45 seconds......

45 Seconds And That’s Your Lot!

by Brian Kennedy

published in the May 2013 Wexford Youths match programme

There are a number of reasons why Waterford United needs to be back at the League of Ireland top table in 2014. A successful promotion to boost confidence. A renewed interest in the city.

The prying of barstooling bottoms from the local pub to the RSC, with the extra revenue it brings, and of course mixing it with the best the country has to offer.

But for me it’s down to one word.

COVERAGE.

Coverage because it feels like there is a media blackout in the First Division. Everyone knows the gates are low. Clubs are being more elaborate in finding ways to get people through the turnstiles. A successful Waterford United on a promotion push will bring more to the RSC but even then it would mean rather less than 1,500. A Premier League Blues taking on Shamrock Rovers in the first game of the season should really double that, gain more column inches and who knows, maybe mark the appearance of a TV crew at the RSC for the first time since about 1864 (OK since Dundalk last year!)

MNS could be easily adapted to include First Division coverage

You see outside the eight clubs currently in the First Division, nobody wants to know. Not the RTE News when they display Premier scores and forget us. Column inches are very small, along the lines of ‘Waterford drew 0-0 and there were no chances so they’re still mid-table.’ And even on MNS, a programme dedicated solely to the League of Ireland, the First Division is flashed up just with scores, taking less than two minutes of an hour long broadcast.

Obviously the only time United might come into focus is when the play-offs beckon, and even then it’s left to TG4, but I suppose us beggars can’t be choosers. But when you look at the coverage a rejuvenated Limerick are getting this season it makes you envious. 5,000 at their first home Premier game in almost 20 years, TV coverage and above all, Stuart Taylor has his men holding their own with the cream of the crop.

I mean seriously. How hard would it be to spread a little more coverage of the First Division? Most clubs video their games. These could be edited down to three minutes coverage per game, totalling only a dozen minutes of highlights. Make MNS a 90 minute programme and Bob’s your uncle. A fairly modest alteration to give fair and equal coverage to the entire league.

I’m not alone in this, many people I chatted to on my travels were annoyed at this lack of coverage. This isn’t sour grapes. Our near neighbours and opponents tonight have also been starved of coverage – their one bright spot a fantastic 2008 EA Sports Cup run with brought the Youths to a final showdown against Derry City. The less said about that 90 minutes the better maybe, but in fairness it was against an all-conquering Candystripes side that specialise in winning League Cups.

It’s bad enough that followers of each First Division club see the division as the graveyard of Irish football without being shunned by television and the print media. Local coverage in local press will always exist but that’s not the point.

Yes I’m envious. Yes it hurts we don’t play the Hoops, Candystripes or St Pat’s every other week. It seems like a lifetime since we duelled with such teams. In fact it’s only been six years, but that’s six years too long!

Of course this argument brings me back to the elephant in the room… One League… One Division… One happy family.

For quite a while now the 16-team, one-tier league has been touted. Some would say unfairly as apparently the shouting all seems to come from the sides alienated from the top tier, but it’s simply not true to say it’s only the First Division clubs that want in on the action. Travels to Donegal or Galway for cash strapped clubs like those around us, could be offset by money spinning games against Cork, Rovers or most of the Dublin clubs. Long trips to the West which can hit the purse strings can be recouped by home matches against Drogheda, Sligo and Dundalk. You could relegate the bottom two each season, leave a handful of smaller clubs (FC Carlow, Tralee Dynamos, Tolka Rovers), fight it out for promotion and see how that works.

It’s not the way to get in there. It wouldn’t be my choice of heralding Waterford United into a new division. We all want glory and winning a title or success via a play-off is the way to go.

Having a rant here won’t change anything. Even if I wrote for a national tabloid this plea for a few more column inches for the First Division would fall on deaf ears. Is there room to show a First Division round up on TV each week? Yes I’m sure there is. God surely there’s even a facility to show First Division highlights each week online.

Let’s hope that things pick up on the field of play that by the end of the season we’ll still be involved at the business end of things. The First Division has become the proverbial millstone around the neck, and until there comes such a time that we get promoted, regain our place in the top tier and get rid of the awful ‘sleeping giant’ tag, it’ll mean 45 seconds on MNS, a results flash on the screen, and a few paragraphs you’d read in the time it takes to boil a kettle.