fans go to the pub and end up chatting about how **** the match is and how much of a donkey xyz is (happily they can be distracted by a few pints, the hot chick in the corner with the low cut top, the scores from other games popping up on screen etc.) yet low and behold a couple of hours later the **** game is forgotten, the one goal or great save is discussed for ever and they go home happy and content, that they had a great night and the match was grand.

So what’s my point? IRELAND HAS VERY FEW GENUINE FOOTBALL FANS WITHOUT GENUINE FOOTBALL FANS THE LEAGUE WON’T REACH ITS POTENTIAL. Hence how can it go forward…….

We have hundreds of thousand of kids and adults that think they support a football team, that think they are passionate about football, that think they know the heartache of watching a team lose. and at a certain level the do but Let’s face it you could bring the average Irish premiership fan to see their team at home against anyone and no matter how **** the match was they would still enjoy the trip being in the stadium etc……

But until they start to travel to every match for the mancs , reds, celts Barcelona who ever and witness the truth that not all “high level” matches are 90mins of entertainment.

((((( (Please, if you are one of the very very few that spend €200 a week to see celtic or who ever play, fairplay your are a football fan (congratulations on your wealth and I am sure your wife is happy) please dont respond telling me you are a real fan)

(Please if you are a woman and take offence at the wife being happy and you also go to the games cause woman have the right to support footbal again I am sorry)))))

The strain of travelling a few miles every two weeks to there local Eircom league club will be too painful. I mean imaging the trauma of watching a match the is poor for 90 minutes without the ability to change the channel or order a pint will be perceived as to much and hence the excuse “The standard is ****”

So is it “Backwards or Forwards” for the Eircom League….

Definitely not backwards...... The fans that have been there through those hard times will keep going back…. There are 3 ways the league will grow:


1) The marketing thing this will require a generation or two to grow up with Eircom league games been show in the best light. i.e. (However can this work against the power house that is SKY)

Maybe with Decent coverage of Highlights this could happen (not some punter in Bray with a camcorder that shakes all over the place when a goal is scored),
They show would have to be on at a reasonable hour or imagine a Saturday morning or imagine showing eircom league highlights on RTE (the national broadcaster) at half-time of a Prem game, international game or fa cup game… you get my point….

2) An Eircom league Club goes on an amazing run in the Champions league for 4 years in a row becomes a Rosenberg and then we can have all the “premiership fans” by an extra Jersey to turn up for European matches while the rest of the league tries to compete with the financial joints – eventually Roddy Collins rejoins rover and brings a multi millionaire from Russia with him and boom rovers get relegated again (sorry).

3) An All Ireland League, comments as per Gimmicks post


Finally I reckon Gimmick could have posted this 5 years ago and got the same response and if its posted in another 5 years you will get the same response…
I hope I am wrong………………………………………………………………..

Peace, Love and Harmony to you ALL
THE Gecko

KdjaCL

The Gecko wrote:

Finally I reckon Gimmick could have posted this 5 years ago and got the same response and if its posted in another 5 years you will get the same response…
I hope I am wrong………………………………………………………………..

So true so i replace the word progress with "next season"


kdjac

20 Times 20 Times

Ronan|Raven wrote:

Longford fan here, we have a great ground, facilities. And last season despite the disaster at Carmarthen and the end of the run in saw us have a very respectable finish could have been a lot better if not for the ****ups at Finn Harps and Rovers. It is hard to see how to get the 1000+ crowds back, a lot were just there for the buzz of the cups andwhen no more cups were showing neither were the fans there for instant gratification. The style of footie hasnt helped either and lots of splits among fans of the continuation of Matthews.

Longford have indeed got great facilities that they should be exploiting as much as they can (ie) the all weather pitches that they are renting out. There fan base is typical of smaller eircom league clubs, they “sing when you’re wining” basically the fans only turn up when the club is doing well and going on cup runs.

This is a good thing and a bad thing; it proves that there is a fan base there that they can exploit with the right PR and marketing of the club. It is down to the club and its supporters / players to sell the club to people, get people interested.

Some of you might laugh at this but here it goes. When Dundalk returned to oriel park this season the home crowds went up with a lot more families coming to oriel park , I really think it was down to the mascot we had , we had a giant panda called lily who used to meet and greet all the kids in the ground , and you could see that kids and parents enjoyed this and made the whole match day vibe friendly to families.

