Did the Scottish lad play it though or did it not just hop off his shoulder while he wasnât looking at it? I havenât seen any replays or analysis
He caught it if itâs the same clip I saw.
Because they generally come from the lower socio-economic classes.
Because we all have historically supported british clubs, both you and I included.
The game has been played by most Irish young fellas at some point and is folllowed on a worldwide level by most people in the country.
What do you the numbers watching the Champions league final are like compared to the Heineken Cup final? If there isnât an Oirish team involved in the latter, most of the country couldnât give fuck. We are all glued to the telly when German/Spanish/Italians teams meet in the CL final.
The sport is widely followed. Yes, the local national league, isnât, but there are odd historical reasons for this.
You simply canât claim that soccer is less followed/loved in Ireland than Rugby. Thatâs a retarded claim to make.
I presume youâre referring to the numbers in attendance and not their wealth? Anyway, we suffer a little from comparing ourselves with England and Scotland (in particular). Weâre ahead of Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Japan in attendances per capita and on a par with Poland. Plenty of room for improvement but itâs not as diabolical relatively as is usually claimed.
League or national team?
League.
Distance and cost surely is a factor in Brazil, Mexico and chile, probably Japan too, huge populations distort the argument in reltion to japan, Brazil and Mexico. How do we compare with similar sized and populated countries, Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, eg
Weâre behind all those. I donât dispute that thereâs plenty of room for improvement. But 26th in the world isnât a disaster considering our national team isnât ranked that highly. Participation is far more important than attendance - in other countries youâre looked down on for following a top flight team instead of your local club. In Ireland, people seem to want local players to go and watch UCD instead of their first team.
Why then the disparity in support for the national team in comparison with rugby
Anyone who can get a passport to the State of Ireland i.e. a 26 county Republic with no territorial claim on the 6 Counties. The Northerners who play for the FAI team are quite simply representing those 26 counties. There is no 32 county team and will never be until the FAI and IFA merge.
The current levels of rugby interest will drop off. Itâs a fad for many people.
The rugby team has always had high attendances for 4/5/6 nations games. But the horse show also had high attendances - and there isnât a massive showjumping following out there I donât think. Rugby has always been a much more social attraction - the number of rugby tours, the general drinking culture, the hangers-on, the old school ties etc.
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International association football is no longer seen as the pinnacle of the game as it once was. Itâs considered an afterthought to the Premier League.
International rugby is clearly the pinnacle in that sport.
And there isnât a general drinking culture surrounding association football?!
Nowhere near the same extent. I played rugby for a few years, I doubt I played a single match without getting hammered afterwards. And most of those there to âwatchâ were actually there to drink.
You made the remark about the general drinking culture in regard to attendances. Now youâre trying to claim you made it in regard to the playing side.
Thatâs a considerable shifting of the goalposts.
[quote=âSidney, post:4558, topic:12546, full:trueâ].
You made the remark in regard to attendances. Now youâre trying to claim you made it in regard to the playing side.
Thatâs a considerable shifting of the goalposts.
[/quote]
Did you not read my post properly? People there to watch were attendees.
The grassroots of Irish football has been treated like a sham and irrelevance by the Jonny come latelys who pitched up with their mini van in Stuggart. The Italia 90 team was not a triumph of Irish sport - it was a triumph of luck that so many of our emigrants grew up in a country with association football as a key sport with a major league. These were British players who grew up in Britain, coming up through British football teams academies and could represented the ROI because of their grannies.
The Irish rugby squad has always been an overwhelmingly 32 country, grassroots sport built from the ground up whose top XV reflected that grassroots. That Lansdowne Road which was generously provided to the FAI to service their bandwagon supporters in the 1990s? Built by the grassroots of Irish rugby when the FAI were still diddling around with Eoin Hand and the likes as manager.
Irish grassroots football has always been effectively divorced from the FAI team, which the bandwagon hopped on. Itâs no surprise that the Oirish fans who helped drive up the popularity of the Northern English city football teams, would leave in their droves from the âNationalâ side once the ancestral well dried up after the foreign hordes invaded the Premier League.
The FAI football team - a bunch of British players playing in a rugby stadium with plastic fans. The real fans were at League of Ireland grounds and rightfully can say âI told you soâ when looking at the state of the âNationalâ team these days.
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But the Autumn friendlies far outstrip soccer attendances too. And there was no bigger social attraction than going to Poland in a camper van and being the best fans in the world ⢠singing away even when the team was getting hammered, thinking that showed the world how great fans they were, then not bothering going to qualifier games at home. Youâre from north Dublin where the soccer team is a massive deal, in south Dublin the rugby team is (generalisations here obviously) I just think itâs gas as in vast swathes of the country, the majority, neither team really matters except when the bandwagon is rolling. But yet both accuse each other of bandwagonning.
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The soccer attendance in Poland was obviously inflated. There was a bandwagon. But you asked why the soccer attendances are lower than those for rugby? When theyâre both in full bandwagon mode, then soccer does just fine.
In general, soccer doesnât get the same number of social attendees for home games. The fact games are usually midweek evenings doesnât help, but again compare it to attendances across Europe and itâs not bad.
Rugby gets stag do attendees, drinking tours, guys up from the country for the weekend. Itâs a very different audience and it has always been that way.