How much of a football fan do you regard yourself?

Gavin "shels"

Make it to most matches in Tolka throughout the year, and a large amount of aways. Used to be nearly every game including friendlies when I was in school/college but that's taken a hit with full time work and us being in the First Division so not really many close games. Used to volunteer selling programmes but don't have time any more.

Laois_Man

Myself, I have become more disillusioned and cynical about the whole thing. Used to be mad about the PL but now I am just fed up of watching a league where the teams are placed in an order that more or less mirrors the financial league table. It probably always did - but it feels worse now.

Not to mention the Sky pantomime around it all has become tiresome to me.

It's not sport to me anymore and a lot of my interest nowadays centers around fantasy football points.

The fact that Ireland are so poor now doesn't help either.

But I still watch a game but I don't go out of my way too much and I don't get stressed if I have to miss it.

Nalz

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

but I don't take it any way seriously like I would with GAA.

Is this due to geographical reasons? Because the game is Irish and the teams are local to you? Just wondering.

Personally I find a lot of GAA fans bandwagoners, especially the ones who don't support their local clubs...don't get me started on the rugger in that regard. The flip side of that I find some GAA clubs very clicky, big headed and falsely portray themselves to be family orientated and the likes.

I'm sure there is great GAA fans, and clubs for that matter. But I know of several examples in my home county plus the county I currently live in that correspond to what I say above.

niallo27

Trilla wrote: »

Is this due to geographical reasons? Because the game is Irish and the teams are local to you? Just wondering.

Personally I find a lot of GAA fans bandwagoners, especially the ones who don't support their local clubs...don't get me started on the rugger in that regard. The flip side of that I find some GAA clubs very clicky, big headed and falsely portray themselves to be family orientated and the likes.

I'm sure there is great GAA fans, and clubs for that matter. But I know of several examples in my home county plus the county I currently live in that correspond to what I say above.

Gaa is a huge bandwagon sport. Look at clare last year. Barely had 4k at the first round against Waterford but sold out two all-Ireland's in Croke park.

Nalz

niallo27 wrote: »

Gaa is a huge bandwagon sport. Look at clare last year. Barely had 4k at the first round against Waterford but sold out two all-Ireland's in Croke park.

love you Niallo!

Richard Hillman

Since I have started playing fantasy football I have lost any partisanship in the premier league and in most football. I used to love Man Utd but lost interest when Ronaldo left and I played fantasy football more intently.

I used to go to loads of LOI games but lost interest in going to games. I still pay attention to results and the odd TV game when it gets interesting.

I have found in recent years that in my opinion partisanship towards clubs is a bit silly. Althought as much as I try, I cant help but dislike some players, fans and clubs.

I am more interested in the players I like now a days.

niallo27

Trilla wrote: »

love you Niallo!

I'm from clare as well in case you thinking I'm knocking clare people. We are ****e to support our teams

Dirty Dingus McGee

Trilla wrote: »

Is this due to geographical reasons? Because the game is Irish and the teams are local to you? Just wondering.

Personally I find a lot of GAA fans bandwagoners, especially the ones who don't support their local clubs...don't get me started on the rugger in that regard. The flip side of that I find some GAA clubs very clicky, big headed and falsely portray themselves to be family orientated and the likes.

I'm sure there is great GAA fans, and clubs for that matter. But I know of several examples in my home county plus the county I currently live in that correspond to what I say above.

Gaelic Football's my favourite sport and hurling is my second favourite to both play and watch so thats the main reason. I was brought up in a family where both sides were heavily involved in the GAA so thats another reason although it is easier to get behind a team where you know the players genuinely care about representing the team you support and won't leave to play for another team.

The GAA isn't unique regarding bandwagon fans every sport has bucket loads of them and when you compare the size of counties to the attendances they get the core support is pretty decent for most counties.I go to all my counties home games in both codes despite both teams being poor and i attend a fair few club games although not as many as I used to due to work.

I'd agree that GAA clubs can be very cliquey and I would say it happens in GAA clubs more than others due to the longstanding connections they have with there locality and the same families being involved in clubs for donkeys years.However a well run club wouldn't allow cliques to develope.

Dirty Dingus McGee

niallo27 wrote: »

Gaa is a huge bandwagon sport. Look at clare last year. Barely had 4k at the first round against Waterford but sold out two all-Ireland's in Croke park.

County Clare has a population of 117k. So if 4k fans attended the game it's the equivalent of about 3% of the countys population going to the match.

Leeds Urban area population is 1.7million. Average attendance last season was 22k which is 1.2% of Leeds population.

Dublin is a bit smaller than Leeds and they average around 20,000 for their league matches and probably more than 40,000 for their championship matches.

So the attendances are actually pretty decent.

niallo27

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

County Clare has a population of 117k. So if 4k fans attended the game it's the equivalent of about 3% of the countys population going to the match.

Leeds Urban area population is 1.7million. Average attendance last season was 22k which is 1.2% of Leeds population.

Dublin is a bit smaller than Leeds and they average around 20,000 for their league matches and probably more than 40,000 for their championship matches.

So the attendances are actually pretty decent.

If Leeds only played 3 or 4 major games every season then I'm sure attendances would be much higher.

Dirty Dingus McGee

niallo27 wrote: »

If Leeds only played 3 or 4 major games every season then I'm sure attendances would be much higher.

Perhaps. But in every county there is a core of support that will go to all league and championship games in Clare its probably close to 3 thousand or so they had 10k at one of their league matches this year.

Dublin play around 10 home league and championship every year and are able to manage to attract an average of close to 30k and would probably maintain and average over 20k regardless of how many matches they play.

dfx-

A sliding scale of fandom for me..

Rovers member, season ticket holder and fan. 95% of away games, though I've still not made it to the RSC yet.

Barcelona fan for 22 years back to when Madrid lost the league at Tenerife on the last day.

'Follower' of a variety of clubs to varying degrees, Bloemfontein Celtic, Rubin Kazan, Napoli, 1860 Munich..