Photo from Shed End Invincibles, credit to BillyG.
The title of this post is the attendance at Monday nights Dublin derby between Saint Patrick’s Athletic F.C and Bohs. Hardly groundbreaking (groundfilling?) and a worrying sign of the times perhaps. Dublin derbies should comfortably be attracting a minimum of 2,000, but there were a variety of factors up against this one.
With Manchester United on television that night, the game was always going to suffer, but questions have to be asked about Monday night kickabouts in general. A glance over the figures reveals much about the effect Monday night games has on attendances. What the solution is I don’t know, but perhaps clubs could ultimately make more money by attempting to sell tickets in packages with slight reductions. Many who paid in to see Pats and Drogheda on Friday night in Richmond were of course down on Monday, but some are, for economic reasons, picking and choosing games and two games in a weekend essentially is quite the hit to any families pocket.
On the pitch, great credit is due to a nine-man Bohemians holding out for a point, and nobody could say the game was a dull one. Filling seats with those willing to watch such encounters is the real task now for clubs.
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Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
Dara, Camac Upper North Terrace Saints had a difference of opinion on Monday as to who was featured on the banner shown also in red in the pic. One lad thought it was Tom Petty – no doubt influenced by the “Won’t Back Down” banner also shown. I insisted it was Johnny Cash and was intended as a back-handed reference to the players’ recent threatened strike.
Can you adjudicate please?
It’s Johnny, but I wouldn’t read too far into it 😉 For a long time now there’s been an attempt to work him into a display.
My brother, who used to be a regular enough visitor to Richmond Pk when he lived in Drimnagh, decided to take his 8 yr old nephew to the match on Monday as he’s mad into his football.
He actually encountered quite a bit of resistance when trying to buy tickets a few days before down in the ticket office. The guy kept asking him if he was a Bohs fan, and that he doesn’t recognise his face as someone who goes to matches etc. etc. My bro said it became quite tiresome to the extent that he said he just wanted to bring his bloody nephew to the match.
I don’t know if this sort of “interrogation” is commonplace but it’s certainly not going to facilitate improved attendance if non-regulars who the ticket office guy doesn’t recognise get bothered when all they want to do is goto the match.
Regards John T point, I concur. That segregation thing is ridiculous. I was at a different LOI match, in different location, earlier this summer. On arrival at narrow entrance there was a rope down the middle and I was ordered to decide was I home or away. The total attendance was just over 600 and I estimate there was almost as many gardai as players on the pitch.
Give me GAA anyday where you actually are surrounded by supporters from both sides and neutrals. Sure it might get heated but that is not an unhealthy thing.