Towards the end of last season, Dundalk FC held a supporter consultation survey that covered many aspects of the club’s activities. A total of 684 supporters provided feedback. Some of the results are below.

Overview

  • There was a very even spread in age groups that responded with a small majority being supporters since the 1980s.
  • 89% of respondents were male.
  • 73% attended 10 or more home matches in 2022 with a majority of respondents attending between 1-4 away games. 15.5% attended more than 10 away games.
  • 31.8% prefer to watch games from the Stand with 27.4% viewing from the Shed. However, the majority of supporters who responded are ground season ticket holders (47.4%) with another19.5% buying ground tickets on a match-by-match basis.
  • In total, 45.8% of supporters attend with family members while 34.3% attend games with their friends.

Supporter Satisfaction

  • Respondents gave an average score of 8.0 when asked to rate their overall satisfaction of being a Dundalk FC fan.
  • 75.7% of respondents stated that ‘the club represents our community’ as their most important reason for being a supporter. 42.3% selected that it was a social outlet with family or friends; 25.1% have family history with the club; 21.9% selected ‘quality of football’; ‘good results was selected by 11.4%; ‘The number of local players on the team was selected by 2.3%.’
  • When asked to what extent do you agree that Dundalk FC is a well-run club’, the respondents answered as follows: Tend to Agree: 58%; Neither Agree/Disagree: 19.9%; Strongly Agree: 15.6%; Tend to Disagree: 5.6%; Strongly Disagree: 0.9%.
  • When asked ‘how valued do you feel by the club?’ the respondents answered: Valued: 48.8%; Very Valued: 9.6%; Not Very Valued: 9.6%; Not at All Valued: 1.6%; No Opinion: 28.4%.
  • When asked ‘to what extent do you agree that fans are at the heart of major decisions that the club makes?’ Neither Agree/Disagree 34.9%; Tend to Agree 28.1%; Tend to Disagree 21.3%; Strongly Agree 11.5%; Strongly Disagree 4.1%.
  • The average rating between 1-10 of overall match night experience was 7.0. The overall results were: 10: 7.7%; 9: 9.6%; 8: 24.4%; 7: 24.4%; 6: 13.7%; 5: 11.5%; 4: 3.4%; 3: 2.9%; 2: 1.5%; 1: 0.7%.

Flares and Smoke bombs

  • 49.6% of supporters strongly agree that “flares and smoke bombs are dangerous and should not be used by any supporter in any venue”. Another 19.4% ‘tend to agree”with that statement resulting in a total of 69% of respondents who oppose the use of flares and smoke bombs. A total of 7.6% strongly disagree with the statement while 16.7 ‘tend to disagree. The remaining 6.7% have no opinion.
  • 61% of supporters believe that flares are dangerous and could seriously hurt someone. 31.6% oppose flares due to the resulting FAI fines.

Programme and social media

  • 49.4% of supporters would understand if the club decided to end the production of a printed match programme. 22.1% would also support the decision to end production if the income does not justify the workload involved. 27.5% would object strongly to the ceasing production of a match programme.
  • 63.8% of people who do not buy a match programme stated that they would never buy a programme regardless of any other issues.
  • 85.5% of respondents use our social media platforms. The most popular was our Twitter account (69.1%).
  • 52.6% rated our social media quality as ‘good’, 28.3% rated it as ‘excellent’; 15.1% rated it as ‘fair’; 2.6% rated it as ‘poor’.
  • 50.7% of respondents listened to DFC or LOI related podcasts. The most popular podcasts among respondents were The Town End (61.3%); Men Who Saved Football (50.9%); Press Box (50%); LOI Central (31.3%); Between The Stripes (22.1%) LOI Arena (4.5%).

Oriel Park Development

  • 90.3% of supporters believe Oriel Park is not fit for purpose for the needs of all Dundalk supporters.
  • If money was no object, 85.9% believe we should modernise Oriel Park with the remainder believing we should move to a new site.
  • 51% believe that the club should not worry about having a European quality stadium and focus on construction of a modern League of Ireland stadium.
  • 49% believe that no work should commence on a new stadium until a plan exists to achieve a stadium that can host UEFA group stage matches in Dundalk.
  • 65.1% of supporters who stated that they watch the games from the Shed stated that they would support the relocation of the Shed to another part of the stadium if Oriel Park was modernised. 22.7% would object to this decision.
  • In terms of development, the most important priority should be a new grass pitch (60.4%); all areas to be covered (51.2%); renovated away fans area (36.4%); upgraded toilet facilities (32.7%); a new stand behind the goals (32.6%); replacement for current stand (19.9%); new stand to replace Shed (17.3%); new family stand (13%); safe standing area (8.4%); wheelchair area (6.7%); floodlights (6.5%); new artificial pitch (3.7%).