White Hart Lane was buzzing.  The green and white juggernaut had arrived in North London and the Spurs fans were getting a lesson about what supporting your team really means.  From the first minute to the last, the Hoops sang their hearts out and embarrassed the sizeable but largely inaudible Tottenham support.

It has been some year for the League of Ireland.  Apart from Shamrock Rovers' almost incredible exploits, the performance of St Pats in Europe and a nail-biting title race has pushed the League of Ireland to the forefront of Irish sport.

It is, of course though, the success of Rovers that has captured the imagination of the generic sports fan.  The same people who will jump on the Irish rugby and the Dublin football bandwagons will also be happy to share in the remarkable story of the rise and rise of Michael O'Neill's green and white army.

And therein lies a dilemma for some League of Ireland fans.  Let's call them the diehards.  There is a relatively small coterie of loyal supporters who go only to League of Ireland games to support their teams, be it Rovers, Pats, Bray, etc. They don't follow English teams, have no interest in rugby and couldn't distinguish Bernard Brogan from Stephen Cluxton.

They have been there from the start.  Good times and bad times but definitely more bad than good.  When Rovers were in examinership, when Drogheda were nearly finished and when Bohs couldn't pay their bills, they were there, helping out, keeping the show on the road.

And now, the new kids on the block want to join in the fun. Without doing their time, without suffering the pain.  And most gallingly, while watching United and Liverpool in the pub.  Because, let's call a spade a spade, that's the biggest sin of all.

Nothing will rile a diehard more than the revelation that you support an English team, particularly one of the big six.  Scottish teams seem a little more acceptable but only because they're not much good anymore.

So what has happened is that as more and more fair weather supporters show an interest in the game, by equal measure the resentment to these Johnny-Come-Latelys has spiralled among through core support.

But what they miss is that every League of Ireland team needs new fans and you have start sometime.  And where is the rule that you can only follow one team in one league?  Why not support whoever you like whenever you like?  Everyone pays the same amount to go through the gate and God knows the League of Ireland needs as much support as it can get.

An interesting tale is told by 18 year old law student Amy Eustace, who blogs regularly on all matters football, and who is a fairly recent convert to the Shamrock Rovers cause (check out her story at http://www.thefootyblog.net/2011/09/29/my-team-i-shamrock-rovers/).  Like many youngsters, she was brought up on a diet of Premiership football and fell in love with Liverpool Football Club.  So far so  normal.

However, when Rovers moved to Tallaght, a new dynamic entered her life and she fell head over heels for the Hoops.  Again, not so strange.  But here's the thing.  She still loves Liverpool as much as ever (and Stewart Downing in a weirdly obsessive way but the less said about that the better!) and far more bizarrely, follows Wolfsburg and Udinese.  In other words, one for each league (though I don't know what La Liga has done to be dismissed so callously).

So, here we have a fanatical football follower who loves her local team and goes to watch them when she can.  And is just back from White Hart Lane.  She also goes to Anfield and watches the German and Italian leagues regularly. She is just as important as the diehard.  Maybe not as loyal, maybe not as long suffering as the diehard but the money paid through the gate is the same.

Every League of Ireland team needs an Amy and many more of her.  Because that is the only way the league can ever reach its true potential.  It's okay to support whoever else you like as long as you show up on a Friday night and shout them home. And do you know what? It's okay if you only show up once in a while as well because that's better than not coming at all.

Last week, there were quite a few supporters in the stadium who didn't know who to shout for.  They loved both teams.  But at least they were there.

Stuart Gilhooly is the solicitor to the PFAI and can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DSBAPresident.