Ulster Council secretary Danny Murphy has expressed satisfaction with football championship attendances in the province which are only down five per cent, despite the recession. "The attendances this year have been holding up quite well," the Down native said. "We had some figures on them at last night's management committee meeting. Taking last year and 2007 the variation, if you take replays out, is very small - less than five per cent. "In the current recession, it could have gone down as much as 15 or 20 per cent. And there is another thing that we have not yet taken into account is the reduction of admission to games this year. We reduced ticket prices because of the sterling/euro exchange rate. "We actually set the sterling rate and reduced the euro, so last year the covered stand was EUR27 and it is only EUR27 this year. Terrace tickets last year were EUR18. Now they are EUR15. When you take that into account, the numbers might not be down at all." Murphy added that he was never concerned that the decision to televise seven out of the eight Ulster SFC games live this year would impact on attendance figures. "We have long maintained that games being shown live are no impediment to people going to games," he continued. Tweet

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