THE hurling zealots leave me cold about their sport in much the same way I’m sure the general public is put off by the League of Ireland people who put the fun in fundamentalist.
But it remains a mystery to me why the GAA decided to give up the months of August and September in the minds of people like me and other casual fans.
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Sure, the hardcore get their fix with the club championships.
But I’m pretty sure it is people like me — who forget the Championship now starts in April — that cost the GAA money.
And that is why the League of Ireland First Division and Women’s Premier Division going on their annual four-month hibernation always looks like a bad idea.
We all know it keeps costs down for clubs who pay players during the season only — as is the case for the First Division.
To facilitate the play-offs being completed for the end of the Premier Division, the First Division is a 36-game programme played over 35 weeks that includes the summer break.
But everything is habitual, and removing the First Division from the minds of the floating fan — or the rare references it gets in anything outside local media — has to be damaging to efforts to grow the fanbase for the following year.
It’s the same for the women’s game where, bar Shamrock Rovers, everyone is amateur.
While nine of the 11 teams are attached to men’s clubs, the crossover in support is not that large with the WPD still creating new fans rather than sharing men’s supporters.
The FAI Women’s Cup final was last week and was played in front of a crowd — 3,118 — that was smaller than the 3,526 that were present for the 2023 edition.
And that was smaller than the record attendance of 5,073 in 2022 as the trilogy of meetings between Shelbourne and Athlone Town got less popular as they went on.
Sure, Storm Ashley potentially knocked the gate this year — but the 2022 final was on the final day of the men’s league season.
And the women’s season is now over before the biggest games of the year for the Ireland national team, who face Georgia on Tuesday and are likely through to a Euro 2025 play-off final next month.
The length of the season is not a problem with the 33-week campaign comprising of league, FAI Cup and All-Island Cup, as well as breaks similar to all amateur leagues in Ireland — but the timing of it is out of kilter with the international team.
And Ireland games are one place where you know there will be 30,000 potential fans for a league where average attendances are in the hundreds.
FAI chief football officer — the worst job title ever created — Marc Canham has stressed to clubs around the country that the new calendar plan does not mean all playing at the same time.
Maybe that can start with the FAI’s senior competitions and give LOI fans a different LOI to cheer in their ‘first’ team’s off-season.