IN THE LEAGUE of Ireland, everyone gets their turn to be ‘the model club’.
This week Cork City was the focus of that plaudit following the 6,900 attendance for a live TV game in Turner’s Cross. The average attendance in the Premier League pretty much halves if you remove Cork City from the calculation.
John Caulfield was widely quoted when he asked rhetorically if other clubs were missing a trick. The implication was that any other club could do what Cork City was doing. Of course, nothing in football is that black and white, and nothing is as grey in Irish football as attendance debate and there are numerous factors in bringing a crowd to a game.
Cork City has advantages over other clubs, but it is also taking steps that can, and should, be copied by others.
In terms of advantages, Turner’s Cross is the best stadium in the country. Compact, with covered seats on all four sides of the ground offering unobstructed views of the action, it’s as good as we’ve got.
If you compare crowds and stadium quality from Turner’s Cross to Jackman Park, it correlates pretty well. Oriel Park is an outlier but the away section is the worst part of the ground and the champions, playing the type of football they do, will always buck such a trend.
A winning team helps, so do Liam Miller, Colin Healy and returning heroes such as Alan Bennett. Regardless of the match quality, City fans have seen their team lose just twice at home in nearly two years.
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Ex-Ireland internationals Colin Healy and Liam Miller. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Not every club can challenge for the league, and again, if you correlate league position with crowds, it fits pretty well with Cork City, Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers far out in front.
Then we have catchment area and accessibility. Stuey Byrne raised this during the week, stating it was trickier for Dublin clubs. While the immediate vicinity of Turner’s Cross is a nightmare for parking, in a broader sense it is more accessible for the club’s catchment area. Dublin City centre clubs lost younger fans to the suburbs and satellite towns during the boom, breaking links.
In Cork, most suburbs and some satellite towns are only a twenty-minute drive from Turner’s Cross. After work on Friday, you can get home, change and make kick-off, not so easy in Dublin.
Stadium improvements and league winning squads cost money that most League of Ireland clubs don’t have. No club can control the infrastructure, road network or property prices around their grounds. But there are things you can control.
At the start of the 2014 season, Cork City opened at home to champions St Patrick’s Athletic, with a Cork legend in the dugout. They marketed it with billboards that club sponsors contributed too, making it a low cost, low risk venture. Cork City got 5,500 into the ground.
Where City has excelled is in retaining that crowd. As I said, much of it is comfort in the ground and results, but the experience at Turner’s Cross is special and that’s not an accident. It’s here that other clubs can learn.
For the last decade John Kennedy, a volunteer board member, has run the ‘Family Enclosure’ — a section of approximately 300 seats exclusively for visiting families, kids and groups. It spills into the surrounding sections every week. The focus is solely on ensuring that families have a fun, colourful and noisy experience that will make them return.
Drums, flags and sweets are distributed. It’s incredibly simple and effective, but it’s hard work. After ten years there have been over 100,000 people through the section, with positive early experiences of Cork City.
Some family enclosure ‘graduates’ have gravitated to the shed end and count themselves among the Ultras group. The club work closely with them to ensure the atmosphere at the Cross is colourful and vibrant, as it was last Friday. The club accommodates the group hours before kick-off when they come in to set up displays that feature prominently in the media.
Supporters in the shed end. Donall Farmer / INPHO
Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO
These displays and the atmosphere add to the overall experience that you’re somewhere special. At a time when other clubs have banned ultras groups, City has shown what can be achieved by working with them.
In turn, some of the Ultras groups have themselves graduated to the club’s volunteer marketing group. They’ve pushed a smarter, more vibrant way of selling the club; from novel eye-catching match posters that, to billboards and effective use of social media.
It’s working well, as is CEO Timmy Murphy’s excellent activation of sponsors with Soho in Cork and Clonakilty Co, becoming central of the Cork City story in how they market their own businesses.
That’s largely the secret of Cork City, no matter what your age, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation there’s an area where you fit in. Very few of the 6,900 who turned up at the ground last Friday were there for the first time. City has been playing a long game and any club can replicate it, if they have the patience.
In a couple of years, it’s likely fan-owned Cork City will have a board member whose first experience of the Cross will have been in the family enclosure banging a drum, before moving to the shed and then the board.
