?????? never heard of most of them.

Don't know much about the Welsh.

In Ireland its split into two leagues the league of ireland (south) and Irish League (North). And then theres the setanta cup with four teams from each league. Derry City are an exception as they are located in the north of Ireland but play in the League of Ireland.

In the league of Ireland Drogheda won it last year to make it 2 in a row. It is ready to kick off again now, Its season starts now and finishes at the end of december. I don't really follow the league in the south but when I do, I look out for the results of Shamrock Rovers.
1. Drogheda Utd 33 19 11 3 48 24 24 68
2. St Patricks Ath 33 18 7 8 54 29 25 61
3. Bohemians 33 16 10 7 35 17 18 58
4. Cork City 33 15 10 8 44 32 12 55
5. Shamrock Rov 33 14 9 10 36 26 10 51
6. Sligo Rovers 33 12 5 16 34 45 -11 41
7. Derry City 33 8 13 12 30 31 -1 37
8. Galway Utd 33 7 14 12 28 35 -7 35
9. Bray Wanderers 33 8 10 15 30 48 -18 34
10. UCD 33 7 10 16 31 44 -13 31
11. Waterford Utd 33 7 9 17 23 47 -24 30
12. Longford Town 33 9 8 16 34 49 -15 29

In the Irish League it looks to be between Cliftonville (good guys) and Linfield (scum). With Linfield holding a 1 point advantage. Glentoran like to think they've got an outside chance but they don't.

1 Linfield 22 17 3 2 53 17 54
2 Cliftonville 22 16 5 1 42 18 53
3 Glentoran 22 15 4 3 52 20 49
4 Lisburn Distillery 22 13 4 5 40 22 43
5 Portadown 22 12 2 8 34 25 38 9
6 Ballymena United 22 10 4 8 31 30 34
7 Newry City 22 9 3 10 34 38 30
8 Coleraine 22 8 6 8 28 37 30
9 Dungannon Swifts 22 7 6 9 31 33 27
10 Crusaders 21 6 7 8 29 36 25
11 Armagh City 22 5 5 12 24 35 20
12 Donegal Celtic 22 4 7 11 23 36 19
13 Institute 22 4 6 12 18 31 18
14 Glenavon 22 5 2 15 26 39 17
15 Larne 21 4 4 13 28 50 16
16 Limavady United 22 4 4 14 15 41 16

The setanta cup has four teams from the north and four from the south entering. The winners and runners-up in each league. The winners of each major cup. And the winners of each minor cup.

This Year the teams from the south were Drogheda (League winners), St. Pats Athletic (League Runners-up), Cork (cup winners), Derry City (league cup winners).

The teams from the North were Linfield (League winners), Glentoran(League Runners-up), Cliftonville (3rd Place in the league), Dungannon Swifts (Cup runners-up). This was due to Linfield winning the treble

The teams are split into two groups of 4 (2 from each league) and the top two from each group go into the semi-finals.

The groups are: -

Cork
Drogheda
Cliftonville
Dungannon Swifts

and

Derry City
Glentoran
Linfield
St Pats

The 2nd group has not started yet. In the 1st group Cork beat Dungannon 2-0 and Drogheada beat Cliftonville 3-2.

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The Welsh League has been running since 93, so its still relatively young. There are currently two full time outfits in Llanelli and T.N.S.

Barry Town who dominated the competition for many years went bust a few years ago, although they are currently top of the Division one table.

The league is gaining a better overall standard although the question is how good can that standard be? With relatively small gates generally clubs see turnouts in the mid hundreds although larger gates do occur despite this the clubs especially in the north are well supported in comparison to the size of the towns. the league cant really sustain a high amount of professional clubs for this reason and the fact that the three biggest teams play in the English system.

Rhyl I think are the best supported team, and probably Llanelli have the potential to be the biggest team as it is the largest town currently in the league, however its geographical position next to Swansea and the fact that it is a Rugby mad town will hinder this.

Calls have been made to turn the welsh league into a summer league, as the welsh league teams tend to play their European qualifying matches against teams from summer leagues and are at a disadvantage.

I'm not an expert on this league but nothing was written so I thought id just write it in

well said, sounds quite interesting

I always see Rhyl in the CL quals and the Uefa cup quals on Football manager and always hope to see them go abit further.

T.N.S the new saints play at park hall just outside oswestry where i live,they are in europe each year not for long though!:O

well Gav seems like Glentoran ended up about 9 points btr off than Cliftonville.

Yep the reds bottled it again in the 2nd half of the season(n), I hope you beat Linfield to the league though, lesser of two evils.

Ending on a high note good season for the wee hoops by their standards

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I live near Rhyl! I don't know much about Welsh football, even though I live in Wales. All I know is the Welsh national team, Cardiff City, Wrexham, Swansea City and TNS (but only because Liverpool played them in the Champions League a couple of seasons back.) I don't know much about the league though.

so Gav rya a Cliftonville man or a Wee Hoops man ?

the more them teams get it sorted the btr for all us in the league

I'm a wee hoops man mainly but have been to a few reds games as well. I've not been to either very often this year though because I'm staying in Stirling during semester time so seen a few in between december and february but thats about it. But it means I could get a season ticket at parkhead so whos complainin'?

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