Greatest League in the World 2024 [new thread available]

Omackeral

In simple terms, what is the difference between junior, intermediate and senior level football. Is it basically just standard?

Zebra3

Omackeral wrote: »

In simple terms, what is the difference between junior, intermediate and senior level football. Is it basically just standard?

Open to correction on this:

Senior = LoI.

Intermediate = Matches must be played at enclosed grounds.

Junior = Matches can be played at open pitches.

johnnyryan89

Big Ears wrote: »

You're making the assumption that if we had a proper 3rd tier (even if it was regional), that the current MSL/LSL clubs would be the ones at the top of it.
Some of them may indeed be, but you'd also likely get the likes of Kerry/Carlow who've dabbled in underage but nothing at Senior level (since the A Championship anyway) decide to make the jump when the requirements and investment is lower than the 1st Division.

A proper 3rd tier (if regional) would see top teams in Munster from outside Cork involved. A creation of a Connacht Senior League and expansion of Ulster Senior League, creating more third tier teams from places that mainly produce top level Junior football clubs at the moment, but have no pathway to Intermediate football.
As you'd likely only have 1-2 sides from counties currently outside Intermediate structure at the moment, you'd probably see an accumulation of a lot of the better Junior players (ones who want to test themselves anyway) towards these clubs and in essence I'd expect some of the strongest clubs would be from places like Galway, Mayo, Limerick, Kerry and Tipperary.......places that currently do not have Intermediate football.

So yes, some top Dublin/Cork teams might still be contending on the next tier of the pyramid, but if created properly don't be surprised to see a lot more teams from Junior football strongholds contending.

Doubtful, junior football is tribal and the big clubs in Limerick won't be one bit interested unless it's worth their while financially. Even then that's a big if. Aisling Annacotty have always been rumoured to go senior because of the national underage teams, they applied to join the U15s but it would have to be worth their while financially to consider it.

Chuck Noland

Omackeral wrote: »

In simple terms, what is the difference between junior, intermediate and senior level football. Is it basically just standard?

Down this way you have
League of Ireland
MSL - Intermediate/Senior league (apply to join, facilitates your own, youth set up etc)
MSL - Junior (mostly junior sides for the clubs accepted senior but better facilities etc in general)
AUL/CBSL Junior leagues and I’m not sure of criteria to join these but lots of games on community Pitchs and changing in cars and these things but obviously some places have much better facilities then others

Captain Havoc

I don't think people are anti Dublin, I was against Dublin County entering the league because it was Sporting Fingal mkII, which failed and I believe would fail again. It's the exact same reason I wouldn't let a Kilkenny team in unless they had potential. I am in favour of a pyramid, which I know will never happen. I hope Treaty do well.

ollaetta

Oat23 wrote: »

George Best also played for that Cork team I think.

Played might be a bit of an overstatement. Ambled around the pitch, took a few frees and corners more like. Cork wanted away clubs to contribute towards his wages from the bigger crowds he would attract and when they refused they let him go. Decent piece about it here: George Best at Cork Celtic

johnnyryan89

Captain Havoc wrote: »

I don't think people are anti Dublin, I was against Dublin County entering the league because it was Sporting Fingal mkII, which failed and I believe would fail again. It's the exact same reason I wouldn't let a Kilkenny team in unless they had potential. I am in favour of a pyramid, which I know will never happen. I hope Treaty do well.

Definitely have the people behind the scenes that are well connected to repair those bridges that Pat O'Sullivan burnt during his time.

The LEDP who own the Markets Field should be easier to deal with now.

The fans just need to see that this is probably the best chance a Limerick based LOI club, heck any club in the mid west has at being run sustainably because fans were coming in from Clare, North Cork, North Kerry and North Tipp. So fans need to look at the long term aims as this isn't going to be another Danny Drew or Pat O'Sullivan scenario where the lads have some money to spend stupidly.

CSF

Captain Havoc wrote: »

I don't think people are anti Dublin, I was against Dublin County entering the league because it was Sporting Fingal mkII, which failed and I believe would fail again. It's the exact same reason I wouldn't let a Kilkenny team in unless they had potential. I am in favour of a pyramid, which I know will never happen. I hope Treaty do well.

