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Match Programs

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read somewhere where the sale of programs are way down over the last few years, is it any wonder they are brutal, just pages of adverts, no effort to include any reading material, it would be so easy to fill a few pages, say the wicklow v wexford league game, 3 or 4 old match reports some going back to 30 or 40s, interviews with x players of memories of past games, a summery of league results over 130 years, so easy to do, no end of material, there is no attempt to make the program people will want to buy, they not trying to sell them Stmunnsriver (Wexford) - Posts: 2958 - 27/02/2025 11:31:26 2593470 Link
Replying To Stmunnsriver: "read somewhere where the sale of programs are way down over the last few years, is it any wonder they are brutal, just pages of adverts, no effort to include any reading material, it would be so easy to fill a few pages, say the wicklow v wexford league game, 3 or 4 old match reports some going back to 30 or 40s, interviews with x players of memories of past games, a summery of league results over 130 years, so easy to do, no end of material, there is no attempt to make the program people will want to buy, they not trying to sell them" The quality has dipped substantially over the years. I keep buying them for the sake of the collection but they're not a patch on what they were in the 90s Doylerwex (Wexford) - Posts: 3461 - 27/02/2025 11:55:33 2593474 Link
Replying To Stmunnsriver: "read somewhere where the sale of programs are way down over the last few years, is it any wonder they are brutal, just pages of adverts, no effort to include any reading material, it would be so easy to fill a few pages, say the wicklow v wexford league game, 3 or 4 old match reports some going back to 30 or 40s, interviews with x players of memories of past games, a summery of league results over 130 years, so easy to do, no end of material, there is no attempt to make the program people will want to buy, they not trying to sell them" First off, I agree that many programmes have too many ads. Here in Wexford, it seems to be particularly bad. 32 pages in the recent programmes for hurling v Kilkenny and football v Carlow, for example, and 21 of them were adverts. Having said that, a few years ago I used to give the County PRO of the time a hand with doing programmes for county finals. Have you any real idea of the amount of time it'd take to do up everything you suggest? And then do it for seven or eight different "home" programmes during the nine weeks or so of the Leagues, all in somebody's spare time? Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 2798 - 27/02/2025 12:32:54 2593484 Link
It seems to vary madly by county. Last weekend Meath had an 80 page match programme covering both Hurling League Round 4 against Down and Football League Round 4 against Roscommon. Top quality production. Tyrone also regularly churn out quality stuff. You'd think by now they would have centralised it rather than letting each county do it's own thing, often with fairly pathetic end result. LongfordgaaAbú (Longford) - Posts: 600 - 27/02/2025 12:47:52 2593489 Link
The GAA match programme is a busted flush for a whole range of reasons: 1. Players wont do interviews - no reason why every player on the panel could'nt have a 2 pager about him - 30 man panel - have 3 per match programme. They could be done in December and a short paragraph to update for the game in the programme. 2. Team in programme never matches the selected team - could be fixed by everyone having a squad number for the season - programme could just show who is available to play in each position that week - the programme could speculate on upcoming selection based on previous weeks selection 3. Have it on an app - where the team selection could be updated the morning of the match - a short paragraph on the changes (and reasoning) could be included. 4. Have more content added after the match - like an interview or two - maybe even a score or two - All of the above would want those not attending the game to buy the online programme, complete with updates The 1990's programme were great, but the world has moved on - time for the GAA to also tirawleybaron (Mayo) - Posts: 1284 - 27/02/2025 12:54:53 2593493 Link
Just don't buy them, a waste of money . Bon (Kildare) - Posts: 2223 - 27/02/2025 13:15:00 2593496 Link
There's too much work involved for a part-time volunteer PRO to turn around and print a match programme complete with historical results, player interviews, match previews etc. in a week or two. It would be no more cost-effective to produce programmes centrally becsuse do few are sold. As a previous poster mentioned, a mobile app would be the best option where content can be added and updated quickly e.g. when team lineups change or an?interview becomes available. The app is something that could be developed centrally and PROs would then just need to add the content. SHCEIGHTY (Longford) - Posts: 8 - 28/02/2025 08:51:12 2593627 Link
