What's working elsewhere?

Well, in Norway (and those wondering why Norway is always used as comparison - it's a similar population number whose heads are more easily turned by English football than domestic matters) they've been taken aback by the difference some new stadiums, a few upgrades and better facilities have made.

Viking FK doubled their average from 7,000 to 14,000 in a year with a new stadium despite the fact they slipped down the league and crowds have risen generally in the league from under 5,000 less than 10 years ago to estimations of breaking through 10,000 this coming season.

Denmark saw massive jumps in attendances with some simple enough tweaks to the whole package. In the Czech Republic, the league are offering bonus payments to teams who have higher than average attendance figures over a season. Simple but something to shoot for and, hey, whatever works must be worth a go. On the stadium side here, there's movement. To name just a few, Cork City have updated the Shed quite nicely; Galway United and Waterford United are both working on new stands in and around the 1,500-1,750 seater mark;

Athlone Town have a spanking new ground and Bohs, Drogheda Utd and Shamrock Rovers are all heading down that road.

The Euro120,000 thrown at the premier league clubs for promotion officers was a step in the right direction though that'll probably be hit and miss till they work out exactly the best use of the extra manpower. Time will tell if the half-million or so euro put into a marketing campaign is money well spent or not - though we imagine lessons can be learnt from the hullabaloo of Dublin/Tyrone on how to generate some hype.

Whatever happens, both these developments should ensure a bit more publicity coming up to a big game especially and much more along the lines of radio/TV ads, posters and so on.

When speaking to a number of owners/directors recently, clubs were looking down the route of attracting people to a night out rather than just a game, of making it an experience (a good one now) so that families and groups would want to come back every second week. Targeting a smidgen of the corporate market was mentioned by some. Most every club recognised the need to bring in youngsters as early as possible through summer camps, special offers and hitting the schools and, all told, clubs might finally be cottoning onto the potential numbers there. (On the flip side, the Longford rep made the point that their average crowds of less than 1,000 look awful until you realise the entire population of Longford county is around 30,000. Whether Dublin can really sustain four clubs plus UCD long-term is another question on that line. ) Anyways, some other bits and bobs that'd be handy for getting numbers up. A weekly highlights programme that doesn't go out at the time of night reserved for repeats of Desperate Housewives and late late movies for one - think how effective Against The Head is for the rugby. An effort made when there is a live game to build some atmosphere, to make the place look like somewhere you'd think about of a Friday night rather than a halfempty shell that's as appealing as karaoke with Craig Bellamy. And an absence of winding-up orders, docking of points, clubs going bust and general mayhem stories every other week wouldn't do any harm to the overall view of the league.

On the field, a couple more wins in Europe would go down a treat, as would a highprofile draw along the lines of a Deportivo. Some cracking games early on wouldn't hurt - last season seemed to have loads of 0-0s and 1-0s from the start and didn't get going till September. And as much work as clubs can do off-pitch, if there's a few stars among the pack out on the field, they'll draw crowds. When you think Stephen Ward has just been nominated for player of the month in the championship and Alan Bennett is over at Reading, the league has been putting players out there for a few years now and the likes of Roy O'Donovan and JP Kelly could be used to bring a few more through the gates. That's a large part of what 2007 is about for the shiny new league.