I feel like the strongest against it would be people from Dublin who support teams, so I don’t get the anti-Dublin suggestion at all.

Big Ears

topmanamillion wrote: »

What are you basing this on? The junior and intermediate Cups are dominated by Cork/Dublin clubs. So potential candidates are Fairview Rangers(limerick), Avondale and Crumlin.

We are pretty much where we are in terms of clubs. The big urban areas that can support a club are well tapped.
It's down to a sort of novelty factor now in wanting clubs from Kerry, Mayo and the likes in the league. I don't see any of those clubs bringing decent support and doing anything other than struggling along the lines of Wexford.

Junior football is crying out for reform but we have an incredibly weak FAI who are in no position to dictate anything to clubs at that level. They couldn't push through summer football, Ruud Doketer wanted the amount of junior league's slashed to 10 and there will be another strong push against the U13 LOI league which will do well to hold out.

Well firstly what happened the last time we had a 3rd tier ?
Salthill Devon, Mervue, Castlebar Celtic, Tralee Dynamos all became involved. You can say they were good Junior sides and well ran, good facilities etc, but they weren't the top ones in the country.

You say Cork/Dublin sides dominate Intermediate competitions, and sure enough they do. However no side outside Leinster, North Donegal or Cork is allowed play in Intermediate competitions, how could a Limerick side possibly dominate when they're not even allowed enter ?

If we Look at Junior football, Sheriff have been the dominant team over the last 10 years, but aside from them, 4 of the last 6 FAI Junior Cups have been won by Munster sides not from Cork. We've seen wins from Fairview Rangers (Limerick), St Michael's (Tipperary) and Pike Rovers (Limerick).
Infact I'm not sure a Cork team has won the FAI Junior in my lifetime.
Tipperary and Limerick sides have generally been the dominant team in the Munster Junior Cup aswell.

However the best Intermediate/Junior clubs now are not necessarily the ones who'd make the push forward, as we've seen before. Sheriff are/were the top Junior club in the country. But they've stayed in th comfort of the AUL rather than push into the LSL, they're certainly not interested in pushing up to Intermediate football.
What we've seen is clubs with good facilities, underage setups and ambition are the ones who'll want to be playing up there and some better Junior players who want to test themselves will migrate to them.

Someone else mentioned Limerick Junior soccer is tribal. They're damn right, and most clubs probably like where they are, but if one club pushed above the parapet, there are players in that league who'd be willing to change club and want to prove themself.
Aisling weren't the only club in Limerick to apply for the LOI U15 league, Nenagh did aswell. That's just two clubs in one Junior League who clearly have ambition.
You are correct though, the FAI is weak and therefore change really is a problem.


Perhaps a seperate thread on this issue would be good idea ?
While the issue of where the next clubs will come from is very relevant to LOI, it leaves a lot of discussion about Intermediate and Junior soccer.

Zebra3

Big Ears wrote: »

Infact I'm not sure a Cork team has won the FAI Junior in my lifetime.

Possibly because the best Cork sides are playing MSL and therefore compete in the Intermediate Cup?

joeysoap

Could do a lot worse than NIFL

The standard is a fairly low but the structure is there. They have possible relegation and promotion from the ‘1st division’. Their grounds are generally better than ours ( imo)



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_football_league_system

Zebra3

joeysoap wrote: »

Could do a lot worse than NIFL

The standard is a fairly low but the structure is there. They have possible relegation and promotion from the ‘1st division’. Their grounds are generally better than ours ( imo)



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_football_league_system

They do have the "benefit" of a smaller area though which makes their "national" divisions more attractive than say a national third tier for us could be.

We have major issues with a pyramid, and the most glaring one is the different seasons.

johnnyryan89

Big Ears wrote: »

Someone else mentioned Limerick Junior soccer is tribal. They're damn right, and most clubs probably like where they are, but if one club pushed above the parapet, there are players in that league who'd be willing to change club and want to prove themself.
Aisling weren't the only club in Limerick to apply for the LOI U15 league, Nenagh did aswell. That's just two clubs in one Junior League who clearly have ambition.
You are correct though, the FAI is weak and therefore change really is a problem.


