Nothing Is Easy For The Regional Sides

Every Game An Away Game by Bluebeard

(first published in the September 2011 Finn Harps match programme)

Harps, and their fans, are back again for their second visit of the year tonight. Their last trip saw us win by the only goal, scored by Willie John. The second game was also decided by a single goal, from Kevin McHugh, now second on Harps all time scoring chart. Tonight we’ll see the tie-breaker for the season, and hopefully it will be three more points to the Blues, and we’ll be a couple of goals to the good to boot.
 
Harps’ loyal fans have had a tough couple of years. Having been 8th for the past two seasons, they currently sit in 9th in the table, and haven’t been challenging for a while. The grand old days of the 1970s must seem distant now, and the club’s fortunes have been in slow decline since the ’80s. There have been occasional breaks, like the Cup run and 4th place finish in 1999, but the open maw of the First has repeatedly drawn them back down.
 
As both sets of fans tonight know, life in the First is tough. After relegation from the Premier, Harps were hit with big debts, and had to rebuild from near scratch. To add insult to the injury of being stuck in the First, construction of the new stadium in Stranolar was halted owing to the recession.

But the work of the fans to keep the club going, and in following the club through thick and thin, has won them many admirers. Things have improved: it now looks like the new stadium might be completed and opened in two years time, and a full review of the off the pitch management of the club was instigated and implemented last year. Harps are a strong presence in their community, and are very active off the field. While, at the moment, their on the field activities are not what they would like, they are focusing on doing things right, living within their means, and hoping that it pays off at some point.
 
Most of the Blues fans here tonight recognise a lot of this. We had to reorganise dramatically in 2005 and 2006; thanks to the extraordinary work of some very committed individuals in association with the mass of the fans, the club was saved from going under completely. Off the field, the club has improved a lot: this is one area that can be controlled. Like all clubs, we need to continue to improve our community work, and monitor our structuring. Only when the club has expanded and strengthened our support base and harnessed the loyal fans, who continue to support the club and travel through thick and thin, when sense may dictate otherwise, can the club develop sustainably.

On the field we have come close to promotion, but close is not good enough on the field. One of the problems we have is keeping players. We have had a good squad each of the previous two seasons, and we have lost vital players both times. In those off seasons, there was no change of manager, no change of club management, no change in ambition. Yet players who had been here a couple of years moved on.
 
This is a common problem for the ambitious “regional” clubs in the country, or to be straight, the “non-Dublin clubs”. The Dublin clubs have problems too, particularly with achieving a sustainable success – congrats to Rovers, but let’s see how it plays out for them for a couple of years before we credit them with the answer to everything. But at the same time, there are currently five clubs based in Dublin, and another three within 45 minutes drive – all but one are in the Premier. The two recently popped Dublin clubs were set up with expectations beyond credibility, and thus died of utter hubris. Proportionately speaking, most of the “regional” clubs currently manage an even keel off the field, but on the field have been slipping away, even after the modest success: Only Sligo seems to be bucking the trend in this regard: whether it can be sustained remains to be seen.
 
Obviously, we all have the problem of the drain to Britain, where some of the most promising young players go (more often than not, to have their love of the game beaten out of them). The rest of us then must scavenge from the returnees and the late developers. Owing to size, Dublin tends to be have the bigger reservoir. When fine young talent emerges outside of the big cities, there is an inevitability about the drift there. For our visitors tonight, there is the shadow of Derry, though it has a different impact, and the tricky nature of the political situation there alters the circumstances somewhat.
 
While there is no single universal reason for this difficulty that the “regional” clubs face, one point that recurs when looking at the details. Since the ’60s, the country has been increasingly geared towards the capital. Facilities, particularly the state run ones, are prioritised for Dublin, while the “provinces” are largely neglected. At the outset, this makes perfect sense – more people live there, so you are benefitting more people. However, this has an unfortunate knock on effect: as the facilities in the biggest cities are better, people with options increasingly move there; consequently, more companies provide more services there for those who moved, providing more jobs; people without the options move there for work, overworking the existing facilities: an upgrade of the existing facilities for the growing city is announced, meaning that regional needs are postponed, leading to more people wishing to live in the better provided environment, and on, and on, ad infinitum. It didn’t happen overnight, but in 30 years there was a significant change, helping create a larger potential income base in Dublin, and giving some an often spurious validation to the would be investors, banking on a huge European windfall on the back of their financial input.
 
This is all very dull, and may seem circumstantial, but the facts show that since 1991 only five titles have gone outside of the capital, and two of those to clubs within 45 minutes of Dublin. In the 12 seasons between ’80 and ’91, only five went to the capital. So while we can all celebrate the European tide coming in for the League, it may not necessarily help to raise all our “regional” ships.