Offaly u20 2021

[Anonymous1]

1pm, Sunday 15th, croke Park.

24,000 earmarked for the semi final after it. The Kerry GAA secretary said he expected an allocation of 6,000 so it’ll be interesting to see where the rest goes...

[frankthetank]

Well that blew my theory out the window. How many tickets do we expect we’ll get if it’s 25,000 capacity? 2,000?

[JimBwobb]

Do you expect any tickets to go on general sale or distributed via the clubs ?

[frankthetank]

Do you expect any tickets to go on general sale or distributed via the clubs ?

Hard to know. Tyrone will bring a good crowd. Kerry wont. Roscommon surely would. Not sure about Down. We’d need 5,000 would we?

[Anonymous1]

Do you expect any tickets to go on general sale or distributed via the clubs ?

The 2,000 tickets for the division 3 final against Derry in Croke Park went on general sale but any tickets that Offaly are given to allocate never go on sale. They give them to the same cronies every time.

[JimBwobb]

Do you expect any tickets to go on general sale or distributed via the clubs ?

Hard to know. Tyrone will bring a good crowd. Kerry wont. Roscommon surely would. Not sure about Down. We’d need 5,000 would we?

I reckon we would bring 25k if their was no restrictions

[mynamesjeff]

Do you expect any tickets to go on general sale or distributed via the clubs ?

The 2,000 tickets for the division 3 final against Derry in Croke Park went on general sale but any tickets that Offaly are given to allocate never go on sale. They give them to the same cronies every time.

No, they distribute through the clubs, which is the right thing to do.
Members of the GAA clubs in the county can put their name in a draw, etc.

As fair as it can be that paid up members of clubs get priority. If you’re complaining about that, I’d suggest you go a couple of miles to your local GAA club and pay membership.

Obviously there are exceptions such as those living outside of the county. Some may yet still be members of clubs here, some may not. There might be a certain number set aside for individuals like this.

Within the county however, club members should absolutely be prioritised. People needn’t let on that they’re great Offaly supporters when they don’t pay the (insert club membership fee here) to their local club. It might be 25 quid for an individual or 80-100 for a family (varies from club to club). €2 a week max.

[SearingDrive]

Do you expect any tickets to go on general sale or distributed via the clubs ?

The 2,000 tickets for the division 3 final against Derry in Croke Park went on general sale but any tickets that Offaly are given to allocate never go on sale. They give them to the same cronies every time.

No, they distribute through the clubs, which is the right thing to do.
Members of the GAA clubs in the county can put their name in a draw, etc.

As fair as it can be that paid up members of clubs get priority. If you’re complaining about that, I’d suggest you go a couple of miles to your local GAA club and pay membership.

Obviously there are exceptions such as those living outside of the county. Some may yet still be members of clubs here, some may not. There might be a certain number set aside for individuals like this.

Within the county however, club members should absolutely be prioritised. People needn’t let on that they’re great Offaly supporters when they don’t pay the (insert club membership fee here) to their local club. It might be 25 quid for an individual or 80-100 for a family (varies from club to club). €2 a week max.

I think you have a valid point about giving club members priority. There are a lot of Offaly supporters though, who are not club members, but always follow the county, and their local club in the championships, and support their county and club financially. Should they not be regarded as loyal followers also?
There were enough fair weather fans in the past who jumped on the bandwagon in the good times, but disappeared in the less successful years.

[Hasselhoff]

What about lads who are members of club faithful or support the offaly gaa Lotto and go to games.

I would imagine most lads are members of their clubs.

[Anonymous1]

Do you expect any tickets to go on general sale or distributed via the clubs ?

The 2,000 tickets for the division 3 final against Derry in Croke Park went on general sale but any tickets that Offaly are given to allocate never go on sale. They give them to the same cronies every time.

No, they distribute through the clubs, which is the right thing to do.
Members of the GAA clubs in the county can put their name in a draw, etc.

As fair as it can be that paid up members of clubs get priority. If you’re complaining about that, I’d suggest you go a couple of miles to your local GAA club and pay membership.

