JUST 864 PEOPLE came through the turnstiles in Longford and Inchicore last Monday night to see games which were vital in the chase for the SSE Airtricity league title.
It’s hugely-disheartening to write that. A few observers, notably Gareth Penrose on extratime.ie and Alan Cawley on RTÉ, have been consistently highlighting the worrying trend in league attendances.
When you consider that those who attended are likely to be among the hardcore, so are more likely to be in possession of season tickets, it only reinforces the point that across the respective games, it’s unlikely that either Longford or St Pat’s cleared €5,000 on the gate.
Whether the gates on Monday night are truly representative of a decline is questionable. Richie Sadlier made a number of valid points when discussing the issue earlier in the week.
Neither Longford nor Pat’s have anything left to play for and that’s no doubt a factor. Also, while Dundalk and Cork City are among the best-supported teams in the country, the number of games they’ve played in recent weeks – as fixtures pile up – means that supporters of those clubs are less likely to make the away trip on a Monday night.
There were positives this week though that back up Sadlier’s point about the importance of having something at stake.
We saw a full house last night in Tallaght for Dundalk’s Europa league match against Zenit St Petersburg and we also saw 1,267 supporters cheer on Cork City’s U19 side in the Uefa Youth League at home to HJK Helsinki in Turner’s Cross on Wednesday night.
In both cases, the games were well-promoted by the clubs and garnered media attention. Crucially, there was something to play for in both games. It confirms that there is an appetite for football in the country if we can get the scheduling, the promotion and the marketing right.
We see it consistently, and not just in football — an event brings people into the stadia.
The biggest event in Irish football is only a matter of weeks away. The two best clubs in the country over the past three years will go head-to-head in the Irish Daily Mail FAI Cup final and the FAI have had a target and a means to achieve it set by another code which would claim a lack of coverage and a lack of interest from the general public.
A few weeks back the ladies All-Ireland football final between Dublin and Cork attracted a crowd of nearly 35,000 into Croke Park, making it the largest attendance at a women’s sporting event in Europe this year.
There were a number of factors that helped contribute to the large attendance.
Firstly, the sponsorship campaign run by Lidl in their support of the women’s game has been hugely successful and a wonderful example of how a sponsor can help to raise awareness of their own brand, while raising awareness of the sport they sponsor.
The second factor was selling the game as the pinnacle of the sport in the country, getting clubs to buy into it and bussing them in large numbers to the stadium on group tickets.
The amount of kids from clubs throughout the country who got a day out in Croke Park off the back of this initiative added numbers, noise and colour to the excitement on the pitch.
The FAI have announced €10 tickets for adults and €5 tickets for children which is consistent with other years and doesn’t create a massive barrier for entry for families.
We have the country’s two best sides in competition and Dundalk’s European success this season has captured the imagination of the public in a way that we haven’t seen previously.
I see it myself in work as people ask me what channel the game is on and how I think Dundalk will do. Whether other clubs like it or not, the nation has rallied around Stephen Kenny’s side and want to see them be successful.
35,000 in the Aviva Stadium in a couple of weeks should be the target for the FAI.
Another code with an even lower profile than our own has achieved it and has laid down a blueprint for how it can be achieved.
Participation numbers in football exceed any other team sport in Ireland, we have all the ingredients to make it a massive attendance and send clubs into the off-season on a positive note, whetting the appetite of the public before we face into the off-season. We’ve a chance to make memories and win new fans.
There’s a lot to play for.
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