And I am the Life wrote:

QUOTE:
Basically a lot of the reasons that gates are low in the eircom league is the same as why gates are low in the fourth division/conference, without the possibility of one of the clubs getting promoted. That's just the way of it.

Without promotion, true, but with the opportunity of European football at the end. And yes, generally getting hammered by first professional team they meet. And guess what would happen if the Irish sides were also professional? They'd have a chance of progressing. Maybe not in the Champions League, straight away, but getting into the third round qualifier, like BATE Borisov, Aalborg, BRann and Anorthosis Famagusta - with the chance of getting into the UEFA Cup league section.

Impact Substitute wrote:

QUOTE:
RTE's ad for their Premier League highlights programme consists of a bloke walking around a deserted Dublin City. "Football is back" or somesuch statement accompanies it. This is straight out of Sky's manual. Football being more important than life. I don't know of any other Premier League watching country outside the UK that is so immersed in it all.

Of course, in Ireland, Football isn't back. It's been going on all summer.

And yes, generally getting hammered by first professional team they meet.

not really. Drogheda came within an injury time three yard open goal miss and an injury time shot hitting the post and having the ball spin across the goal of knocking out dynamo kiev. I doubt they would have won 4-1 at spartak moscow but they really should have won.

I'm not sure though what a qualification for the third round of the cl qualifiers would do for the league. Shelbourne lost 1-0 to deportivo on aggregate four or five years ago, it had little effect, and they went bankrupt and were relegated.

The problem is that even if drogheda were to qualify for the group stage of the CL, the effect it would have outside of Drogheda (a medium sized shithole in louth) wouldn't actually be all that great. Sport is so local in Ireland that the idea of someone from a couple of miles outside the town following the team would be a bit strange.

The league would get more publicity for a bit, but unless they shared out all the money between all the clubs, it wouldn't affect the other clubs.

And I am the Life wrote:

QUOTE:
Shelbourne lost 1-0 to deportivo on aggregate four or five years ago.

0-0 at Lansdowne Road, 0-3 at the Riazor (where it was still 0-0 with an hour gone).

If an Irish team somehow got into the CL, all that it would do would create a Skonto Riga/Olympiakos-type situation whereby that team won the league for nine of the next ten years.

I am racking my brains trying to think of the best ever result by an Irish club in Europe, and it is probably Shels' elimination of Hajduk Split in the CL qualifiers a couple of weeks before that Deportivo La Coruna tie.

Best performance ever was probably Shels again, v Rosenborg in 2000 at Tolka Park (I was there). They dominated the match from start to finish and somehow managed to lose 3-1. They drew the away leg 1-1.

Interesting stuff about the League of Ireland.

In absolute terms, I'd say the LoI is at best equivalent in standard to lower Divsion 5 level in England (Conference). The Irish League Division 6 (Conf North and South or maybe regional Prem for the country clubs).

If that level was ever again to compete with Scandinavian football (as it did up to the early 70s, when the Scandos were amateur), Ireland would need to stop being a feeder state (ha) for England. Given the popularity of Sky and the EPL as AIATL mentions, this looks a long way off. Although it must be notionally possible- Danish players, for example, don't inevitably move to German clubs next door.

Billy No Medals wrote:

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I'd say the LoI is at best equivalent in standard to lower Divsion 5 level in England (Conference).

I think it's a little bit better than that. I couldn't see lower-half-of-the-table Conference sides being able to knock teams like IFK Gothenburg and Hajduk Split out of Europe, or get a 2-2 draw in Kiev or a 0-0 against Paris St-Germain.

I'd say it's more like the bottom end of League One or the top end of League Two.

Hiero- I think the key is fitness. Some full-time players aren't enough, nor even a full-time squad. You need to be playing against other full-timers. Irish teams can pull of the occasional good result in Europe, but I guess over a 40-45 game season they'd be adrift in English Division 4.

Jorge P to thread, without wishing to rub in last season's pain...

I'd say it's more like the bottom end of League One or the top end of League Two.

I think it would vary from club to club, with the best teams fairly high in the hypothetical league pyramid and the worst teams quite far down.

Phoebe, One of the big problems for the eircom league is this. the town where I was growing up was in south tipperary. So The nearest Eircom league clubs were Limerick (45 miles away) Waterford (40 miles away) Cork city and cobh ramblers (60 miles away) They then added a team from kilkenny (40 miles) some time in the 1990's.

