Croke Park or Celtic Park

[liam88]

"There has been speculation that the Football Association of Ireland wants access to Croke Park while Lansdowne Road undergoes redevelopment work.

FAI sources have hinted that Republic of Ireland games might have to staged in Britain because of the scheduled work at Lansdowne Road with Celtic Park in Glasgow mooted as a possible venue."

Personally I think that Croke Park won't be the best idea due to history and tradition. On top of this we've all seen the problems with the FAI asking to play soccer at Gaelic Venues with the Cork City of Culture tournament plans. -Just a personal view.

I think that Celtic park would have it's advantages as Celtic pride their Irish roots but surley this would divide Irish fans and possibly anger Scots and add to secaterian troubles in Scotland.

These are all just some ideas-do you think the venue matters as long as you've got fans backing the country?

It'd certainly cause a bit of an outcry for Dubliners having to travel all the way to Glasgow for the internationals-mabye for all our fans, playing our 'home' games in a different country seems to have a big opposition inevitably.....

[lopez]

Croke Park should be made available to the FAI. I've heard all the arguments before about the GAA being such a wonderful, prudent sporting body and the FAI being a bunch of drunken wasters, but the FAI never had the advantage of keeping all the wages from their players. Imagine if the Roy Keanes of this world had to hand back his 70G a week. There would be no problem with a stadium then.

I live in Britain, so next to Vicarage Road or Kenilworth Road, any London venue would do nicely? Er, no it wouldn't. It is showing Ireland up as a third rate country that they haven't got a stadium to play in. Except they have. But despite hand outs and tax breaks from the government, its owners want to keep it all to themselves. Fine many will add, but remember where the GAA looked for grounds when they had big exhibition games in Britain. Brentford FC, Wembley. Exactly. I for one would have been disgusted if a football club, the FA or Wembley PLC turned down the GAA 'cos it's a Paddy game, roight.' In addition, when I was a yoof (long time ago) I played soccer on pitches owned by a Tory council, that doubled for matches of the Hertfordshire GAA. Imagine the uproar if the council denied the GAA that right because it excluded 'crown forces' from its membership.

The GAA should wake up to the twentieth century, stop acting as if its acronym stands for 'The Grab All Association', think of the service it would be doing the country that it bangs on about 24 - 7(another hospital could be built for the price of a new stadium) and open its doors. In return it will get a nice pay day (you'd think they were letting in travellers for nothing) which I believe it could do with at the moment.

As for Celtic Park? Uh oh, I feel another 44 pages coming on.

[Footie_Fan]

The compromise should be that Lansdowne Road gets redeveloped but in the period it takes to build the new Lansdowne, Croke Park should open its doors and let Ireland play there. If the FAI makes a firm time commitment to the GAA and turns the first sod. There really can't be any arguements from the GAA considering the amount of money they got from the government.

Celtic Park or anywhere else is Ireland playing on foreign soil.

[lopez]

Originally posted by Conor74
It's a bit misleading to suggest that the GAA kept money from its players. Do English amateur football teams 'keep' money rightfully belonging to its players? Are the thousands who play soccer in Ireland and England for the love of the game being cheated too? If you play an amateur sport you don't expect payment, you don't get payment 'withheld'. It might be bizarre for those of us who follow professional teams to understand the concept of playing a game for the love of it, but you can't reduce everything to grubby money terms.

It is truly ironic that the only major sporting organisation in the world that has kept the faith with the Corinthian spirit of the muscular Christianity and imperial sporting evangelism of the British is the GAA. One of the reasons the GAA was founded (the clue is in the word Athletic) is because of the discrimination of contemporary Irish athletics to those that laboured - which as you can see gave them an advantage over those effete characters in their mansions who sat around playing croquet all day, or sh**ing the chambermaids.

Still no one holds a gun to these players heads. But the point I'm making is that wages don't come into it for the GAA. And no I'm not talking about those who play for the love of the game, because those don't bring in eighty thousand in paying spectators. I would have thought the difference was obvious, certainly for you.

