Winning over neutrals

After reports last week that RTE has been touting the idea of developing one league ground in conjunction with the clubs so that there would be one television-friendly venue in the capital, the boys out at Montrose must have wished they'd gone the whole hog on Friday night.

Yes, Shelbourne-Derry on a soundstage out at Ardmore, no footballers just professionals (actors that is). If history has taught anything it's that even faked football in the movies isn't as grim as that served up in Drumcondra on Friday night.

The fault, without doubt, lay with Derry who came to town looking for a point. They were virtually unrecognisable from the outfit which, powered on by Gary Beckett, turned over the champions on the first night of the season.

Getting worked up about the first televised game of the season being a disappointment is of course a symptom of "the Irish problem". Sky show abysmal matches all the time and Andy Gray never fails to sound like he's about to expire with the excitement. We are currently in the middle of a three-month spell during which around 100 live games are being shown on British or Irish stations. Will all of them be crackers? No, what was more sobering about Friday at Tolka was the actual attendance. If ever there was a clearcut indication of just how far there is to go in winning neutrals over it was the crowd of 2,500 or so that turned up at what looked, in advance, to be an interesting game.

As it happens, most of the National League games shown on the box have done reasonably well in terms of attendances. Although this is probably not unconnected with the fact that only the biggest have tended to be shown.

Few, big or not, have been plugged as energetically as this one with both Shelbourne and the League, with eircom's enthusiastic support, putting a lot of effort into making it an occasion.

Admission was free for kids and senior citizens, £3 for anyone in between and programmes were free. True, an hour before the game it looked like ark-building weather, but you will get that with playing outdoor sports during our winters and as it turned out conditions were great. The message was unmistakable, the amount of trouble which most neutrals are willing to go to is somewhere between negligible and zilch. Some tough work lies ahead.

The indications so far, at least, are that eircom's support for promoting their product will be fairly positive. Anyone in doubt about how much some imaginative marketing can do for football need only look to English football. The basic product in England may be a good deal better than here (you have to be something of National League ultra to claim otherwise) but still the increases in attendances, television audiences and spending on merchandise are all out of proportion to the improvement in the quality of the football. Still there is the occasional glimpse of how difficult it is for clubs not considered so glamorous. Last week Wimbledon and Bradford City played in front of just 10,029.

This with more than half a dozen full internationals on view in a city five times the size of our capital. Now the fact is that five years ago that game would have attracted around half that number but the lesson should be clear. Things can get better for the league here, a lot better.

Better marketing and television coverage, expanded core support and, most of all, an improved product will all help to move the league in the right direction but the punters are more selective than ever and Friday's game has shown us again that it's going to be a long, hard slog.

Emmet Malone is contactable at emalone@irish-times.ie