When that happens, it’ll be special, and it won’t have been an accident.
'A night at Turner’s Cross is special and that’s not an accident. Other clubs can learn'
IN THE LEAGUE of Ireland, everyone gets their turn to be ‘the model club’.
This week Cork City was the focus of that plaudit following the 6,900 attendance for a live TV game in Turner’s Cross. The average attendance in the Premier League pretty much halves if you remove Cork City from the calculation.
John Caulfield was widely quoted when he asked rhetorically if other clubs were missing a trick. The implication was that any other club could do what Cork City was doing. Of course, nothing in football is that black and white, and nothing is as grey in Irish football as attendance debate and there are numerous factors in bringing a crowd to a game.
Cork City has advantages over other clubs, but it is also taking steps that can, and should, be copied by others.
In terms of advantages, Turner’s Cross is the best stadium in the country. Compact, with covered seats on all four sides of the ground offering unobstructed views of the action, it’s as good as we’ve got.
If you compare crowds and stadium quality from Turner’s Cross to Jackman Park, it correlates pretty well. Oriel Park is an outlier but the away section is the worst part of the ground and the champions, playing the type of football they do, will always buck such a trend.
A winning team helps, so do Liam Miller, Colin Healy and returning heroes such as Alan Bennett. Regardless of the match quality, City fans have seen their team lose just twice at home in nearly two years.
Not every club can challenge for the league, and again, if you correlate league position with crowds, it fits pretty well with Cork City, Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers far out in front.
Then we have catchment area and accessibility. Stuey Byrne raised this during the week, stating it was trickier for Dublin clubs. While the immediate vicinity of Turner’s Cross is a nightmare for parking, in a broader sense it is more accessible for the club’s catchment area. Dublin City centre clubs lost younger fans to the suburbs and satellite towns during the boom, breaking links.
In Cork, most suburbs and some satellite towns are only a twenty-minute drive from Turner’s Cross. After work on Friday, you can get home, change and make kick-off, not so easy in Dublin.
Stadium improvements and league winning squads cost money that most League of Ireland clubs don’t have. No club can control the infrastructure, road network or property prices around their grounds. But there are things you can control.
At the start of the 2014 season, Cork City opened at home to champions St Patrick’s Athletic, with a Cork legend in the dugout. They marketed it with billboards that club sponsors contributed too, making it a low cost, low risk venture. Cork City got 5,500 into the ground.
For the last decade John Kennedy, a volunteer board member, has run the ‘Family Enclosure’ — a section of approximately 300 seats exclusively for visiting families, kids and groups. It spills into the surrounding sections every week. The focus is solely on ensuring that families have a fun, colourful and noisy experience that will make them return.
Drums, flags and sweets are distributed. It’s incredibly simple and effective, but it’s hard work. After ten years there have been over 100,000 people through the section, with positive early experiences of Cork City.
Some family enclosure ‘graduates’ have gravitated to the shed end and count themselves among the Ultras group. The club work closely with them to ensure the atmosphere at the Cross is colourful and vibrant, as it was last Friday. The club accommodates the group hours before kick-off when they come in to set up displays that feature prominently in the media.
These displays and the atmosphere add to the overall experience that you’re somewhere special. At a time when other clubs have banned ultras groups, City has shown what can be achieved by working with them.
In turn, some of the Ultras groups have themselves graduated to the club’s volunteer marketing group. They’ve pushed a smarter, more vibrant way of selling the club; from novel eye-catching match posters that, to billboards and effective use of social media.
It’s working well, as is CEO Timmy Murphy’s excellent activation of sponsors with Soho in Cork and Clonakilty Co, becoming central of the Cork City story in how they market their own businesses.
That’s largely the secret of Cork City, no matter what your age, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation there’s an area where you fit in. Very few of the 6,900 who turned up at the ground last Friday were there for the first time. City has been playing a long game and any club can replicate it, if they have the patience.
In a couple of years, it’s likely fan-owned Cork City will have a board member whose first experience of the Cross will have been in the family enclosure banging a drum, before moving to the shed and then the board.
When that happens, it’ll be special, and it won’t have been an accident.
Follow John on Twitter @johngosullivan
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