Anyway let's hope your optimism proves right. Croke Park may not be the 'soccer stadium' that is being built in the Twenty-first century, but it beats anything Ireland have played in for home games before, and most of the stadiums it plays in for away games too.

[republic]

Interesting that yesterday's Sunday Independent carried a brief piece which indicated that the most likely outcome is that John O'Donoghue will bring *yet*another*report to the government next month with a decision to develop Lansdowne Road into a 45 -50,000 seater stadium announced next spring. This will be too late to stop the FAI deciding to play the World Cup qualifiers in the UK with Anfield the most likely venue.

Personally I would prefer to see international matches played in the UK than handing any cash over to the GAA.

Whatever the scenario, the FAI loses. If Lansdowne is redeveloped, the IRFU will still retain ownership. The FAI will continue to pay rent for the use of the stadium and it is highly probable they will never have their own stadium.

[Macy]

Originally posted by Conor74
It's a bit misleading to suggest that the GAA kept money from its players. Do English amateur football teams 'keep' money rightfully belonging to its players? Are the thousands who play soccer in Ireland and England for the love of the game being cheated too? If you play an amateur sport you don't expect payment, you don't get payment 'withheld'. It might be bizarre for those of us who follow professional teams to understand the concept of playing a game for the love of it, but you can't reduce everything to grubby money terms.

How many people go to watch the amatuer leagues in proper football? Not many amatuer football games bring in millions for their top games? The GAA is shamatuer anyway - a turely amatuer sport wouldn't be paying top dollar to their blazers, afterall surely they're only in it for the "love of the game" or is it okay for administrators to make money while the players suffer....

Originally posted by Conor74
Croke park may have got some grant aid, sure, but they have dozens of other stadia that would be the envy of anyone in the soccer world here.

So no other grounds have got grant aid? Are you pulling the p!ss? How many bogball stadia would meet UEFA licencing? Wooden benches wouldn't qualify as seating, and all the terraces in the grounds would be ruled out...

I'd hate to see the GAA getting any money of our sport for rent, and for the time frame of building the new stadium (if O'Donoghue ever gets round to bringing it to cabinet!), they should open it as a good will gesture for all the millions of tax payers money that Croker has gobbled up for the bigotted association....

Anyway, everyone knows that Parkhead is the home of Irish football.....

[MikeW]

Don't care how much money the FAI would have to hand over to the GAA in the short term, it'd still be infinitely preferable than the ultimate humiliation of playing our home games in a foreign country. Playing home games abroad should be the absolute last resort, just ahead of shutting down football in this country for good and taking up cricket instead, and its only marginally more preferable at that.

Even the absolute minnows of Europe - San Marino, Liechtenstein, Scotland, The Faroe islands - play their home games at home. We're supposed to be a proper country now (I know thats debatable), stuff like this isn't supposed to happen anymore. And don't anybody mention Wales playing their games in england a few years ago as a precedent because Wales isn't even a country.

[SÓC]

Originally posted by liam88

FAI sources have hinted that Republic of Ireland games might have to staged in Britain because of the scheduled work at Lansdowne Road with Celtic Park in Glasgow mooted as a possible venue."

Glasgow in Britain? Shhhhhh.....dont tell the Sinners.

Bertie only needs to hold a gun to their head for a while to make them do it.

A 50k seater Landsdowne with boxes and the likes would be much better than playing at Croke Park long term. A soccer pitch would be totally lost on that pitch.

[Éanna]

I hate the thought of giving money to the GAAAAAAAAA seeing as they've got more than enough thru government grants already, but its got to be better than playing in Britain. Croker short term followed by the resurrection of the eircom Park plan would be best IMO

[fergalr]

If Croke Park is made available (at a reasonable price) then of course we should play there. To me, that's a no brainer.

Having an problem with paying a fair rent to the GAA sounds like simple bigotry to me. Are you telling me you'd rather hand the money over to a foreign club?

[Plastic Paddy]

Originally posted by MikeW
Even the absolute minnows of Europe - San Marino, Liechtenstein, Scotland, The Faroe islands - play their home games at home. We're supposed to be a proper country now (I know thats debatable), stuff like this isn't supposed to happen anymore. And don't anybody mention Wales playing their games in england a few years ago as a precedent because Wales isn't even a country.