Perhaps a seperate thread on this issue would be good idea ?
While the issue of where the next clubs will come from is very relevant to LOI, it leaves a lot of discussion about Intermediate and Junior soccer.

Nenagh did apply, and were told no because they wanted clubs to partner with LOI sides. Which fair enough if you're using that reasoning to turn down Aisling or St Kevin's but Nenaghs application was more an NTSL application given the NTSL teams use Nenaghs facilities, and the coaches at Nenagh are probably the NTSL coaches. You also had James Scott invovled out their so made sense to allow an NTSL team involved at underage level.

These weren't two clubs with ambition of competing at senior level, these were two applications that wanted access to the underage leagues. Same reason Cabinteely joined, and but it's easier for them as most clubs are near Dublin.

Aisling applied because they were spending thousands on their underage teams who were still only schoolboy teams, and were going to lose them to LOI sides such as John Ryan joining Shams and Dara Costello joining Galway. Ones now in England and John Ryan will more than likely be over once he turns 18.

The Nenagh application was exactly the same as the NTSL were losing players to other LOI sides, one Limerick FC underage team was mostly players from North Tipp and you had Barry Coffey who had left to go to Celtic.

Big Ears

johnnyryan89 wrote: »

Nenagh did apply, and were told no because they wanted clubs to partner with LOI sides. Which fair enough if you're using that reasoning to turn down Aisling or St Kevin's but Nenaghs application was more an NTSL application given the NTSL teams use Nenaghs facilities, and the coaches at Nenagh are probably the NTSL coaches. You also had James Scott invovled out their so made sense to allow an NTSL team involved at underage level.

These weren't two clubs with ambition of competing at senior level, these were two applications that wanted access to the underage leagues. Same reason Cabinteely joined, and but it's easier for them as most clubs are near Dublin.

Aisling applied because they were spending thousands on their underage teams who were still only schoolboy teams, and were going to lose them to LOI sides such as John Ryan joining Shams and Dara Costello joining Galway. Ones now in England and John Ryan will more than likely be over once he turns 18.

The Nenagh application was exactly the same as the NTSL were losing players to other LOI sides, one Limerick FC underage team was mostly players from North Tipp and you had Barry Coffey who had left to go to Celtic.

I'm a Nenagh man myself (and played with the club), so I'm familiar with the setup and James' work.
But considering the club moved from the North Tipp League to the Limerick League as it was a much higher standard, I think it's fair to say the club have some ambition.
I'm not necessarily saying they want to play LOI, but if there was a proper (All) Munster or North Munster League at Intermediate level, Nenagh would want a part in it.

Zebra3 wrote: »

Possibly because the best Cork sides are playing MSL and therefore compete in the Intermediate Cup?

Oh without question that's the main reasons why. But the poster did say Cork and Dublin sides were dominating Junior and Intermediate competitions.
I was simply pointing out that isn't true, and for the reason you mentioned above.


As for a Dublin County team, yes it is mostly supporters of current Dublin clubs who object to it.
But if that team plays out of Morton stadium, which isn't that far from the City and has had several LOI sides playing out of it previously, can you blame them ?
It doesn't feel like it caters to a new catchment area if that's where they're playing out of, meanwhile it seems the current application was extremely sketchy, so only right they didn't get a license and won't be playing.

While many would still object, I'd say a lot more would be open to the idea of a Dublin County team if they were playing from a location further North, with a seperate (distinctive) catchment area, looked like they'd spend within their means and put together a good underage structure (perhaps linking up with some North Dublin underage clubs).
But that certainly wasn't what was on the table here.

artanevilla

The point of the Dublin County team was to take Irish talent and export it to England. Basically what Niall Quinn tried to turn the whole LOI into, a football farm for profit.

Chuck Noland

City 1-0 down to Pats after 5 mins Ronan Coughlan

Omackeral

Bohs beat Shels 2-0 earlier today in a preseason.
Bray Wanderers and Shamrock Rovers had a 3-3 draw.

johnnyryan89

Big Ears wrote: »

I'm a Nenagh man myself (and played with the club), so I'm familiar with the setup and James' work.
But considering the club moved from the North Tipp League to the Limerick League as it was a much higher standard, I think it's fair to say the club have some ambition.
I'm not necessarily saying they want to play LOI, but if there was a proper (All) Munster or North Munster League at Intermediate level, Nenagh would want a part in it.

