Comment: Frontloading the season caused a fixture pile-up in 2018 - let's hope the lessons have been learned this time around

It was, in truth, a mess, a debacle, a farce. I hope we won’t see its like repeated in 2019, or ever.

What? I hear you ask. The British Conservative and Unionist Party’s attempt to hide their Brexit-related legal advice?

The Republic of Ireland’s somnolent contribution to the otherwise entertaining UEFA Nations League? Close, but no.

What I refer to was actually a combination of maladministration and footballing failure: the great League of Ireland fixture pile up of spring 2018.

This issue dominated LOI conversations, in the traditional media, social media, podcasts, buses, bars, and beyond for the first half of the year, before fading from view.

It’s worth reminding ourselves what it entailed as the FAI prepare to release the 2019 fixture list on December 19th.

Bohemians played SEVEN competitive games in the month of April, hot on the heels of another seven in a March that had included a severe weather outbreak. Shamrock Rovers also played seven games in April, but only six in March.

Up the M1, Dundalk had an almost identical story to Shamrock Rovers except they also played seven games in May. Both Rovers, and Bohs played a more manageable five during that month.

It was a similar tale, with equally similar minor variations, across the Premier Division, the minor variations being caused by progress in the EA Sports Cup (or lack thereof in Rovers’ case) and the fact that some fixtures were brought forward from July to facilitate the teams who were in Europe.

The latter issue was part of the general policy of ‘frontloading’ the season.

Let’s be clear about what caused the pile-up though. It was the fact that TWELVE series of the Premier Division were scheduled for the months of March and April.

That is one third of the season played across two months during which the early rounds of the EA Sports Cup were also played. There was no need for this. None.

There was, as I have said, much commentary on the congested calendar while it was actually going on. Without raking over the coals too much, it is worth rehearsing what the pile up was not about.

In spite of what was said in virtually every newspaper and podcast, the pile up was not caused by a need, or an attempt, to help our clubs compete in Europe.

Whoever designed the fixture list did not have to CHOOSE to have four midweek series of matches scheduled for the nine-week period between the 26^th of February and the 30^th of April. Frontloading or no.

Also, the bringing forward of some fixtures from July to May possibly seemed like a good idea in the depths of the mid-winter, but by the time it happened the fixtures problem was reaching the point of crisis.

Admittedly, the severe weather of early-March didn’t help. But this only caused the re-scheduling of one series of Premier Division games (plus a round of the EA Sports Cup for some).

Nor was the ten-team league the problem. Gary P of the Tales from the East Stand podcast spoke for many fans when he laid the blame on the new structure. But I don’t agree.

There is nothing about having ten teams in the Premier Division that means you have to cram a third of the fixtures into less than a quarter of the time available between the first and last days of the season.

Furthermore, it wasn’t about the length of the season either. A 36-series schedule with each team playing each other four times should be manageable in Ireland between mid-February and the end of October. Especially as, unlike the last time we had this structure, there is no Setanta Sports Cup.

Speaking to the Greatest League in the World podcast in July, Cobh manager Stephen Henderson suggested that the Premier Division clubs had no cause for complaint as they had voted for the four-round season. Unlike, presumably, the more enlightened three-round structure in the First Division.

Although this makes a little sense – fewer games equals fewer midweek matches – it is not really a viable option. As John O’Sullivan’s column for the42.ie in October makes clear, the off-season would simply be too long.

On top of that, a 27-game season is simply too short for a league that wants to be taken seriously by players and supporters. Even the oft-derided NIFL can manage thirty-eight games.

One of the supposed benefits of the LOI going to two divisons of ten was that is would allow for the First Division season to be lengthened to 36 games as 28 was too short.

Unfortunately, the second-tier clubs voted this down and went to 27, and, in spite of his comments in July, Hendo the younger has recently been complaining about the length of the off-season!

Indeed, another vocal opponent of the ten-team, 36-series First Division, Drogheda assistant manager Kevin Doherty, was already casting shade on “the longest off-season in Europe” when he appeared on the LOI Weekly podcast in October. His season wasn’t even over!

To get back to the Premier Division of 2018, what could have been done differently? Well for starters the clubs could have protested when the fixture list was produced. Ok, stop laughing.

Perhaps, given the strictures of the participation agreement, that is unrealistic. But it is worth noting that most, possibly all, LOI commentators pointed out the problem once the schedule was made public.

It was obvious once you saw that the first round of games, to be played on the 16^th of February, was to be repeated on the 25^th of May, ie 14 weeks later.

Half a season in a quarter of the year is hard to miss so questions need to be asked about both the those who write and those who approve the fixture-list. Assuming they are different people.

When this issue was raised on the Greatest League in the World podcast, host Con Murphy would almost always point out that whoever does the fixtures has a difficult job.

Con is right, but still. Surely a more flexible or even agile response from those in power might have had some positive effect?

As Irish Independent correspondent and LOI Weekly host Daniel McDonnell mentioned at the time, the FAI could have mitigated the problem in the spring by recognising that the calendar was already too crowded and not rushing to re-fix the matches affected by the ‘Beast from the East’ and/or by abandoning the idea of bringing games forward for the teams in Europe.

These small changes would at least have avoided the ‘seven-game month’ issue for everybody.

Of course, this kind of response would require some recognition from officialdom that the congestion was an issue of importance.

Fran Gavin’s comments to Con Murphy at around the half-way point in the season do not fill me with hope in that regard. Fran’s assertion that “we’re up to date now” blithely dodged the issue at hand.

There’s no point in being “up to date” if you’ve flogged every squad in the league to death in the process and fans, such as Bohs-supporting twitter user ‘The Duke of Wellington Quay’, are bemoaning the repetition of derbies when interviewed by the Mirror.

Likewise, there’s no point in avoiding a fixture pile-up for some teams if you’ve instead caused one for everybody. Especially since teams with a fixture pile up at the end of the season are almost always those who have made progress in European competition. 

Perhaps, in addition to the lack of flexibility being shown, this is a case of the wrong lessons being learned.

The prospect of a repeat of the great LOI fixture pile up of October 2016 combining with a dose of severe weather in the closing weeks of the season is, in truth, the spectre that haunts the corridors of Abbotstown when fixture-scheduling is on the agenda.

However, the issues in 2016 could, perhaps, have been avoided by extending that season for the three teams most affected (Pats, Dundalk and Cork).

All had still to play each other, and all had some European money behind them. The managers of all three teams did mention being open to this possibility at the time, although John Caulfield rowed back a bit when he saw the potential for catching a fatigued Dundalk.

Like I said, at least in 2016 this was only a problem for three teams rather than a whole division.

Look, let’s just hope some lessons have been learned and we avoid the problem next year. Even if those lessons probably shouldn’t have needed learning.

At least we’ve never seen a return to the horrors of November 2003, the last month of the first ‘summer’ season. Now THAT was a fixture pile up…