1. Scotland... lol!

2. As for San Marino? No doubting their minnow status (although they hold the record for the fastest ever goal scored against England ) but they play their home matches in Bologna, Italy.

3. Wales? That's fighting talk indeed. I don't imagine you have too many Welsh friends, Mike, as I'm sure you wouldn't be let get away with that sort of comment if you had...

PP

[Éanna]

Originally posted by fergalr
Having an problem with paying a fair rent to the GAA sounds like simple bigotry to me. Are you telling me you'd rather hand the money over to a foreign club?

Its not bigotry, its the exact opposite. Its precisely because I despise the bigotry that still exists in many GAAAAAAA circles that I wouldn't like to give them my money. And if you had actually read my post, I said Croke Park would be BETTER than paying money to a foreign club.

[fonzi]

id say it will come down to the fact that both the FAI and the G.A.A. dont like each other very much!

[Paddy Ramone]

Originally posted by Éanna
Its not bigotry, its the exact opposite. Its precisely because I despise the bigotry that still exists in many GAAAAAAA circles that I wouldn't like to give them my money. And if you had actually read my post, I said Croke Park would be BETTER than paying money to a foreign club.

I think the GAA should open up Croke Park to all sports. The Irish patriots James Connolly and Michael Davitt were both fans of soccer. Also the longest serving President of the FAI, Oscar Traynor was a veteran of the 1916 rising. Eamon de Valera played rugby in his youth and regularly attended international matches at Dalymount. The GAA'S purist attitude on "foreign games" has got to end. Do the modern GAA think they are more patriotic than Connolly, de Valera and Davitt combined.

[lopez]

I couldn't care about where the money goes too. The priority is to keep the games in Ireland.

Ireland stands as one of the richest 25 countries in the world. It is a proper country, a first world country, and has no excuses. However within that is where the sport of soccer stands. It's been battered from both ends. Firstly by not being the country's most popular sport it is in most of the rest of the world, and secondly by so much of its popularity being sucked away by the sport in another, foreign country. The FAI was always going to be shafted no matter how well the team done because it's domestic game has been shafted even more. There is no disrespect in the FAI not owning their own stadium. The FA's of Spain, Italy, Germany and Holland don't own their own stadium. The English FA hired their's from Wembley PLC before using the club grounds. Why should the FAI bother wasting money on their own stadium?

The fact remains that Ireland has the stadiums. It is that they are being denied by a hypocritical sporting association who, when the boot's on the other foot abroad, will have no shame in asking for the use of soccer grounds. The Irish Indy on Saturday showed the various touring exhibition games of certain counties and provinces in Europe, including Rome and Brussels. Are there GAA grounds in these cities to cater for an exhibition game? I bet soccer stadiums are being used as they often are when the London GAA's Ruislip grounds are insufficient for a big payday.

As for Wales and Scotland, no disrespect PP, but these are both part of Britain. In fact it was only in 1998 that they got their own parliaments. Democracy continues to show that there is not a majority in either country in favour of independence that there was in Ireland in 1919.

By the way Paddy R, in the pantheon of national heroes who were soccerphiles, don't forget Dan Breen, who went to his first 'official' soccer game against Yugoslavia in 1955 to stick his two fingers up at all those reactionaries - basically John McQuaid and his Legion of Mary crew - who wanted the game called off.

[Paddy Ramone]

Originally posted by Conor74
On a similar vein (though not the same as the heroic figures you mention), but republicans Martin McGuinness is a big fan of Derry City and round these parts Martin Ferris played for years with Fenit Samphires in the KDL.

It's also interesting to note McGuinness and Ferris are both Celtic fans. It was in some newspaper too, that McGuinness is also an avid fan of Manchester United.

One Irish Patriot who had no time for "foreign games" was Michael Collins who was a staunch supporter of the ban. Another strong supporter of the infamous ban was the wannabe Fascist dictactor Eoin O'Duffy, leader of the Blueshirts.