Or they were trying to keep their better players from leaving to come play in the Limerick league, Newmarket will be the same out in Clare if their lads start leaving to join Limerick clubs.

I'd love a North Munster league to form, it's something that needs to happen because you've already got clubs from around the mid west playing or were playing in the Limerick district league. You've always got a LOI senior team in the mid west area that isn't going by the name Limerick, and I've always said the support at senior level was stronger outside of the city than in the city.

Unfortunately Limerick clubs will always look after themselves, or a select few will look after themselves because even my own junior club Star Rovers want the likes of Pike, Fairview, Janesboro, Balla, and now Aisling since they've started paying the likes of Shane Clarke out of the Limerick league.

Zebra3

artanevilla wrote: »

The point of the Dublin County team was to take Irish talent and export it to England. Basically what Niall Quinn tried to turn the whole LOI into, a football farm for profit.

Well if the players are good enough, they are gonna leave the league anyway. That ain't ever gonna change. Profits can then be reinvested in the clubs, ideally into infrastructure that gives a long-term return.

As it is, our best players leave for a song, from Roy Keane to Seamus Coleman.

joeysoap

Zebra3 wrote: »

They do have the "benefit" of a smaller area though which makes their "national" divisions more attractive than say a national third tier for us could be.

We have major issues with a pyramid, and the most glaring one is the different seasons.

NIFL might go summer football next year. Interesting point though.

topmanamillion

Big Ears wrote: »

Well firstly what happened the last time we had a 3rd tier ?
Salthill Devon, Mervue, Castlebar Celtic, Tralee Dynamos all became involved. You can say they were good Junior sides and well ran, good facilities etc, but they weren't the top ones in the country.

You say Cork/Dublin sides dominate Intermediate competitions, and sure enough they do. However no side outside Leinster, North Donegal or Cork is allowed play in Intermediate competitions, how could a Limerick side possibly dominate when they're not even allowed enter ?

If we Look at Junior football, Sheriff have been the dominant team over the last 10 years, but aside from them, 4 of the last 6 FAI Junior Cups have been won by Munster sides not from Cork. We've seen wins from Fairview Rangers (Limerick), St Michael's (Tipperary) and Pike Rovers (Limerick).
Infact I'm not sure a Cork team has won the FAI Junior in my lifetime.
Tipperary and Limerick sides have generally been the dominant team in the Munster Junior Cup aswell.

However the best Intermediate/Junior clubs now are not necessarily the ones who'd make the push forward, as we've seen before. Sheriff are/were the top Junior club in the country. But they've stayed in th comfort of the AUL rather than push into the LSL, they're certainly not interested in pushing up to Intermediate football.
What we've seen is clubs with good facilities, underage setups and ambition are the ones who'll want to be playing up there and some better Junior players who want to test themselves will migrate to them.

You're changing the goal posts here a lot.

Cork, Dublin and Limerick tend to produce plenty of junior/intermediate cup finalists.
2 of those struggle to maintain one club and the others saturated with LOI clubs.

The only reason I mentioned the junior/intermediate Cups was because thats traditionally where new clubs came from. Sligo, Longford, Pats, UCD, Cobh and plenty more were all strong intermediate cup sides before being elected into the league. After the last big expansion in 1985 that avenue has been tapped.

Restructuring junior football and the LOI are 2 unrelated matters. The amount of clubs in this country capable of LOI football is miniscule.

I also just don't buy that the league needs more clubs. Why does it? It struggles to look after the 20 we have. Wexford, Athlone and the likes are in rag order.

If the league improved commercially to a point where it was viable for all 20 current clubs to function, then maybe local league's and Co-ops might look at putting teams it, but expecting junior clubs to just become senior ones because it'd be a novelty to have a Mayo, Kerry or Tipperary LOI club is fantasy stuff.

TLDR: the league needs to look after the clubs we have better before dreaming about the Kerry League V Cobh Ramblers in Cahermoneen in front of a man and his dog.

