NATIONAL LEAGUE: With the season six weeks old and, thankfully, controversy free so far, the positives for the eircom sponsored National League continue to gnaw away at its tarnished image.

While no definite figures are available, attendances at games appear to be generally larger and the football open and exciting with goals aplenty - Sunday's match between Shamrock Rovers and UCD was the first scoreless draw so far from 23 Premier Division matches. For the moment at least, the change to a "summer season" and the switch in league sizes seems to be working reasonably well.

The jury must remain out on the new 12-team First Division since it has yet to start, but even that has thrown up a welcome feel-good story for the budding season: Kildare County.

The Newbridge-based club quietly won their way into the First Division Cup final last Saturday night, beating Waterford United 1-0 to maintain an unbeaten record in the southern section. They now meet Finn Harps over two legs in the final.

It's very early days yet, but the club seems to have found its feet surprisingly quickly and is toddling around quite happily with only the bump of a not unexpected FAI Cup exit to UCD to blemish its brave new start.

During its short existence, the club has shown the way to many of its long established opponents in how its being run.

It's not just on the field that Kildare County have done things the right way. The whole set-up from the very start has been managed in a professional manner from fund-raising to the not inconsiderable coup of employing Dermot Keely, the most successful manager currently in the game, as team boss.

"I believe Kildare County will be Irish sport's good news story of the year and it has been really uplifting to see such an enormous groundswell of support in Kildare for the venture," says its chief executive, Stephen Finn, a former football journalist who also worked on the FAI's The Soccer Show programme.

Finn's prediction of two months ago that "we intend making a strong impression from day one" hasn't been wide of the mark.

With 200 season ticket holders and an average attendance of just over a thousand for their three competitive home games so far, The Thoroughbreds, as is their nickname, have certainly shown good form.

"It's gone really well," says Finn. "Reaching this final has been a great boost. As a new club what you don't want is to be losing matches straight away. That can cause massive damage. At least people know that when they come to see us play, the team is going to be competitive. We haven't let in a goal at home and the results overall, even pre-season, have been very positive."

An ambitious initial plan of getting 250 people to invest €5,000 each was scuppered, but Finn says several investors have put in small amounts of money while the club's main sponsor will be unveiled this week.

"Even before I became involved, the club did its homework and spoke to a number of other clubs regarding budgeting," explained Finn. "It basically costs around €5,000 per week to run a First Division club. That's the target figure we're operating on and we've generally used the same means of raising money as any other club."

Finn is quick to point out that it's been no fluke that it has gone well from the start. "A lot of effort has gone into everything. From my background in media I was keen to make sure the image was correct, even from a minor thing like getting the club crest right."

Long term, mixing it with the Shelbournes and Bohemians in the Premier Division is the ambition, but there is no rush to win promotion. "Short term was simply to be competitive with anything else a bonus," said Finn. "People seem to thing we are throwing a lot of money in to get promoted first time. To be honest, we haven't even considered promotion this year. It's not part of the plan."

Further down the line is where Kildare County's real ambitions lie. "I wouldn't have got involved if I didn't think we could grow to become one of the biggest clubs in the country," says Finn. "Nobody wants to be involved in a small organisation and simply exist from day to day. If you are content to just muddle along then you will never achieve anything. Clubs have to have greater ambition than that, whether it's us or anyone else."