Obviously there are exceptions such as those living outside of the county. Some may yet still be members of clubs here, some may not. There might be a certain number set aside for individuals like this.

Within the county however, club members should absolutely be prioritised. People needn’t let on that they’re great Offaly supporters when they don’t pay the (insert club membership fee here) to their local club. It might be 25 quid for an individual or 80-100 for a family (varies from club to club). €2 a week max.

This is absolute nonsense and it’s obvious from your response you’ve been the recipient of tickets through this crony scheme. The truth is almost no clubs have held draws for the paid up members and give their tickets to the same few at the top every time. I even know of instances where families of county players were looking for tickets off their local club and they wouldn’t give them one...

[mynamesjeff]

The 2,000 tickets for the division 3 final against Derry in Croke Park went on general sale but any tickets that Offaly are given to allocate never go on sale. They give them to the same cronies every time.

No, they distribute through the clubs, which is the right thing to do.
Members of the GAA clubs in the county can put their name in a draw, etc.

As fair as it can be that paid up members of clubs get priority. If you’re complaining about that, I’d suggest you go a couple of miles to your local GAA club and pay membership.

Obviously there are exceptions such as those living outside of the county. Some may yet still be members of clubs here, some may not. There might be a certain number set aside for individuals like this.

Within the county however, club members should absolutely be prioritised. People needn’t let on that they’re great Offaly supporters when they don’t pay the (insert club membership fee here) to their local club. It might be 25 quid for an individual or 80-100 for a family (varies from club to club). €2 a week max.

This is absolute nonsense and it’s obvious from your response you’ve been the recipient of tickets through this crony scheme. The truth is almost no clubs have held draws for the paid up members and give their tickets to the same few at the top every time. I even know of instances where families of county players were looking for tickets off their local club and they wouldn’t give them one...

A recipient through a crony scheme I am not. There must have been 700 or 800 cronies in O’Moore Park going by your logic. Not a very nice thing to call Offaly supporters. Not a nice thing to call former Offaly greats, current senior players or supporters alike.

Most clubs have held draws. You’d ask to put your name down, then it’s luck of the draw.

If you’ve a gripe with your own club, then bring it up with them. No need to tarnish every club in the county with nonsense like that. No need to play the béal bocht either.

Also important to note that each club only had an allocation of 10 tickets. That doesn’t include tickets allocated to players. Each player got at least a couple of tickets.

And sure if ya want to go on a tirade, ya may as well name the “almost no clubs have held draws for the paid up members” and who “give their tickets to the same few at the top every time”.
See how you fare with that. I for one wouldn’t recommend it.
Any club in Offaly that I’ve heard from drew for the tickets among paid up members.

[Lone Shark]

In most clubs, "the same few at the top" are the members of the executive, the volunteer coaches, the parks and pitch volunteers, the lotto ticket sellers etc. I now live in Roscommon and in the club where I'm a member, that's how it's done - there is a list of active people who are volunteering time and energy, and they get first dibs.

I've been the loyal supporter before, who travelled to every county game and 50 odd club games a year, and it's loyalty absolutely, but I'd never call it sacrifice or commitment. I went to the games because I was interested and wanted to be there.

If our clubs don't have volunteers, the GAA falls apart.

[Anonymous1]

No, they distribute through the clubs, which is the right thing to do.
Members of the GAA clubs in the county can put their name in a draw, etc.

As fair as it can be that paid up members of clubs get priority. If you’re complaining about that, I’d suggest you go a couple of miles to your local GAA club and pay membership.

Obviously there are exceptions such as those living outside of the county. Some may yet still be members of clubs here, some may not. There might be a certain number set aside for individuals like this.

Within the county however, club members should absolutely be prioritised. People needn’t let on that they’re great Offaly supporters when they don’t pay the (insert club membership fee here) to their local club. It might be 25 quid for an individual or 80-100 for a family (varies from club to club). €2 a week max.

This is absolute nonsense and it’s obvious from your response you’ve been the recipient of tickets through this crony scheme. The truth is almost no clubs have held draws for the paid up members and give their tickets to the same few at the top every time. I even know of instances where families of county players were looking for tickets off their local club and they wouldn’t give them one...