Chuck Noland

Chuck Noland wrote: »

City 1-0 down to Pats after 5 mins Ronan Coughlan

lost 2-1 but city played well in particular the second half....there was a triallist who normally plays gaa but did well up front

Johan Slow Vision

Johan Slow Vision wrote: »

did you go to it? that was jack walsh plays up top with avondale. very physical and strong in the air.

seeing the reviews online from those who went on the city forum and a few went on twitter...heard he was good and involved in the goal

Big Ears

topmanamillion wrote: »

You're changing the goal posts here a lot.

Cork, Dublin and Limerick tend to produce plenty of junior/intermediate cup finalists.
2 of those struggle to maintain one club and the others saturated with LOI clubs.

The only reason I mentioned the junior/intermediate Cups was because thats traditionally where new clubs came from. Sligo, Longford, Pats, UCD, Cobh and plenty more were all strong intermediate cup sides before being elected into the league. After the last big expansion in 1985 that avenue has been tapped.

Restructuring junior football and the LOI are 2 unrelated matters. The amount of clubs in this country capable of LOI football is miniscule.

I also just don't buy that the league needs more clubs. Why does it? It struggles to look after the 20 we have. Wexford, Athlone and the likes are in rag order.

If the league improved commercially to a point where it was viable for all 20 current clubs to function, then maybe local league's and Co-ops might look at putting teams it, but expecting junior clubs to just become senior ones because it'd be a novelty to have a Mayo, Kerry or Tipperary LOI club is fantasy stuff.

TLDR: the league needs to look after the clubs we have better before dreaming about the Kerry League V Cobh Ramblers in Cahermoneen in front of a man and his dog.

I think I'll create a thread tomorrow to deal with the Irish football pyramid and Intermediate/Junior footballs place in it as I've dragged this thread a little off topic already, but I'll touch on the first half of your post then.

As regards the second I'm actually in full agreement, I don't necessarily think the league needs expanding beyond 20 clubs.
Although I do think it's important that should we be in a scenario like last year, (where Shamrock Rovers had to field a 2nd team to keep an even number of teams in the 1st Division), that we at least have other options from non-league to consider instead of it being Rovers II or one less team in the league.

I think there's potential in this league if things are done right for clubs to be financially viable and sustainable without the need for sugar daddy's, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more to come from the FAI for that to happen, and the league will have to attain a higher status with the general Irish public and Irish media before that happens. It certainly won't come easy.

Athlone and Wexford are far from perfect clubs, and they're probably only hanging on these days, and they're not exactly competitive. But you almost seem to have a level of disdain for them that you'd prefer if they went bust ?

overshoot

Thought athlone had put their miseries behind them and a few local business men on board? Signing the likes of Schlingernan, Aidan Friel, Cantwell, Kurtis Byrne, Doona, Wixted & Meenan should give them a core of a decent D1 squad and could be knocking around the last playoff spot in what should be a decent first division.
Good main stand too if there was just something around the other ends to give it some enclosure!

damemcd

Would have thought that Adam OReilly lad would have gone to Cork instead of Waterford from Preston .....Were they offering more shekels down Waterdord way?

Christy Browne

damemcd wrote: »

Would have thought that Adam OReilly lad would have gone to Cork instead of Waterford from Preston .....Were they offering more shekels down Waterdord way?

Premier Division football? Be a complete waste sending him to Cork to play First Division

joeysoap

Kenny seldom signed a player who wasn’t an improvement on what he already had. I suppose good examples would be Duffy, Finn, McMillan, McGrath Benson McEleney, Hoare and Horgan

Dundalk have now signed Tanner Dogan who is better than........

grayzer75

joeysoap wrote: »

Dundalk have now signed Tanner Dogan who is better than........

Strange signing, probably at the behest of mad Bill no doubt.

doncarlos

joeysoap wrote: »

Kenny seldom signed a player who wasn’t an improvement on what he already had. I suppose good examples would be Duffy, Finn, McMillan, McGrath Benson McEleney, Hoare and Horgan

Dundalk have now signed Tanner Dogan who is better than........

Supposed to be a few more coming over this week. Doesn't make any sense as none of the lads that were over last year were anyway good enough. Club could really do with a B team if the plans are to sign a load of Americans straight out of college.