This proved to be a successful however small marketing campaign but it worked got the crowds up and ticket sales increased and therefore the clubs revenue increased.
At the moment in Oriel Park we are seeing more PR stunts that are working, and fair play to our PR guy peter halpin.

dcarroll wrote:

First of all a league will not be a league without the teams towards the lower end. Secondly the teams you mention all happen to be regional teams, with a much smaller population to draw their fans from. Now I am far from a demography expert but afaik the population is of dublin is somewhere near 1.2million. Waterford is maybe 45,000? Now how do you expect these teams to expand when they havent got the crowds going through their gates. If you look at figures I feel you will discover that a far higher percentage of the people in Waterford/Longford/Ballybofey etc. go to eL matches than in Dublin, Cork or Derry

This is always an excuse when people have this conversation, at the end of the day A 45,000 population is enough to sell and market the club around to ensure that 3000+ turn up at games, Dundalk is in the same boat and we can get these crowds if we hit a good run even in the first division. At the end of the day if people are interested they will turn up if there not then they wont, again its down to people to sell the club to people who sit on the bar stools on match day, they just need some encouragement. The Dublin clubs all fighting over their share of fans, there is a huge interest there people just have to get the public back into it. In the 70’s there was 20000+ going to Dalymount to watch a rovers match, this too me is proof that there is a fan base there they need to use it to there advantage.

Einst&#252 wrote: »

Have to look at the government too, sure didn't they pump several multiples of what all Eircom League clubs got last year into Greyhound Racing?

This isn’t the clubs fault this is totally the FAI fault for not showing the interest in OUR clubs and I really think that they would let the league die, they need to get back to the roots of the game. At the end of the day it makes sense for them they get the publics interest going they get bums on the seats and more revenue back to them, but they really need to start investing more money!

Einst&#252 wrote: »

That would be sweet. I seriously pray that in 10 years we are making regular trips to Belfast and Portadown etc.
As for progress, I believe it can. Particularily in Europe, where teams are performing better, and becoming a bit more consistent. If we have another 3 years like the last 2 we'll move up a fair way in the rank of European Leagues.

If there is a all Ireland league how would the smaller clubs cope then ? I have to ask myself that question. You put all the top teams in the top league, regular people will lose interest in the other teams and I can’t see the smaller clubs surviving. Its something that is definitely a great idea, for the two football associations to work on they just need to get the right concept so that the smaller teams don’t suffer.

The Gecko wrote:

tell you who won what over the last 20 years etc but they haven’t stood in Old Trafford or Anfield on a freezing cold Wednesday against a lower league side in the Worthington cup/carling cup, they haven’t spent every second Saturday match watching an average game for 90 minutes in the cold with a crap pie and average cup of tea (you can get a nice fish & Chip in Dalymount by the way).

Sure this is some of the best things about going to see your local team, out in the cold with other supporters having a cup of soup and enjoying the crack and talking about why we come to watch this every week followed by im not coming again, but you return every week because you love it, there is a buzz about standing in the terrace cheering on your team hoping for the best.

The Gecko wrote:

The strain of travelling a few miles every two weeks to there local Eircom league club will be too painful. I mean imaging the trauma of watching a match the is poor for 90 minutes without the ability to change the channel or order a pint will be perceived as to much and hence the excuse “The standard is ****”

This I find amazing I hear this all the time, oh I cant be bothered going up. Anybody that has been to oriel park will see how close it is too everywhere but you still hear people giving out about going , or not having the time to go , But yet they would it at home to watch Wigan. These people need motivating. They need to see that supporting your local team is something special something that you can be proud of.

So to sum up my post, the conclusion that I have come to is that the eircom league has climbed a few steps in the last few years but there is still many more to come, I think we can make it. I know that I will keep coming back for more every season and I love the buzz about Thursday night. Thursday night is oriel! What I want to share with people is this special rush that goes through me when you see your team score the winner live and you shout in the terraces with your chants and it feels great. People just need to taste the atmosphere and they will get hooked. We just need to get them into the ground first. We have come on leaps and bounds in the last few years in Europe and there is more to come I know, its just a matter of time before we qualify for the champions league, but we need to support from our FAI. We need the financial backing that we don’t risk losing our top players as soon as their name reaches across water.

COME ON YOU LILYWHITES

Töpher

The FAI cannot let the eL die Sarge, for doing so would remove them of the national team, but they do not care if it thrives or not. If it does, they will take the acclaim, if not, they will ignore it.

20 Times 20 Times

Einst&#252 wrote: »

The FAI cannot let the eL die Sarge, for doing so would remove them of the national team, but they do not care if it thrives or not. If it does, they will take the acclaim, if not, they will ignore it.

I understand that , i think i got a wee bit worked up while posting all that mate.Eh have the FAI got the money to invest in the league maybe we should ask ourselves that.

cournioni

gimmick wrote:

Glenavon.

:eek: