Twickenham has hosted Rugby League.Originally Posted by backstothewall
If anyone wants to rent Twickenham then they can so long as it's free and you can cough up the rent.
Tallaght is regularly used for Gaelic Games, Hurling, ladies football and camogie. Underage level obviously including Feile finals. Again, its a publically funded facility and anyone who wishes to use it can. Anyway it seems the GAA in its own way have finally done the right thing here so I guess it's time to move on.
You could tell from the guy being interviewed today how uncomfortable a time it has been for the GAA the last little whole, between this and the "Newbridge or Nowhere" debacle. They aren't used to being shamed into coffing up usage of their (public funded) grounds, and there was comments made about politicians being "unhelpful" (ie, not towing the GAA line like they usually do).
Someone made some joke before about the GAA not wanting Protestants running the place, but we really shouldn't discount that attitude from within the GAA organisation. There is a large proportion of their membership that still treats association football as an enemy, an "English" game that needs to be fought tooth and nail, even when it is as self-defeating as holding senior All-Ireland games against the World Cup Final. But the point stands, that the GAA should not be allowed to draw down so much money in grants and then turn their nose up at other events that don't pass their own outdated criteria.
Last edited by NeverFeltBetter; 28/07/2018 at 10:52 PM.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
The GAA coming across as being very insecure in all this . Never a good look . When you appear to lack confidence in your Game / Product it doesn’t inspire confidence in observers .
How often would something as clear and obvious ( of being a very good and deserving case ) actually come up .
The GAA cannot expect to be getting Taxpayers money and not get some pressures that may come with that .
I'd imagine they will now start putting massive pressure on any stadium projects that receive public funding to have a playing surface big enough to accommodate GAA. Probably starting with Drogheda.
It would not surprise me if they did, although if there are no more requests for access to GAA stadia for other purely sporting events (Cork City for European games for example), the whole thing might just fade away.
Also, I'd guess that the most cost-effective sporting solution would be a shared public stadium not under GAA control, and I'm not sure how happy the GAA would actually be with that.
I haven't been on here much, mainly because of Paul O'Shea, but I've had my own issues with the PUC debacle. I'm that contradiction in Irish sporting terms, I'm as big a fan of Gaelic football as I am football. I'm not happy that the GAA have been forced to circumvent their own constitution, which has many faults, but has one huge plus that football does not have. The GAA constitution is open to amendment by any registered member that has enough backing to do so. I'm not a member of a GAA club, nor do I reckon a lot of people who publically outcry the non-use of PUC for non-Gaelic events. Whats the biggest complaint of the FAI? Zero accountability. The GAA is accountable every week of the year to it's members.
The above should not be considered a criticism of those who want to open up PUC or any other GAA ground. It should be considered a criticism of those within the GAA, either admin or legal, who didn't do enough with the small print to ensure that they weren't put in a position by accepting public money that required the organisation to have to ignore its own constitution.
Having lived in a town for the guts of a decade that had 4 sets of separate grounds accommodating 4 separate sports in a small provincial town, I am hugely in favour of municipal sports facilities.
Having served for the guts of a decade on administrative bodies at club, county, provincial and lastly at National Governing Body level, in a 32 county minority sport, I can provide example first hand at both the cackhandness of administrators who yield significant power, and also at the absurdity at times of the both the Irish Sports Council and the Sports Grants system that are awarded, and consequently I am hugely in favour of municipal sports facilities.
All that being said, I quoted the above two posts specifically, because they both reference two huge issues I think will now come to the fore following this debacle; and to be perfectly honest, they would have bubbled to the surface had the IRFU been successful in their World Cup bid. Rule 42 will be abolished at some point, probably by the lifetime of the next government.
When we talk about municipal sports facilities here, we should be concentrating on new builds, not remoulding existing GAA grounds. However, rightly or wrongly, the GAA are in possession of the largest and most spacious sports grounds in every city, town, county in the country, and they cannot be ignored. Unfortunately for other sports this means in my eyes that any sporting programs that involve regeneration using public money, it is just going to mean GAA facilities being upgraded and being considered to be open for other sports to use- as Osasuran mentions. Which means that ultimately football clubs around the country (local ones) will still be scabbing around rather than being an equitable partner in any public facility.
In my mind, what this means is that any soccer stadium, as btw references Drogheda above, will need to be big enough to accommodate GAA,. I guarantee this is going to be demanded by the hardcore GAA people around the country.
Here they come! It’s the charge of the “Thanks” Brigade!
Which will be awful. Huge playing surfaces with fans in the front row at least 15-20m away from the edge of the pitch.
A role that stadiums over a certain capacity, say 10,000, have to be made available for other sports might be the way to go
Thatwould be awful? Have you seen the state of the two "stadia" in Drogheda. Plus the standard width of of a professional football pitch is 68 metres, while the minimum GAA pitch with is 80m, leaving an extra 6m on either side, which is far less than you said, as well as far less than the gap at the Waterford RSC, the London Stadium and loads of major stadia that have athletics tracks around them - and why not add an extra few metres to the width, to encourage expansive football?
If that 6m gap is still a problem, you could use retractable seating, or align the soccer pitch so that it's close to the main stand (remember we're probably talking about stadia in small or medium sized towns primarily).
If you really want an intimate four-sided stadium, do something similar to the North End at BMO field in Toronto, where the CFL end zone is partially artificial turf, is covered for Toronto FC games to turn it into a standing bar/concourse area with small temporary stands.