The level of respect given to supporters is clear for all to see when you look at current NFL programmes. Take last Sunday in Salthill for example - We (Donegal) had a team and squad listed that was not the team and squad that was on the pitch. Only 4 players wore the correct number and many names listed were not in the match day squad. It's pretty disgraceful treatment of paying supporters who are completely disrespected and taken for granted. PeterQ92 (Donegal) - Posts: 145 - 28/02/2025 10:18:59 2593646 Link
Replying To PeterQ92: "The level of respect given to supporters is clear for all to see when you look at current NFL programmes. Take last Sunday in Salthill for example - We (Donegal) had a team and squad listed that was not the team and squad that was on the pitch. Only 4 players wore the correct number and many names listed were not in the match day squad. It's pretty disgraceful treatment of paying supporters who are completely disrespected and taken for granted." Download the free app SCORE BEO on your phone. Gives you the teams, ongoing scores and who scored + time for most county matches, substitutes, yellow/red/black cards etc. letsgetgoing (Roscommon) - Posts: 702 - 28/02/2025 11:26:58 2593664 Link
Replying To letsgetgoing: "Download the free app SCORE BEO on your phone. Gives you the teams, ongoing scores and who scored + time for most county matches, substitutes, yellow/red/black cards etc." Yeah I have it actually but I was actually was at the match in Salthill and always buy a programme. PeterQ92 (Donegal) - Posts: 145 - 28/02/2025 15:36:43 2593722 Link
Replying To tirawleybaron: "The GAA match programme is a busted flush for a whole range of reasons: 1. Players wont do interviews - no reason why every player on the panel could'nt have a 2 pager about him - 30 man panel - have 3 per match programme. They could be done in December and a short paragraph to update for the game in the programme. 2. Team in programme never matches the selected team - could be fixed by everyone having a squad number for the season - programme could just show who is available to play in each position that week - the programme could speculate on upcoming selection based on previous weeks selection 3. Have it on an app - where the team selection could be updated the morning of the match - a short paragraph on the changes (and reasoning) could be included. 4. Have more content added after the match - like an interview or two - maybe even a score or two - All of the above would want those not attending the game to buy the online programme, complete with updates The 1990's programme were great, but the world has moved on - time for the GAA to also" Can't beat the 90s. CorkLiamMcCarthy24 (Cork) - Posts: 135 - 28/02/2025 21:21:02 2593806 Link
Replying To CorkLiamMcCarthy24: "Can't beat the 90s." I think there's an element of rose-tinted nostalgia going on about the 90s. I've a fairly large collection of match programmes. Have just pulled out a random selection of National League programmes from the 90s, from both here in Wexford and from other counties too. On the whole, they're fairly poor. Some of them as little as 8 pages, most of them no more than 12 or 16, and almost all of them roughly 50% adverts too. Of the other 50%, when you consider that the front cover takes one page and the two line-ups obviously take two pages, that doesn't leave a whole lot of actual reading content either. Provincial finals and All-Ireland semi-finals and finals for those years have a lot more reading in them all right, but in fairness, they still do as well today too. They're the ones that are done centrally, but obviously far easier to do them centrally for just a relatively small number of matches than for a whole range of league matches all over the country at this time of year. Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 2798 - 28/02/2025 22:33:03 2593833 Link
Old programmes don't smell too good. The ones from the 2000s age better as they use a better quality of paper. PattyONeill (Derry) - Posts: 261 - 01/03/2025 00:10:58 2593846 Link
The one gripe have with programs is that they're too big. Can't fit them in your jacket pocket like you could with the smaller programmes that had more pages. Not sure why the pages are bigger but could be sponsors and advertisers wanting more space for supporters to pay heed for their ads? I still think a programme is a good keepsake and if we have grandchildren it'd be nice for them to look at old programmes. They'll probably be fascinated in 30 years with far outdated technology from 2025 and we'll tell them about the mayhem and confusion of the new rules that are explained in this years programmes. There's no app for that! GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7859 - 01/03/2025 00:58:51 2593847 Link