League of Ireland attendances suffered last night.
Hundreds, if not thousands of Irish fans travelled over to Liverpool for last night's game with Manchester United, with thousands more glued to it on television. Without wishing to put too fine a point on it, it proved to be an absolute dog of a game.
Meanwhile, back at home, last night proved to be a vital point in the League of Ireland title race, with leaders Dundalk and second-placed Cork City both in action.
Not that the games were devoid of #narrative beyond the title run-in. Stephen Kenny - his managerial stock higher than it has ever been - returned to where it all began: Dundalk travelled to Longford Town, the club who gave Kenny his first managerial gig back in 1998. Were Dundalk to win, Longford would be relegated.
Cork were away to St Pat's.
The night ended with Cork's John Caulfield conceding the title, as Cork lost 3-1 to Pat's while Dundalk coasted to a 3-0 win against Longford, relegating the Midlanders in the process.
The combined League of Ireland attendances were abject, however.
495 is the official attendance from Longford for the visit of Dundalk #LeagueOfIreland
— Extratime.com (@ExtratimeNews) October 17, 2016
Most of those were Dundalk fans: Longford have yet to win a home game all season. It was even worse in Inchicore:
369 is the attendance in Inchicore for tonight's game!!!
— Extratime.com (@ExtratimeNews) October 17, 2016
That comes to a miserable combined total of 864 people.
When Longford make the Europa League groups in four years, this lad should star in the feature pieces pic.twitter.com/iu6J4L5pjx
— Daniel McDonnell (@McDonnellDan) October 17, 2016
With all the positivity surrounding the Dundalk/Cork showdown last week - in a week admittedly free of competing club football - it's incredibly deflating.
While some may say the games shouldn't have been fixed for the same night as Liverpool/United, the problem runs deeper than that, and arranging fixtures to boost League of Ireland attendances based on what Sky Sports do with English football is unsustainable.
Not that this is a new problem, as the excellent Karl Reilly flagged on twitter yesterday afternoon.
He dug up an op-ed from the Sunday Independent querying why Irish fans prefer to go to watch Liverpool instead of support the League of Ireland. The date of publication? 1973:
Why do football fans ferry to Liverpool games instead of supporting the League of Ireland? (Sunday Independent 1973) pic.twitter.com/Ih1GKEO8Dy
— Karl Reilly (@HistoryLOI) October 17, 2016
Nonetheless, Dundalk will win the League now: all they've to do is win one of their three remaining fixtures. Their European run is magnificent, and undoubtedly good for the league, but it can't obscure the problems elsewhere.