PhuckHugh

Treaty United are already the biggest team in Munster.

joeysoap

Stephen McDonnell is wasting his time at the academy. Or is it money for old rope? They don’t develop players anyway. As soon as they’re 20 they’re out.

joeysoap

PhuckHugh wrote: »

Treaty United are already the biggest team in Munster.

Bigger than City and Waterford ?

artanevilla

joeysoap wrote: »

Kenny seldom signed a player who wasn’t an improvement on what he already had. I suppose good examples would be Duffy, Finn, McMillan, McGrath Benson McEleney, Hoare and Horgan

Dundalk have now signed Tanner Dogan who is better than........

Did he not sign last summer?

PhuckHugh

joeysoap wrote: »

Bigger than City and Waterford ?

Yes.

More bigger than the lot of em so they are.

Big Ears

artanevilla wrote: »

Did he not sign last summer?

Last January, went on loan to Athlone town in the summer. He has it up on his Twitter that he's signed with them, so he must have been out of contract and re-signed.

Oat23

Look at what the Longford lads were able to put together yesterday. The guys who ran the stream said on twitter that it cost nothing.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=478804006458237&id=135987519826131

And RTE's WatchLOI costs €600k per season. Absolute chancers.

pgj2015

Oat23 wrote: »

Look at what the Longford lads were able to put together yesterday. The guys who ran the stream said on twitter that it cost nothing.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=478804006458237&id=135987519826131

And RTE's WatchLOI costs €600k per season. Absolute chancers.

whatever about the stream, the quality of football was shocking, I have seen better play at over 35's 5 a side.

Big Ears

Oat23 wrote: »

Look at what the Longford lads were able to put together yesterday. The guys who ran the stream said on twitter that it cost nothing.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=478804006458237&id=135987519826131

And RTE's WatchLOI costs €600k per season. Absolute chancers.

I can only assume the majority of costs came from the wages being paid to the commentators and RTE camera men (is it camera people now ?), and they probably charged a fortune.
The other aspects of running the service likely came pretty cheap I'd assume ?

Oat23

Big Ears wrote: »

I can only assume the majority of costs came from the wages being paid to the commentators and RTE camera men (is it camera people now ?), and they probably charged a fortune.
The other aspects of running the service likely came pretty cheap I'd assume ?

Camera operators and commentators certainly cost a large chunk of money. I wonder were RTE charging WatchLOI to 'rent' out their very expensive cameras also? It's RTE so I wouldn't put it past them.

Other costs would have been bandwidth, and I'm guessing they overpaid massively for this (I believe they were routing all traffic through Akamai's CDN which is mad), and then you have things like paying support staff for the website and maybe an engineer on site at the games to fix issues with the stream, plus web devs to keep the service running smooth.

You can sort of see where the money was spent but a lot of the spending was so unnecessary.

chopperbyrne

How are Bray not way better/bigger than they are?

One of the most densely populated areas in the country, and if you live in Greystones or Shankill, there's a good chance you went to secondary in Bray. Wicklow are traditionally ****e at GAA. On the dart line, and is served by Dublin Bus, so easy access.

Is it just bad management/poor community engagement?

topmanamillion

chopperbyrne wrote: »

How are Bray not way better/bigger than they are?

One of the most densely populated areas in the country, and if you live in Greystones or Shankill, there's a good chance you went to secondary in Bray. Wicklow are traditionally ****e at GAA. On the dart line, and is served by Dublin Bus, so easy access.

Is it just bad management/poor community engagement?

Large commuter population, remember seeing there's about 30,000 people living in the town itself and 10,000 of those commute to Dublin every day, so most wouldn`t have a close affinity to the town never mind its LOI team.

Bray could do more but its certainly not straight forward.

eire4

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

It is a disgraceful condition. Tolka isn't much better either. I remember going there for internationals when I was a kid. You would think the FAI would have firstly bought it outright and secondly kept it maintained to a decent level. Once they had use of Lansdowne they just let it rot.

