I am not sure Portlaoise would have been the best game for Dublin/Westmeath as it would probably have been all Dubs. Why not have a home and away agreement. Dublin were at 'home' (no doubt somebody will pick me up on this technicality and point out Croke Park is not Dublin's home ground). Let the next game be in Mullingar.

bennybunny (Cork) - Posts: 3917 - 03/06/2013 21:57:59    1398084

51longago
County: Mayo
Posts: 2314

1397925
MuckrossHead
County: Donegal
Posts: 1342

1397879
This whole Croke Park thing is turning into a joke.

Both games last weekend could have been played "down the country" & you would have had a real atmosphere in the ground, a benefit to the local economies not to mention a better match in the Dublin Westmeath game.It's all very well saying that there were 33,000 in Croke Park last weekend but since most Dubs arrived for their game there was no more than 15,000 there for the first game & with people leaving, no more than 25,000 there for the second game which is ridiculous.

The atmosphere in Ballybofey last weekend was electric with a crowd of 17,500, the same applied to the National Hurling League final which attracted a crowd of around 20,000 to Nolan Park. Croke Park is simply not suitable for games that can't attract a crowd of less than 40,000.

Hers a first, i agree with ya.

Good man 51, If you and me can agree on something the there is hope for the world yet!!!

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5030 - 04/06/2013 09:20:44    1398110

hill16no1man
County: Dublin
Posts: 4635

i dont agree it needs a certain amount for an atmosphere thats rubbish,i have been at near full houses and no atmosphere yet was at league games with 20 or 25 thousand and had great atmospheres.
the problem was having it on a saturday night,then a real problem is a bank holiday weekend saturday night when dublin airport had its second busiest day of the year,blooms festival had 250 thousand people at it and half of the country goes on a weekend break for a couple days.now rightly so as a satruday night is awful for any county to travel to croke park so it meant supporters from the other 3 were very low.
i cannot see why today bank holiday monday the game was not played instead!!!
you would have more then likely got 50 thousand on a bank holiday monday just like the august bank holiday monday attracts huge numbers.
dublin used always play first round on june bank holiday monday in navan in front of a full house.

Hill, there is no way uou could have a "great atmosphere" in Croke Park with a crowd of 20,000. Sure you could have great crack with the crowd standing round you on the Hill but vast swathes of the place would be empty. As for there being 50,000 there if the game had been played on Monday, all I'll say to that is I don't agree. Your last point about playng in front of full houses in Navan on a Bank Holiday Monday only makes my point. That had far more to do with the crowd capacity of Navan than the the game being on Monday.

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5030 - 04/06/2013 09:28:18    1398113

10500 at Celtic Park on Sunday Derry v Down

christy sting (Derry) - Posts: 262 - 04/06/2013 09:33:40    1398121

04/06/2013 09:33:40
christy sting
County: Derry
Posts: 119

1398121
10500 at Celtic Park on Sunday Derry v Down

That was the official attendance given, but I would say there were more at it. At least 13,000 would be my estimate. Wikipedia gives Celtic Park's capacity as 22,000 (Which is probably a bit extreme), Celtic Park was definitely not more than half full on Sunday.

MourneArmy (Down) - Posts: 1787 - 04/06/2013 09:50:02    1398136

Dublin/Westmeath should have been in Mullingar. Have no argument with that. 33,000 is small crowd in comaprison to last ten years - last Dubs/Westmeath game in Croker was sell-out! - but is huge historically speaking for a Leinster quarter final. In 1980s, Dublin in Croker got 20,000 or thereabouts.

Also, there were more people in Croke Park than there were in the Aviva for the wendyball international :-)

hurlingdub (Dublin) - Posts: 6978 - 04/06/2013 09:53:02    1398140

Sorry, I meant above, Celtic Park was definitely more than half full on Sunday.

