Stadium Disaster foR Derry

From eleven-a-side.com :

Venue concerns for Derry Uefa tie

Derry City’s Uefa Cup qualifying round second leg clash against APOEL Nicosia on Thursday week may be watched by just 2000 fans due to the stringent regulations of Uefa regarding all-seater stadia, it emerged over the weekend.

Derry are in with a shout of reaching the first round of the competition after taking a vital away goal from last Thursday’s first leg, which finished 2-1 in favour of the Cypriots.

However, while they would have been hoping for a packed venue to create the sort of atmosphere that might drive the Candystripes to a memorable victory in Europe, they now look set to play the game in front of empty terraces.

Chairman Jim Roddy conceded that there was no option for the club, and that as many as 7000 potential

supporters will be left without a chance to see the Derry team in action in a little under two weeks’ time.

Roddy told the Irish Daily Star: "We’re snookered because of Uefa’s all-seater laws and there’s no way out of the problem unless we moved the tie elsewhere, which is not a runner.

"It’s a real headache and the awful reality is that we’ll be forced to admit that genuine Derry City fans are unable to watch the game. That’s unfair on them but there’s nothing we can do about it."

As many as 10,000 fans watched Derry’s friendly defeat to Spanish giants Barcelona last week.

Surely they knew this weeks ago (they should've knowm years ago to be perfectly honest...)

What about temp bucket seats? ala FAI

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Originally posted by Estar
What about temp bucket seats? ala FAI

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Your not allowed any sort of temp seating for UEFA matches. Republic of Ireland have been given special dispensation from UEFA for landsdowne and even that is running out. That's why there was talk of Ireland playing some matches in England not so long ago. Can you imagine that? :mad:
The club has known about this for along time and the problem is that Derry don't own the ground, it belongs to the City Council.The council and the club have been talking for the last 4 or 5 years about redeveloping the ground but so far no agreement has been reached!

don't know how popular an alternative but Flancare wouldn't be too far to travel would it?

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Originally posted by joe
don't know how popular an alternative but Flancare wouldn't be too far to travel would it?

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Great ground that it is, it's a non starter! Our record down in Flancare is terrible and as Jim Roddy said the 2nd leg has to be in Brandywell no matter if there only is 2500 at the game!
There is no chance of it being played at any other ground!

We'll just have to ask 4000 fans do they want to become stewards for the day :) :D :) :D :)

Did Derry not have options for an alternative venue???
surely the board must have been aware of the problems that they would have for the home leg as soon as they won the Cup last year!! it's madness to lose out on a european windfall.
on top of that, are Derry going to have to assign a section of the seating they do have for away fans as well?

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Originally posted by tiktok
Did Derry not have options for an alternative venue???
surely the board must have been aware of the problems that they would have for the home leg as soon as they won the Cup last year!! it's madness to lose out on a european windfall.
on top of that, are Derry going to have to assign a section of the seating they do have for away fans as well?

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Where else can we play it? It's on a working day so you won't be getting 4 or 5 thousend fans travelling 3 or 4 hours! The nearest ground would be Longford or Dublin, it's just not on to be travelling that far for our 'HOME' game!
I don't know how many APOEL fans are comming over, there are some as far as i know, but one of the middle sections in the stand is being kept for the club directors of both Derry and APOEL, i thought that.
The old seats beside the jungle cannot be used for supporters, they will only be used by the media!

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Originally posted by brandy86
Where else can we play it? It's on a working day so you won't be getting 4 or 5 thousend fans travelling 3 or 4 hours! The nearest ground would be Longford or Dublin, it's just not on to be travelling that far for our 'HOME' game!

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i was thinking more of an Irish League ground, or is that just niaive on my part?

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Originally posted by tiktok
i was thinking more of an Irish League ground, or is that just niaive on my part?

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Again, it would be to a none runner, the nearest half decent ground with seats would be Belfast! Coleraine would have bout 2,000 seats, we have more in the Brandy!

Anyway i dont think the IFA in Belfast or the FAI would agree to us playing in an irish league ground! Not that we would anyway! (no chance) :D :D :D :D

The only thing we can do is learn from this and get the Brandywell redelvoped as soon as possible!

Fair enough, shame that so many are going to miss out on a great night though.

a real catch 22 isn't it, you need big gates to put money into developing the stadium but you need top redevelop in order to get the big european gates.

all the very best on it anyway, i assume it's been carried live on radio foyle, we'll be cheering you on.

Yeh it's sort of a no win situation alright! I know both sides are working hard at the redelveopment!

The match will be on Radio Foyle and Drive 105!

Thanks for the best wishes mate lets hope we get through and do the league proud! Thanks again!

Seems a bit odd to be raising this issue in the media in the week before the Uefa game cod as others have said everyone has known this for years.

Accepting ye have issues with the local council Longford Town pretty much built an all-seater ground for their Uefa Cup game a few years ago & the St Annes end was seated by CCFC more or less just for the Gothenborg (or was it Lausanne) game.

Yep strange alright. Jim Roddy is quoted in todays Derry Journal saying that if things aren't sorted with the council by November the club will be looking to move to a new ground on the outskirts of the city but this i think will be a last resort!
The problem is that Derry have got funding to redevelop the Brandywell but the funding cannot be given to the club cause we dont own the ground!

Today's artical in the journal make for an interesting read cause it states that Derry have a major international invester ready to put money into the club but only wen the council get their at 2gether!

At the end of the day the club have been talkin to the council for 3yrs and nothing has happened so may be raising this issue in the media will make them buck up their ideas abit!

the team doesn't need these distractions going into the game

from www.rte.ie

Derry consider move away from the Brandywell
Filed at: Tuesday , August 19 2003 16:19PM

Derry City officials have revealed that they are considering the possibility of leaving the council-owned Brandywell and relocating to a new venue.

The club have become disenchanted in recent times at what they claim is the failure of Derry City Council to maintain the stadium to the necessary UEFA-stipulated standards.

The attendance for next week's UEFA Cup qualifying round second leg tie against Apoel Nicosia will be restricted to a mere 2,200 because of the European football governing body's regulations. In addition, Derry official's have pointed out the possibility that the club could be prevented from playing in the Eircom League Premier Division next season because of new UEFA licensing rules which will come into effect.

Derry City claim that the Council has failed to replace broken seats in recent months and that this has impacted on attendance's. A section of the Southend Park stand has been stripped of its seating to replace broken seats elsewhere in the stand. This has led to a reduction of around 200 seats for the game with the Cypriots.