Emmet Malone/On Soccer:The battles currently in progress at the top and bottom of the Premier Division may be giving a few managers, players and supporters ulcers just now, but these are uncomfortable times too for everyone at Bray, Dublin City and Finn Harps with the three leading First Division sides currently separated by just two points with three games remaining.

With the lower division having become a tougher place than ever to survive and the play-offs still something of a lottery, the stakes are huge for the clubs that have become embroiled in a three-way scrap for the single automatic promotion spot.

This Thursday's game at Whitehall involving Dublin City and Harps may go some way towards sorting things out but with Bray still to cross Dublin on the last day of the season as Harps go to Cobh it is still pretty much impossible to call a race that has proven much more interesting than in recent seasons.

Bray, of course, know all about winning promotion with Pat Devlin having several players who have been down this road with him before. City have extensively revamped their side under John Gill but again there is plenty of experience in a team largely put together since the end of last season while supporters of Harps will probably feel that theirs is the best positioned club to survive in the top flight if only they could get there.

Harps, in fact, would undoubtedly be the popular promotion choice among the main Dublin sides. Despite still being weighed down by a debt estimated to be in excess of €250,000, the Donegal club is one of the country's best supported when going any way well, a fact underlined by the fairly solid backing the team has received during the current campaign.

A lot of us might still be a little puzzled as to why Jonathon Speak was so swiftly shown the door after a couple of defeats but it seems that the dismissal is just another indication of the growing pressure there is now on clubs in the First Division to get out of what is generally regarded as being a financial wasteland. Seven wins and a draw under his replacement Noel King have maintained the club's challenge but they remain two points off the pace set by their rivals and defeat on Thursday night would almost certainly consign them to the play-offs.

It would also give Dublin City a real chance of making the breakthrough that Ronan Seery has tirelessly sought for the last few years. Many would question what his club would bring to the Premier Division but Seery continues to subscribe to the belief if the club can go up then it can carve a piece of an already crowded Dublin market for itself.

Crowds at present can be as low as 200 with half of those either sponsors or season ticket holders but Seery is adamant that, playing out of one of its larger Dublin rivals' homes, the club can build a future for itself with as few as 750 paying customers at each home game. That, of course, would mean the vast majority of the club's revenue would continue to be generated through heroic fundraising efforts that involve not only the usual quizzes and dinners (Ally McCoist and Andy Townsend are among the speakers at a bash next Monday) but also the running of trips to big games in Britain.

"We're basically a promotions company with a football team," admits Seery with a laugh before adding that, only for Dublin City, he might well be a millionaire now.

He persists, however, because of a belief that the club can be the next Longford Town and the thinking is that John Gill's initial success with the team may just mean they have bagged themselves the next Stephen Kenny. But it's not a theory that many of the established top-flight sides will want put to the test.

For most, the relegation of the lightly supported and unfortunately located UCD would come as an early Christmas present but one that would have the shine taken off it somewhat if Dublin City were to replace the students in the Premier Division.

Bray, on the other hand, would bring a solid if fairly modest support with them in the event that they win promotion again.

After Harps the club has probably been the best supported in the division but, unlike the Donegal side, most of the growth in attendances that would be expected to follow promotion would come from having bigger Dublin sides around on a regular basis.

And, having been through all of this before, Pat Devlin admits that winning promotion, though obviously the target, would involve the club having to embark, once again, on the tricky balancing act of spending enough to stay up without overdoing it to the extent that relegation would endanger the club's future.

That has always been a major consideration for clubs moving up in the world but this year there is the added complication of meeting the minimum standards required of a top-flight club under the UEFA licensing regulations.

Dublin City have no seats at present and would simply have to move ground, Finn Harps have 300 and would either have to spend heavily at Finn Park or complete a long-talked of land swap with the local council before spending heavily somewhere else.

Bray Wanderers are best placed of the three but the Carlisle Grounds would need quite a bit more than a lick of paint if it was to achieve the standard required.

Not for the first time Devlin observes with obvious frustration that the pressure to spend on players at a time when the emphasis should really be on facilities is something that will cost the entire league in the long term. Inevitably he will, like his rivals, be preoccupied with the short term for the next three weeks.