I think it's curious that Collins and O'Duffy were both pro-treaty Republicans and anti-soccer while Oscar Traynor and de Valera were anti-treaty republicans and yet were soccer fans.

[Lionel Hutz]

Originally posted by Paddy Ramone
It's also interesting to note McGuinness and Ferris are both Celtic fans. It was in some newspaper too, that McGuinness is also an avid fan of Manchester United.

One Irish Patriot who had no time for "foreign games" was Michael Collins who was a staunch supporter of the ban. Another strong supporter of the infamous ban was the wannabe Fascist dictactor Eoin O'Duffy, leader of the Blueshirts.

I think it's curious that Collins and O'Duffy were both pro-treaty Republicans and anti-soccer while Oscar Traynor and de Valera were anti-treaty republicans and yet were soccer fans.

Wasnt Davitt one of the founding members of the GAA?

If memory serves me correctly he also layed the centre sod at Parkhead for Celtic fc!

[Paddy Ramone]

Originally posted by Lionel Hutz
Wasnt Davitt one of the founding members of the GAA?

If memory serves me correctly he also layed the centre sod at Parkhead for Celtic fc!

I think Davitt fell out with the GAA over their support for Parnell during the Kitty O'Shea divorce scandal. Davitt was an anti-Parnellite and believed that Parnell should have resigned for pragmatic reasons. Another anti-Parnellite Tim Healy was also a patron of Hibernian FC in Edinburgh. Many Catholic Nationalists defected from GAA to soccer in the 1890's because of the GAA's support for Parnell.

It also interesting to note that the GAA have never had any problem with using soccer facilities when it suited them, even during the era of the ban! The 1913 All-Ireland Hurling Quarter-Final between Kilkenny and Glasgow was staged at Celtic Park!

[Plastic Paddy]

Originally posted by lopez
As for Wales and Scotland, no disrespect PP, but these are both part of Britain. In fact it was only in 1998 that they got their own parliaments. Democracy continues to show that there is not a majority in either country in favour of independence that there was in Ireland in 1919.

Since when was "Britain" a single political entity Lopez? Schoolboy error...

In any case, the development of the nation-state as political unit that has occurred since the Reformation in Europe doesn't come close to describing the complex relationships between the peoples of the different nations on these islands. And that's without taking account of the various diaspora and therefore the likes of me and you. Wales and Scotland may have only varying degrees of self-determination politically, but that surely doesn't impact on the rights of their peoples where they so wish to claim a separate identity. In both cases, part of this expression of identity takes place on the sporting field; hence the development of "national" stadia in Cardiff, Glesga and Embra. But I digress.

FWIW I agree with your fundamental point. Our home games should be played in Ireland. End of story. Over to you Brendan, Bertie et al. Sort this out FFS.

PP

[lopez]

Originally posted by Plastic Paddy
Since when was "Britain" a single political entity Lopez? Schoolboy error...

Since 1707. There is one head of state unlike Austria - Hungary before WW1. One parliament (devolution introduced in 1998). Britain built an empire, not Scotland and England and when Ireland was coerced into union it was with Britain not England and Scotland. There is just one passport for the country. The country has one army, unlike the German Reich before and during WW1. The country has only one seat on the UN compared to the old USSR where both Ukraine and Belarus had seats. If this isn't a single political entity, a 'state', then I concede I don't know what is.

Some things were different in Scotland (not Wales) like the legal system and local notes. The three countries have their own sports teams. So what? These were in British sports where the charade of 'international' competition was encouraged long before the rest of the world took up the sports. In sporting competitions founded and organised by non-Britons - like the Olympics or tennis - united British teams tend to compete (as always there are exceptions). Indeed you talk of 'national' stadiums in Cardiff, but this wouldn't have been built without money from the rest of the country (Britain).

As for the complex relationship of the peoples, this has come to the surface only since the decline of the empire. 100 years ago there was huge support for the Tories in Scotland with the Liberals gaining the 'home rule' support. Separatism was miniscule, almost unknown. I'm all for people gaining independence but that has to be the majority. That is not the case in Scotland or Wales. In fact both countries (especially Scotland) have contributed greatly to the (singular) British military occupation of Northern Ireland.