MourneArmy (Down) - Posts: 1787 - 04/06/2013 10:07:51    1398159

MuckrossHead
Hill, there is no way uou could have a "great atmosphere" in Croke Park with a crowd of 20,000. Sure you could have great crack with the crowd standing round you on the Hill but vast swathes of the place would be empty. As for there being 50,000 there if the game had been played on Monday, all I'll say to that is I don't agree. Your last point about playng in front of full houses in Navan on a Bank Holiday Monday only makes my point. That had far more to do with the crowd capacity of Navan than the the game being on Monday.

how would you know if you were not there?
dublin v kerry in the league in 2011 had brilliant atmosphere in front of 23 thousand.
the same as dublin v mayo this year in the league also in front of 20 thousand.
why dont you agree there was 33 thousand on a bank holiday saturday night when so many people go away for a weekend and kildare offaly and westmeath supporters wont travel(dont blame them) as public transport finishes before the games and they would have to book hotel for the night.
where as 2 and 4 pm on bank holiday monday would have seen the people home from their weekend and a huge number of familys ging to croker for the match compared to saturday night and also allow the kildare offaly and westmeath supporters to travel up and down in the one day.its a win win as far as i would see which would surely would have generate 17 thousand on top of what was there saturday night.

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 04/06/2013 10:23:14    1398171

bennybunny
County: Cork
Posts: 1695

1398084
I am not sure Portlaoise would have been the best game for Dublin/Westmeath as it would probably have been all Dubs. Why not have a home and away agreement. Dublin were at 'home' (no doubt somebody will pick me up on this technicality and point out Croke Park is not Dublin's home ground). Let the next game be in Mullingar.

the problem with home and away agreement and you using croke park is that if that was the case dublin would have to rent the use of croke park like they do in the league while westmeath wouldnt have to rent cusack park.

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 04/06/2013 10:25:30    1398174

hurlingdub
County: Dublin
Posts: 4417

1398140
Dublin/Westmeath should have been in Mullingar. Have no argument with that. 33,000 is small crowd in comaprison to last ten years - last Dubs/Westmeath game in Croker was sell-out! - but is huge historically speaking for a Leinster quarter final. In 1980s, Dublin in Croker got 20,000 or thereabouts.

Also, there were more people in Croke Park than there were in the Aviva for the wendyball international :-)

yeah and that 20 thousand figure given for the aviva stadium was only half right as there was around 10 thousand of that at the fai junior cup final to see sheriff beat kilbarrack and they nearly all left after that match was over as there was over an hour and half waiting time between the two matches.

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 04/06/2013 10:36:33    1398183

hill16no1man
County: Dublin
Posts: 4642

1398171
MuckrossHead
Hill, there is no way uou could have a "great atmosphere" in Croke Park with a crowd of 20,000. Sure you could have great crack with the crowd standing round you on the Hill but vast swathes of the place would be empty. As for there being 50,000 there if the game had been played on Monday, all I'll say to that is I don't agree. Your last point about playng in front of full houses in Navan on a Bank Holiday Monday only makes my point. That had far more to do with the crowd capacity of Navan than the the game being on Monday.

how would you know if you were not there?
dublin v kerry in the league in 2011 had brilliant atmosphere in front of 23 thousand.
the same as dublin v mayo this year in the league also in front of 20 thousand.
why dont you agree there was 33 thousand on a bank holiday saturday night when so many people go away for a weekend and kildare offaly and westmeath supporters wont travel(dont blame them) as public transport finishes before the games and they would have to book hotel for the night.
where as 2 and 4 pm on bank holiday monday would have seen the people home from their weekend and a huge number of familys ging to croker for the match compared to saturday night and also allow the kildare offaly and westmeath supporters to travel up and down in the one day.its a win win as far as i would see which would surely would have generate 17 thousand on top of what was there saturday night.

I repeat what I said there may have been a great atmosphere on the Hill where there was a crowd but in the stands you could die of a heart attack & you wouldn't be found for a week. I still don't agree that an extra 17,000 would have turned up but we'll never know. I still think these games should be spread round. If we want to help the so called weaker counties then sucking every meaningful game to Croke Park is not the way to do it. I just don't understand why they do it.

