Survey in my school (Ireland)

blue_paul said:
Marvin said:
I am just familiar with seeing Irish accents on show when the TV truns up to interview people at Old trafford, and when Utd are at home the City centre hotels are packed with Irish visitors

Nothing wrong with that. I wish it was the same with City. I just thought Utd were the No. 1 supported club in Ireland, but looks like I was wrong
Click to expand...

Marvin,
Historically, United have always had a big support in Ireland, this probably goes back to when Johnny Carey played for them and there was also a munich funeral in Dublin which would have garnered huge sympathy (and publicity).
The younger generations are all United daft too as their on field success and marketing campaigns in the last 15 years really swallowed kids up. Hence the hordes of daytripping glory hunter types you see at the pig sty.
However, I'm in my early 30's and just about all my mates are liverpool fans ( hence the reason I can't stand Liverpool) and if you go a decade earlier you'll find a lot of Leeds fans.
There's also a lot of Everton fans and then a sprinkling of Spurs and Arsenal.
I think Celtic's support tends to be exaggerated, although their support is plentiful, it's nowhere near the likes of support for Pool/Rags. Maybe it's a bit different up North where people tend to latch onto the Glasgow clubs more.
Click to expand...
So it's just a glory-hunting thing then?

I suppose that's quite natural when Ireland has such a weak domestic League. Yet if that's the case why are there more Liverpool than Utd fans? Liverpool's success is starting to get a bit dated
 
To be fair, I remember there being a fair few Man U fans in my primary school years, in which time they won only two trophies, and they were at the tail end of my time in primary school (5th class - FA Cup, 1990 and 6th class - Cup Winners' Cup, 1991). It was swamped with Liverpool fans, who I think have replicated what United did in the barren years - kept a steady stream of fans whose numbers can and do swell at the capture of any notable trophy, a case in point being the 2005 European Cup, which would have had a huge revivifying effect I am sure on the Liverpool numbers here. I just remember the distinctly jazzy Liverpool home and away shirts of 1989-91 being amazingly popular over here at the time of their release, those and Italia 90 made football "trendy" in this part of the world, but it had always been popular among the working class lads. I noticed that the year I entered secondary school - 1991 - there was a fair smattering of United fans who had converged on the school in question, much more than had been in primary school, but proportionally it probably wasn't that much greater than the amount who were United fans in primary. In fairness these guys were real fans, one of them used to wear the jersey that featured in the 5-1 for example. In my own case, I would have been one of two or three City fans in the entire secondary school for the duration of my time there. When I think of it now, I remember there being one guy who didn't follow a team (or at least didn't make it known that he did) until around 1994, and then he "suddenly" started wearing a Blackburn schoolbag, which I thought was pathetic to be honest. I'd like to see how things look in another 10 years. PS The most intriguing statistic has to be the 2 Birmingham fans!
 
Marvin said:
blue_paul said:
Marvin,
Historically, United have always had a big support in Ireland, this probably goes back to when Johnny Carey played for them and there was also a munich funeral in Dublin which would have garnered huge sympathy (and publicity).
The younger generations are all United daft too as their on field success and marketing campaigns in the last 15 years really swallowed kids up. Hence the hordes of daytripping glory hunter types you see at the pig sty.
However, I'm in my early 30's and just about all my mates are liverpool fans ( hence the reason I can't stand Liverpool) and if you go a decade earlier you'll find a lot of Leeds fans.
There's also a lot of Everton fans and then a sprinkling of Spurs and Arsenal.
I think Celtic's support tends to be exaggerated, although their support is plentiful, it's nowhere near the likes of support for Pool/Rags. Maybe it's a bit different up North where people tend to latch onto the Glasgow clubs more.
Click to expand...
So it's just a glory-hunting thing then?

I suppose that's quite natural when Ireland has such a weak domestic League. Yet if that's the case why are there more Liverpool than Utd fans? Liverpool's success is starting to get a bit dated
Click to expand...

Liverpool were the top side for twenty years, brothers would of passed on their support of liverpool to younger sibblings, peer pressure in achool to support the winners etc. It's purely a glory hunter thing although in fariness, I know a group of leeds fans that travel all the time, there's huge loyalty amongst some Irish fans for the clubs they support in Britain.

My local club shamrock Rovers*, regularly used to get 20,000 plus in the 60's but with all our best players going to english clubs at such an early age, the league is conference standard and attendances and facilities at grounds would be at this level too.
I know a lot of people go on about Irish people glory hunting and their are certainly fair enough arguements in this respect but when the Premier league is the most popluar league from Africa to Asia and just about everywhere else then what chance have your small neighbour not being carried away by the hype! Ever since the sixties/seventies, we've always had televised English matches which would of made the football league soar in popularity at home to the detriment of local football but there's generations of families who've supported English clubs at this stage.
Hence the reasons why league of Ireland football will always be the poor relation.


*As an aside Shamrock Rovers are going for their first tite since 1995. We moved into our new Staduim this season and are attracting crowds of 7,000. Two weeks ago we beat our arch Rivals Bohemians one nil at home, scoring a goal with five minutes to go and Bohs missing a penalty just three minutes later. Proper roy of the rovers stuff, I haven't gone that nuts since we beat Spurs 4-3!
 
This survey although a good idea doesn't say how big a fan the person is. They may just say Manchester United but have only a very passing small interest. Whislt the 2 Birminham fans may be over in Kildare due to a parents job and they may well go every home and away game.

Football fans in Ireland have tended to have the big team of the day shown in their front room on a regualr basis. So when Jonny Giles was playing for Leeds in Europe and it was being beamed into Irish homes that would make for youngsters who's fathers have no interest in 'soccer' more susceptible to follow the successful teams that are on the telly.

Remember that the majority of Irish people won't have a strong geographical alligence to any team in England. I would say that most Irish people follow GAA and have a very strong geographical bond with who they follow. So if the team that they are watching happens to have a lot of Irish players (Take Arsenal in the 1979 cup final you had Jennings, Devine, Brady, Nelson, Rice, Stapelton and the manager O'Neill who were Irish) this I would feel would make them an obvious choice for Irish people with a passing interest in English footy.

Then in recent years we have moaned as Manchester City fans about SKYs obsession with the big four. Remember that as City fans we have got the local media to read about City, in Ireland the media is there to sell papers and will concentrate on the big 4 as that's the diet that the Irish people are fed by SKY. A vicious circle so to speak.
 
The Birmingham one's are curious one's though some of my immediate family support West Brom becuase back in the late 50's early 60's my granda's brother left to work in Birmingham and would post back West Brom related stuff for Niece's and Nephew's which got them into WB. This gets passed down and at one stage my Da would have followed WB until he went to work in England which led him to Manchester and to Maine Road and the love affair began. Although its been pretty grime since then! lol
 
Some more findings were that about 200 go to see our local side Kildare County. Its always a great laugh cas its a stand full of lads from our school there :)

Its hard growing up with all my friends being United supporters :P But when any of them see City they automatically think of me and make sure to slag me when we lose, as i do to them :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.