National League United
"A voice for Genuine Football Supporters"

N.L.U. were founded in 1996 initially to oppose the proposal to bring Wimbledon to Dublin. Since then we have broadened our horizons and are the first Supporters association in this country, with the intended aim of promoting the entire League are working towards being a Supporter's Association for the National League as a whole.
We have a broad spectrum of membership from supporters of the National League's 22 clubs, and basically are supporters who can see the bigger picture and are interested in what benefits the Eircom National League as a whole rather than merely our own narrow club's interests exclusively.
In February 1998 we had a meeting with our Northern Ireland counterpart the N.I.F.S.A. and issued a joint press statement. We will be seeking meetings with N.I.F.S.A on matters of mutual intertest again in the coming season. Members of our committee have been interviewed on Raidio na Gaeltachta, RTE Radio 1, Anna Livia Radio, Dublin's 98FM, WLR FM, and even BBC Radio 5.

One of our aims and objectives is to work with the clubs and sponsors in promoting the League. With this in mind we initiated our own Player of the Month Awards Scheme in November 1996. Pat Morley was our first award winner that month. Over the past three seasons Peter Hutton, Michael Reddy and Colm Tresson have all been award winners. A complete list of the winners to date is listed here.

On joining National League United members are asked their club affiliation because one of the rules of selecting the Player of the Month is that one cannot vote for a player from the club they support. This system of voting was borrowed from the P.F.A.I. system for voting for their own Player of the Year Awards and has proved very useful in selecting suitable candidates.
The Awards scheme was expanded in the summer of 1998 to include Players from the Dublin Women's Soccer League, which features 4 N.L. clubs among its ranks.We are at present in the process of seeking sponsorship for these awards. In June of this year we held our first Player of the Year Awards Ceremony.

Since our foundation we hosted a Football Forum in each of the last 2 seasons. The first on "Irish Football - the Way Forward" was in September of 1997, when one of the speakers was F.A.I. Chief Executive Bernard O'Byrne, resulted in us being asked to make a submission to a Sub-Committee set up by the F.A.I. to look at ways of improving the National League. This was ground-breaking marking the first time that supporters had ever been consulted about improvement in the game.Some of the ideas in our discussion document have been taken on board by the N.L. management board.
Last season our second forum on "National League - Towards Professionalism" was held in the Royal Dublin Hotel on Saturday October 17 from in the O'Connell Hall. Guest speakers representing players, supporters, journalists, club, match and association officials were there and contributions were taken from the audience. Details of the meeting were recorded by author Conall Collier in his book on Sligo Rovers "North West Frontier". The forum was debated on RTE Radio 1's Weekend Sport the following afternoon involving 2 of our guest speakers, Gerry McDermott (Irish Independent) and Pat Dolan (St. Patrick's Athletic).

We will be seeking representation for Supporters at National League executive level, in the coming months. Join N.L.U. and make a difference! We are a National Soccer Supporters organisation and do not just have a Dublin focus. To illustrate our commitment to the League as a whole we have become shareholders in Waterford United PLC. We will invest similarly in other clubs when share opportunities arise as and when resources permit.