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5030 - 04/06/2013 11:24:29    1398225

12,000 or so in Thurlas for the Hurling game was very poor. Ennis could easily have fitted all those.

yew_tree (Mayo) - Posts: 12127 - 04/06/2013 11:56:18    1398249

4,000 in Killarney Saturday, more than I expected.

Cute_Kerry_Hoor (Kerry) - Posts: 2518 - 04/06/2013 12:00:41    1398253

People can't afford to go as often as they did. There is also the fact that a lot of games are pretty much non events (Dubs/Westmeath, Kerry/Waterford) and most of them are televised. It is not rocket science. Crowds will be well up when the contenders start to meet and it's knock out time.

hurlingdub (Dublin) - Posts: 6978 - 04/06/2013 12:02:59    1398256

MuckrossHead

i dont have a problem by the way with dublin playing quarter final outside croker.
portlaoise was the venue i thaught would have been down when the draw was made last year,i thaught it was the ideal chance to test it out.as like it or not most people now get to see dublin in croke park so much in he league against the bigger teams that they would rather go to see dublin v kerry or tyrone in a league match then see dublin v westmeath in leinster quarter final.

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 04/06/2013 12:32:10    1398278

hurlingdub
County: Dublin
Posts: 4420

1398256
People can't afford to go as often as they did. There is also the fact that a lot of games are pretty much non events (Dubs/Westmeath, Kerry/Waterford) and most of them are televised. It is not rocket science. Crowds will be well up when the contenders start to meet and it's knock out time.

agree 100%
also the attendance was actualy up 1500 in croker compared to dublins quarter final last year against louth.
the leinster semi finals double header will be interesting crowd wise as if meath v louth might be the first semi final and dublin v kildare the second semi final on the same day

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 04/06/2013 12:34:53    1398283

51longago mentioned that we don't have a big football following. This is correct but we have a very dedicated hardcore. In Galway where we lose out and i sense the same in Cork which i think actually it is worse is that marginal supporters tend to choose hurling above football. As i mentioned earlier most Galway hurling folk generally only follow the footballers for the latter stages of the championship whereas the reverse is not true. For example if anyone was driving through Tuam (a Galway football heartland) pre the all-ireland hurling final last year the colour and bunting was awash and much more impressive surprisingly than Portumna or Gort (hurling heartlands). Marginal supporters in dual counties just think hurling is a better game to watch which in fairness as a spectator support is fair enough. Ever since i can remember following Galway football circa 1981 Mayo would always outnumber our support except maybe for the late nineties when we had a huge following. My Dad tells me it was not always this way as pre the seventies before Galway hurling started to flourish our footballers always matched the likes of Mayo in support. The support thing in every county is flaky though. I happened to be at a Mayo/Ros championship qualifier a few years ago in Castlebar and there was just under 9k at it. Granted it was on TV but back in 1996 the same attendance again on TV for the Mayo Ros Connacht semi in the Hyde was only 7.5k. Ros have good following like the u21 all-ireland last year and the minor replay final in Ennis in 2006 but when it comes to senior unless your county is going well support dwindles.

kiloughter (Galway) - Posts: 1996 - 04/06/2013 12:47:44    1398300

With the beatings dished out recently is anyone surprised the attendances are down? Can anyone say that Dublin v Westmeath was enthralling? Featuring these forgone conclusions on TV doesn't help either, too easy to take to the armchair. Sure as the championship progresses crowds will improve as will the games. But some of the games on offer at the prices too means there will be plenty of empty seats.

arock (Dublin) - Posts: 4968 - 04/06/2013 13:05:52    1398316

I think the one sided nature of the match ups, tv coverage & the fact that people have less money in their pockets all combine to pull crowds down.
The reality now is that the championship only really starts after the provincials are over & you have the 8 best teams in the country left. Sad but true.

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5030 - 04/06/2013 14:15:36    1398415

Good the see the authorities are reading HS. Long may it continue.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/dublin-games-not-set-in-stone-at-croke-park-skelly-29317474.html

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5030 - 04/06/2013 15:41:33    1398525