Brian Little set to be new manager at Sligo Rovers

[simon_spellman]

Great news for Rovers, although another fans favourite assistant manager Gerry Carr loses out, and will probably leave the club now as he did not want to face into another season as no.2. Still great ambition being shown by the club in securing the title this season after the departure of Paul Cook who had recently taken charge of Acc Stanley (losing 4-0 in his 1st match) Still a hero in Sligo as we wone the FAI Cup twice in 3 years and out League Cup 2 years ago aswell, looking good for a right go at the champioship this season

[Percy McCarthy]

Hopefully Simon and the Irish Villains will keep us updated. Is it the close-season over there at the minute?

[Ger Regan]

Hopefully Simon and the Irish Villains will keep us updated. Is it the close-season over there at the minute?

Check the scores yourself you lazy git! And yeah, season starts in march some time (my local team folded a month or two back, so haven't been keeping an eye on it this year).

[eamonn]

Is Terryland Park going to be left neglected (like what happened to my team Kilkenny City's ground, Buckley Park, when they folded a few years ago)?

Brian clearly likes Ireland, he's done a lot of punditry for Setanta over here the last couple of years. The news is quite poignant as listening to Mr Little last week talk about Eamonn Deacy's death he said the main regret he has was that he hadn't kept in touch/seen Chick in recent years and he wouldn't get the opportunity now.
He'll shortly be living and working just up the road. It's life I suppose.

[Percy McCarthy]

Great, thanks for that Ger. Shame about your local team.

[Ger Regan]

Is Terryland Park going to be left neglected (like what happened to my team Kilkenny City's ground, Buckley Park, when they folded a few years ago)?

Brian clearly likes Ireland, he's done a lot of punditry for Setanta over here the last couple of years. The news is quite poignant as listening to Mr Little last week talk about Eamonn Deacy's death he said the main regret he has was that he hadn't kept in touch/seen Chick in recent years and he wouldn't get the opportunity now.
He'll shortly be living and working just up the road. It's life I suppose.

Terryland was never owned by Galway United, it's actually owned by Connaught FA. A lot of local schools and junior finals are held there. Once the Supporters Trust get the club going again, then I presume they'll be using it again for senior games the season after next. There's also plans to use it for a few concerts during the summer. Unlikely to be anything worth going to, but at least it won't be completely idol. The sad thing is that it's normally a very good surface, completely wasted with no team using it regularly.

[eamonn]

Yeah, the same with Buckley Park. It hosted a few Irish U21 games and the senior team trained on it, the surface was that good.

Weren't Salthill Devon and Mervue applying for senior football licenses this year? I presumed one of them would use Terryland. Can't believe there is only going to be 8 teams in the second tier, bit of a joke really. Especially when Cobh, Tralee, Carlow and Fanad were all busting a gut to get a license.

[PeterWithe]

It was a highlight of my year when Sir Brian accepted my fried request on Facebook, I seem to have a bright future behind me.

[Ger Regan]

Yeah, the same with Buckley Park. It hosted a few Irish U21 games and the senior team trained on it, the surface was that good.

Weren't Salthill Devon and Mervue applying for senior football licenses this year? I presumed one of them would use Terryland. Can't believe there is only going to be 8 teams in the second tier, bit of a joke really. Especially when Cobh, Tralee, Carlow and Fanad were all busting a gut to get a license.

Devon and Mervue are in the 1st Division again next year, but local politics has meant that they couldn't come to an agreement on using Terryland, or keeping some form of Galway United in the league. Shame really, but I suppose neither wanted to give up their identities. It really needs to get back to an amateur level here, there's too many sports competing with each other to ever make it a viable professional, or even semi-professional league.

[dave.woodhall]

It always struck me that the FAI wasted a lot of their post-Italia 90 windfall propping up a league structure that not enough people wanted. Would I be right in thinking that the average Irish football supporter follows the Republic & any one of whichever is the current big four and wouldn't dream of watching their own league?