Totally agree. The way both Tolka and particularly Dalymount given it is the historical home of football in Ireland is nothing short of a disgrace and is another aspect of the utter failure of the FAI to properly manager the long term future of football in Ireland.

eire4

Zebra3 wrote: »

What Shels debt was cleared by DCC?



The state of Dalymount is the fault of Bohs. The FAI have no obligation to maintain a ground they don’t own.

Perfectly valid and correct point that prior to the sale to Dublin CC Dalymount was owned by the club not the FAI. Yet for a long time Dalymount has indeed been the historical home of Irish football and the FAI while under no legal obligation have just ignored the stadium. Again what you say is right and the FAI was under no legal obligation to take care of Dalymount.

But the FAI is supposed to be the caretakers of the game in Ireland. That involves them doing many things that they are under no obligation to do but should do.

overshoot

The FAI really failed in the development all around, not much point focusing on Dalymount.
We had the showgrounds and flancare park developments around 2000, Athlone, terryland c2007, tallaght 09... Was the shed at the cross around there too?

Since that we had tallaght grow, sligos railway end and Derry, I don't think any of those 3 can be out down to the FAI and not even sure of the ones mentioned above. Has there really been anything else this millennium?

Clubs were starved and had no resources to be going alone at this stuff. While we have TDs happy to plough money to gaa, horses, rugby, the FAI were just happy to line their own pockets, throw a few scraps in places that kept them in power rather than fight the corner for LOI clubs.

eire4

overshoot wrote: »

The FAI really failed in the development all around, not much point focusing on Dalymount.
We had the showgrounds and flancare park developments around 2000, Athlone, terryland c2007, tallaght 09... Was the shed at the cross around there too?

Since that we had tallaght grow, sligos railway end and Derry, I don't think any of those 3 can be out down to the FAI and not even sure of the ones mentioned above. Has there really been anything else this millennium?

Clubs were starved and had no resources to be going alone at this stuff. While we have TDs happy to plough money to gaa, horses, rugby, the FAI were just happy to line their own pockets, throw a few scraps in places that kept them in power rather than fight the corner for LOI clubs.

You will get no disagreement from me on the FAI's abject failure in general to be positive caretakers of League of Ireland football. None whatsoever. It is all part of their utter lack of interest in and thus utter failure to develop ( at least to what we can with limited resources) a footballing infrastructure within Ireland that can provide a solid foundation for the long term benefit of football in Ireland.

Irishmale0399

If anyone wants to see change in Irish football, then you will all have to continue to pressure the FAI from outside, ask very loud questions and insist on change by hitting the FAI where it hurts, in their pockets (international merchandise and match day tickets if we are ever allowed back). Additionally, every councilor, TD, MEP, Senator or ministor you meet needs to be reminded it is time to direct funding to LOI clubs, the elite sport and not to their mates within the GAA.

Big Ears

overshoot wrote: »

The FAI really failed in the development all around, not much point focusing on Dalymount.
We had the showgrounds and flancare park developments around 2000, Athlone, terryland c2007, tallaght 09... Was the shed at the cross around there too?

Since that we had tallaght grow, sligos railway end and Derry, I don't think any of those 3 can be out down to the FAI and not even sure of the ones mentioned above. Has there really been anything else this millennium?

Belfield Bowl and Markets Field were built, Turner's cross was improved, Carlisle grounds had a stand added and I think Richmond Park had new stands built.

I've probably missed other bits, or may be wrong on some of the above, but it doesn't seem as bad when you start listing it all out.
With that said, quite a few grounds could still do with serious improvement.

hardybuck

Big Ears wrote: »

Belfield Bowl and Markets Field were built, Turner's cross was improved, Carlisle grounds had a stand added and I think Richmond Park had new stands built.

I've probably missed other bits, or may be wrong on some of the above, but it doesn't seem as bad when you start listing it all out.
With that said, quite a few grounds could still do with serious improvement.

A new stand was opened at the RSC in Waterford in 2008 also.

joeysoap

Afaik

Rovers - council
Derry - council
Dalymount - council
Tolka- council
Bray- council
Waterford - council
Wexford- fai
United Park- fai
UCD - college owned
Turners Cross- MSL
Eamonn Deasy - Galway F A
Oriel- I tkink the club bought out the Casey Family ( not sure)