Basically anyone from outside these urban areas isn't going to have any interest whatsoever in these teams. Their support footprint (er) is very small. Unless you grew up within walking distance of one of these grounds, it would be unlikely that you would ever go to one of their games. there would be nearer clubs and sports to go and see if you wanted to see live sport.

Even if there was an eircom league team in clonmel, the big town 10 miles away, people from cahir wouldn't go and see them because they were just the clonmel team. The same would apply to more or less everyone else who wasn't from the town itself. The issue of supporting the eircom league over watching football on television just doesn't arise for the vast majority of Irish people, there isn't one near them.

Even in Dublin, where there are a couple of old well established clubs, the support footprint of these clubs is quite small. the idea of supporting your local club doesn't really apply, because a lot of the time they aren't really your local club, and the football just isn't good enough to attract people in to watch it, so they watch football on the telly instead.

AIATL-I don't buy that 'footprint' argument in Dublin and Belfast, where the 'big' teams have a historical following, which has grown and spread with population moves. In Northern Ireland, Linfield are the best-supported team in Lisburn, Bangor, Ards, Carrick- large or middle-sized (25- 75,000) towns with their own teams.

Point taken about Kilkenny, Longford and even Galway and Limerick, although Derry and Cork seem to manage.

For Galway and Limerick to thrive as supporter attractions, you'd probably need Sky bankruptcy and a simultaneous bogball-stickbeater pigfucking scandal, or similar.

They don't even have any interest in gaelic football in Kilkenny, let alone soccer. All they care about is hurling, hurling and more hurling.

Limerick is a rugby town more than anything else.

Billy, I'm not so sure about that historical following. if you look at the area around dalymount park, it has a huge temporary population of people from (a) other countries (b) other parts of Ireland. That's not exactly fertile breeding ground. People also move away from the areas where they grew up in dublin, this has a big affect on attendance, for instance look what happened when rovers left miltown.

Similarly most of the population of dublin live in suburbs that aren't all that near an eircom league club. So basically unless you are already an eircom league fan, living near the club, you're not going to be so keen on going too the match.

another thing that won't really help is that a lot of the people who move to dublin are from the country and have no connection to clubs, and their kids won't either. A huge problem for the EL is that it is just too small scale to really be able to grow against such stiff competition from the EPL, GAA, fucking rugby, and general apathy.

Take the Old Firm out of Scotland and the crowds 'enjoyed' by the rest and the standard played isn't all that different from the Irish Leagues, yet I can't see to many people in Dundee starting to support Liverpool or Man U anytime soon.

I don't know if I accept the argument about the standard of football completely either. Whilst the standard of top English teams has always been higher than top Irish ones both Man U and Liverpool have endured barren periods in the last 30 years without much loss of support in Ireland and many EPL games are simply dull, dull dull. Also if the standard of football is the case why aren't little Irish urchins all following Real Madrid or Barcelona these days, pretty much all their games are live on Sky too? I wonder how much the lack of an all Ireland league is to blame?

AMMS wrote:

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Take the Old Firm out of Scotland and the crowds 'enjoyed' by the rest and the standard played isn't all that different from the Irish Leagues

It is. It's noticeably better (and faster). There are no Steven Fletchers or Laryea Kingstons or Stephen Hugheses or Christophe Berras playing in the Eircom League.

I know Derry City slaughtered Gretna a couple of years ago, but Gretna were the weakest side in the SPL's history.

Colonial mentality?

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Take the Old Firm out of Scotland and the crowds 'enjoyed' by the rest and the standard played isn't all that different from the Irish Leagues

The top 22 teams in Scotland (please correct as necessary) all play in a full-time league. None of the Irish teams do. So you are streets ahead.

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why aren't little Irish urchins all following Real Madrid or Barcelona these days, pretty much all their games are live on Sky too? I wonder how much the lack of an all Ireland league is to blame?

I doubt Glentoran and Linfield joining the LoI would have much effect in Spain (or indeed anywhere outside Northern Ireland).

QUOTE:
if you look at the area around dalymount park, it has a huge temporary population of people from (a) other countries (b) other parts of Ireland. That's not exactly fertile breeding ground. People also move away from the areas where they grew up in dublin, this has a big affect on attendance, for instance look what happened when rovers left miltown

Area around Linfield is largely populated by students and immigrants from the Far East and Eastern Europe. Linfield fans tend to live in suburban towns 10 miles away.

Rovers losing their ground- not fans migrating away from inner Dublin- was the main cause of the club's problems.