It says in the papers and on the podcasts: The Greatest League in the World is back

How was it of you? No, not the opening night of the Premier Division season but last week’s league launch. Judging by social media, plenty of League of Ireland fans were very invested in the league having a good launch with many questioning the timing.

Once the launch actually happened, cyberspace was full of dismissive blandishments along the lines of ‘about time’, ‘better late than never’ and so on. 

At first this felt like classic LOI fan moaning. But, in fairness to the moaners, the launch was a bit late. It was held three days before the start of the Premier Division. By comparison, the GAA’s Allianz League launch took place about 12 days out from its kick-off, sorry throw-in, and Rugby’s Pro-14 and Six Nations Championship both held their launch around ten days prior to the first round of games.

That said, perhaps Brian Kerr’s comments about the scheduling of the launch represented needless nit-picking negativity. The Greener complained that the launch was disrupting pre-season preparation for managers due to it being held in the afternoon, and that it was likely to be overshadowed by Manchester United’s Champions League game on the same day (see here).

By contrast, Pat Dolan, without naming Kerr, decried criticism of the launch’s timing as “lazy FAI bashing” in the Star. Warming to his theme, Dolo also asserted that not holding the launch on that particular day would have looked bad because it would have sent the message that the league felt it was inferior to ‘English football’.

A Champions League knock-out game between Manchester United and Paris St Germain isn’t simply “English”, but this was almost a reasonable point. There will always be something going on in the world of football. We can’t avoid it all. 

I took in a bit of the launch via a video on Gavin McLaughlin’s @Dundalksport twitter feed. Its fair to say that Fran Gavin was in fan mode, enthusing about the prospects for the new season and his new competition. Unfortunately, this new competition, a two-legged game between the champions of the LOI and NIFL, hadn’t actually been agreed with our northern brethren.

To be fair to ex-pro turned fan Fran, the42.ie reported that the FAI had been communicating with the IFA but the NIFL, an independent body, wasn’t yet fully on board. So its more a case of Ulster says yes, maybe, rather than the more traditional slogan.

Personally, I’m not sure that this competition is a good idea. How interested are a team’s supporters going to be in a play-off after the league is won? February might be a better option, timing-wise, if we must have it.



Perhaps the biggest news from the launch was the changes to the broadcasting arrangements. The Monday night highlights show will now be half the length it was previously, with the goals from all the other games being featured on the live game on Friday night. The new format seemed to work well last Friday. 

I would have liked to view the highlights back on TV but unfortunately neither the live game nor the new Soccer Republic were available in the RTÉ Player feature on the Virgin Media box. A poor show all round considering that the previous editions of ‘Allianz League Sunday’ and ‘Against the Head’ were. 

Once I was forced to switch platforms I decided to watch the reviews of the weekend on ‘Irish Football Fan TV’ and the new ‘Between the Stripes’ youtube channel instead. A good decision. Keep it up lads.

 



The change to the broadcasting situation again caused some angst amongst fans and journalists with Dan McDonnell writing that “there remains a sense that Montrose feel they are doing the league a favour because viewing figures are low” in the Irish Independent (see here).

That is as may be, but the new format should be given a chance. Shels manager Ian Morris, speaking on Dan’s LOI Weekly podcast, related how he appreciated the speech given by RTÉ’s Head of Sport, Declan McBennett, at the league launch. 

Apparently McBennett stood in front of the assembled journalists, managers and officials and explained that since the viewing figures for the live games were three times the size of those for the highlights show, this rebalancing of effort was a better way to promote the league. This seems like a good idea. 

However, I would point out to Mr McBennett and others at RTÉ that this perhaps bears out the major criticism of MNS/Soccer Republic made by many LOI supporters. There was simply too much chat. More specifically there was too much pantomime nonsense about individual games.

I know RTÉ love a sports ‘panel’ but the Soccer Republic discussions usually lacked depth and so the show often fell between two stools: not enough actual football, but not enough proper analysis either. 

The limited amount of action on the old Soccer Republic show was, I suspect, an out-working of the old anti-LOI attitudes that used to be more common in Irish sport. There was a lack of confidence in the ability of Irish football to hold the public’s attention.

Quite why the producers felt that incoherent ‘banter’ from Dave Barry and Alan Cawley would be a better bet is anyone’s guess. The football was/is the strength of the show, as the viewing figures for live games illustrate.

The limited amount of footage from games on MNS/Soccer Republic compared very unfavourably with other sports highlights shows that have been frequently aired on Irish TV on Mondays over the past few years. Setanta/Eir and TG4 regularly produce hour long shows of pure action, with no host or studio analysis, for rugby and GAA. 

Furthermore, there are similar, if more slickly produced, shows for the English, French, Dutch and German leagues available on Sky and BT Sport. On the basis of Monday’s show, the new Soccer Republic has taken a leaf out of the satellite broadcasters’ book.

The show was slick and full of action. My one concern is how things will pan out after less tidy weeks, i.e. those with two rounds of fixtures and/or European games or during the early rounds of the FAI Cup.

Of course, confidence in the league-as-sporting-entertainment doesn’t mean that those of us who append our tweets with #GreatestLeagueintheWorld really believe that the game in this country outshines all else.

As the hashtag’s originator, Pats-supporting twitter user @SEIDodge pointed out, its about “about not worrying about every little thing and enjoying seeing your team playing, warts and all”.

This point appears to have been lost on Pat Dolan who slammed those who use the hashtag as seeking to “belittle our league”. Its the title of the league’s official podcast, Pat. Incidentally @SEIDodge has also pointed out that Pat Dolan is an anagram of “Panto Lad”. 

The idea of just enjoying the league for what it is formed the central argument of an interesting column in the Irish Times by Brian O’Connor (see here). As O’Connor points out, there is much to appreciate in the League’s resilience and homespun charm.

I’d also argue, as Eoghan Rice did in the London Times Ireland editionthat there’s much to enjoy in the live competitive action. Never mind “English” football, how god-awful international friendlies are a bigger draw than LOI clubs in Europe never ceases to amaze me (and Eoghan, I suspect).

Dolo’s bizarre (even by his standards) column formed the centre-piece of the Star’sseason preview pull-out and there were similar supplements to the Evening Herald andIrish Mirror. The latter was greatly enhanced by the stats/facts provided by LOI statistical guru Karl Reilly. Most of us assumed that Gary P. was the ‘Mirror Man’ of the TFTES podcast duo, but apparently not! 

Brian O’Connor’s column formed part of a welcome pre-season trend of the league cropping up in unexpected places. In addition to full-length articles in the Irish Times, there was a feature on Derry City in the Guardian and a segment during the football-hour on Newstalk’s Off the Ball. These are welcome developments.  

OTB’spractice of having short pieces on the league extraneous to its football content was needlessly insulting. They wouldn’t discuss the GAA club championship separately from the inter-county scene.

Also, even though I broadly agree with Dodge and Brian O’Connor and so don’t like to fret about promoting the league too much, it is good to see it being discussed in more general sports coverage. Exposure to the wider sporting and footballing public (which includes lapsed LOI fans) can only be a good thing.

We might even persuade them to tune in to a highlights show, watch a ‘live’ game, or, heaven help us, actually enter a football ground!

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