A recipient through a crony scheme I am not. There must have been 700 or 800 cronies in O’Moore Park going by your logic. Not a very nice thing to call Offaly supporters. Not a nice thing to call former Offaly greats, current senior players or supporters alike.

Most clubs have held draws. You’d ask to put your name down, then it’s luck of the draw.

If you’ve a gripe with your own club, then bring it up with them. No need to tarnish every club in the county with nonsense like that. No need to play the béal bocht either.

Also important to note that each club only had an allocation of 10 tickets. That doesn’t include tickets allocated to players. Each player got at least a couple of tickets.

And sure if ya want to go on a tirade, ya may as well name the “almost no clubs have held draws for the paid up members” and who “give their tickets to the same few at the top every time”.
See how you fare with that. I for one wouldn’t recommend it.
Any club in Offaly that I’ve heard from drew for the tickets among paid up members.

I am not calling all of the 7 or 8 hundred who were in Portlaoise last week cronies as for the majority of them, it was their first taste of action in 18 months but the same faces were also there again.

To spin your point on its head, can you name any clubs that have held an open, fair and transparent draw? If so, surely this should be done through a medium such as Facebook Live as I’ve seen countless clubs from other counties do but I’ve trawled every club in Offaly’s social media pages regularly and none of them hold live draws. It’s difficult not to be skeptical as to what happens with these draws when you find out after the game, the same few had tickets again.

As for your inference that county players get at least a couple of tickets. The Senior players received one each for games this year.

There were no fans allowed in during most league games but when they were against Fermanagh, an open, fair and transparent draw was held by Offaly for the 100 tickets. It seems very strange to me why this method wasn’t used again, my strong guess is the cronies kicked up because they didn’t get looked after.

For the division 3 final against Derry, the tickets went on general sale, once again what was wrong with continuing using this method... Other counties had a general sale for their championship tickets.

So, take the Louth game, 100 from each county were allowed to go, players were given 1 ticket each which equalled 34, the other 66 were unaccounted for.

Take the Kildare game, 250 from each county were allowed to go, players were given 1 ticket each which equalled 34 and the 41 clubs were given 3 tickets each equalling 123. So 157 tickets were accounted for but once again, 83 unaccounted.

And to reinforce my point, when the Offaly U20 footballers started their campaign against Wexford in Wexford, tickets went on general sale. Why? Because the cronies didn’t fancy travelling all the way to Wexford to watch a team they didn’t think would go far but amazingly the tickets for the games against Westmeath, Dublin and Cork were all snapped up by the same people who didn’t want them a few weeks prior.

I’m not specifically getting at clubs who don’t share their tickets out in a fair way but also the remaining tickets Offaly have that don’t go to the players or clubs, where are they all going?

Loyal fans of this county who supported teams through thick and thin have not been to a game in two years in some cases while some of the elite have been able to pick and choose what games they want to see. If you’re not on the side of the fan here, I don’t know what to tell you anymore.

[JimBwobb]

Settle down now lads...

[ah lethimoutwithit]

Anonymous1

Jeff is right, I'm sick to the boll..ix of this argument,

1) Cronies is a joke of a tag that means nothing
2)Players got 1 complimentary ticket and the option to buy 3 more
3) I know of a club that did a draw for members and it wasn't rigged as half the tickets ended up with lads who'd laugh at you for going to a league match to support Offaly!

You go an ask for the number of members of your local club, adult player (at a push...and juvenile kids), outside of that there are fuck all people pay membership. "Sure Jaysus, why would i pay membership to pay for a coach for them useless shower", as he trundles around the walking track with lights provided by most clubs!
Lone Shark is right too, look after the lads that run the lotto, put their hands up to steward matches, sit on County board committees, coach underage.
9 times out of 10 there is no problem getting tickets for Offaly matches, (I logged on and bought tickets to Christy Ring no worries last Sunday), met a sack who said "will in me bollix give €35 for C Ring ticket"...

Anyway set up a new thread to whinge if you want to, I'm going to enjoy the build up to it and see you at the first round of the league in Div 2 in OCP next January as there be no hassle with tickets then!