[Ger Regan]

It always struck me that the FAI wasted a lot of their post-Italia 90 windfall propping up a league structure that not enough people wanted. Would I be right in thinking that the average Irish football supporter follows the Republic & any one of whichever is the current big four and wouldn't dream of watching their own league?

Throw in the word "casual" and you'd be closer to the truth I think. Of those who go regularly to Irish matches (I'm not one of them so am open to correction on this) would have a high proportion that would follow their local team as well. Quite a few of my friends, one a barca fan and another a manyew fan, used to go down regularly with me to terryland.

Don't forget though that Ireland also has 2 other sports on top of the usual that vie for attention with football, both in terms of spectators, and probably more importantly participants (even if quite a lot of people would play both). For a country the size of ireland, that's going to affect the quality of the football on offer. Why bother going down to watch a bunch of cloggers in the freezing cold when you can watch the english league in the pub?

As for the FAI, well they'd make the FA look like a highly efficient outfit. Truly pathetic. Just one story (and 100% true) was that Galway United were due to have a meeting at the FAI to discuss their involvement in the league for the coming season (promotion and relegation is as much down to financial standing of the clubs as it is to final league position, or was at least), which was set for, say 830 in the morning. The boards of United  and the FAI got there, and were stook outside for around an hour because the lads from the FAI forgot to bring a set of keys. A metaphor if ever there was one. They're also in serious debt by all accounts.

[Irish villain]

I guess that's another one out the Wolves running then

Sir Brian was sacked as Wolves manager nearly 30 years ago. 

Was he sacked? I thought he was only warming the seat for a few weeks. Can't believe they've let the assistant take over, there'll be riots.

Hopefully we'll get invited for a friendly with Sligo in the close season.

We should be playing Shamrock Rovers, and although it is the other side of Ireland, you have now got me hoping we could combine the two! Sligo is a fantastic place.

You're not alone. Fingers crossed.

[Brian Taylor]

What a lovely place to live and work. Enniscrone, Bundoran, Clew Bay down the road. fabulous. I'm jealous. WB Yeats country in the shadow of Ben Bulben's head. and he may pick up a good junior or two in the process. Good luck Brian!!

[eamonn]

Yeah, post-'90 there may have been an opportunity for the FAI with the clubs to put something sustainable and long-term in place which was missed. Though the introduction of Sky to the English game with a steady offering of live games probably put the kibosh on any significant improvements domestically. I remember in the mid-90's a big deal being made of BSkyB's funding of floodlight installations across Irish grounds so that games could be moved to Friday and Saturday nights (instead of the traditional Sunday afternoon kick-off time as in Italy) to avoid clashing with televised English games and I think it took a long time for that culture of attending evening games to take effect.

By the start of the recession there were a handful of semi-professional clubs.  Shelbourne, Cork, Derry, even a small club like Drogheda all had full-time players on their books. Sure enough, one by one they went into examinership/administration (maybe Derry didn't?) and demotion followed from which all of them are still recovering.
During the 'good times' average attendances at these grounds would have ranged from 2,000 to 4,500 at best.

The state broadcaster presumably pay a nominal amount to the league for the dozen or so games they screen each season. I can't imagine the viewership is too high. TV income is the great financial driver in practically every major football league these days. Take that away, together with meagre gates and you're left with very little cash to go around.

Ultimately, as Ger points out, when you're not only competing with the Premier League but also Gaelic football, hurling (where players are unpaid) and rugby which has seen a surge in interest among the general population over the past decade; allied to a small population, it's a losing battle. There will be the anomalies like Shamrock Rovers who made the group stages of the Europa League this season and had decent League One sized gates last season, but it's not easy.

Hopefully Brian Little gets all the support he needs. Sligo are probably one of the best-run clubs in the country, certainly provincially, so there's every chance he can hit the ground running provided all their best players don't follow their old manager across to Accrington.

[Ger Regan]

It should also be noted that another potential area of revenue for small clubs, transfers, is not as great as it possibly could be. It's very rare for a player in Ireland to sign up to more than a year, or two (at most), which means that any player who catches the eye of a club in England will cost a fraction of what might normally be expected.