That said, we're really only talking about Drogheda here, unless Finn Harps' stadium plans go belly-up
The minimum length of a GAA pitch is 130m. A football pitch is typically 105m long. Behind the goals you are talking 15m+.
And that's the minimum. The GAA are likely to want something closer to 145m long.
I know there are stadiums out there with running tracks, dog tracks etc. We even have one up north with a stock car racing circuit around the pitch (Ballymena Showgrounds). I don't think any of them really work though. I haven't heard many complaints from Derry City about losing the dog track at the Brandywell.
Artifical pitches are an interesting point though. Perhaps 3 sided stadiums at the minimum width for GAA could work. Maybe I'm being too negative.
I'm sure there is a creative way to design a stadium specific to the needs of a soccer/GAA shared facility.
On a basic level I can imagine a permanent structure that gives enough space for GAA, with sliding seats underneath that main structure that can come out for soccer matches to ensure a proper atmosphere with supporters closer to the pitch.
This obviously would come with additional costs but I believe there is a way to achieve this if there is a will.
That would be the most viable solution. Again, currently the only place where permanent groundsharing with an actual stadium could be a solution is between Louth GAA and Drogheda United. All other LOI clubs have stadia/stadia plans that meet their current needs. I know Bohs and Pats are looking to move to new digs but there's no viable GAA partner for them. So for Drogheda/Louth you could have a stadium with 2 stands holding 2-3000 along the length of the ground, with terracing at both ends for 3000 each, giving a total capacity of 10-12,000 which would be suitable for bigger Louth GAA games. For Drogheda games, the last 15-20 metres of one end gets cordoned off, giving a three-sided capacity of 7-9000, which is suitable for Drogheda United's needs in the Premier League and maintains the intimacy that soccer fans like. For bigger Drogheda games (or even just to maintain the feel of a four-sided stadium), small temporary stands could be installed on the empty end, which may require artificial turf only inside the 21m line of the GAA pitch - the rest of the pitch can remain as natural grass.
Of course, groundsharing is a better solution for amateur soccer clubs in smaller towns where sharing with the local GAA team doesn't require an actual stadium so there are few, if any logistical issues, just regulatory ones. There may be the possibility of Cork City getting to play a European giant in a Europa League group stage, but even that is rare and, as Shamrock Rovers showed, may not even require the GAA's help
On the Louth GAA/Drogheda issue, I just found this article about plans for a new home for Louth GAA... from seven years ago: https://www.independent.ie/regionals...-27157359.html - and now the GAA has "closed the door" on developing Drogheda's Gaelic grounds: https://www.thesun.ie/sport/gaa-foot...or-a-new-home/ - seriously, can't everyone just set aside their tribalism and just all pitch in a few million euros to get this done and create a win-win situation.
Last edited by samhaydenjr; 06/08/2018 at 3:15 PM.
I don't know that a GAA pitch at the minimum dimensions would be a runner for intercounty games. But for underage teams the smaller pitch could be of great benefit.
The best approach must be to look at the individual needs of towns and cities and build accordingly. In a county that plays both Gaelic football and hurling a GAA stadium will likely be so busy there is little spare capacity to bring in other sports. There is no better example of that than Galway. There it would seem sensible at first glance for Pearce Stadium to be brought up to date as a GAA facility, Connacht Rugby & Galway Utd to share a new stadium at Terryland or elsewhere, and allow the Sportsgrounds to go to the dogs.
The sense of entitlement coming off these statements is unreal: https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2019/01...-felt-bullied/
I said it before but it bears repeating: the GAA higher-ups are very unused to being the subject of political and media pressure in this manner. The idea that the GAA would have allowed their stadium to be used for the match in their own time if everyone had just left them alone seems very disingenuous to me.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
He says they were bullied into hosting the game, but really they were shamed into it. Just as they were shamed into caving when (ironically enough) they tried to bully Kildare into relinquishing home advantage for their qualifier against Mayo.
I had some sympathy for the GAA when the whole thing took off initially, as it was nothing to do with them really and all of a sudden they were knee deep in a controversy not directly of their own making. But they handled it appallingly I felt, the original knee-jerk statement refusing to accommodate the match, saying they received legal advice about the funding and all that stuff seemed pretty cold in the circumstances.
And it's absolute nonsense for him to suggest they might have accommodated the match of their own accord if they were "given the chance". They were given the chance, and then another chance, and then another.
It's hard to understand the mentality of him dragging all this up again now after the event was deemed such a success in the end. Do they actively seek bad press?
an attempt to distract from the ticket price increase controversy.
What I read from the GAA chief is that he felt the GAA were bullied into finding a way to circumvent their own rules and to do so in record time, that sets up a bad precedent
The central committee allowed the game to happen as a special exception under extreme pressure from outside and inside, now will have to define what a special exception is at annual congress, vote on it and get the clause entered into the rules.
That's a cart before the horse method of rule changing and that definitely rankles the cautious conservatives.
€30m of tax payers money went into the building of the stadium. i fully support public money going to major sports infrastructure but it must come with conditions. two issues annoy me...... 1. the use of the facilities should be more open to other organisations to ensure their highest possible use and 2 a certain amt tickets should be available at reasonable prices to ensure that all sections of the public can afford to attend the facilities. €90 for a stand ticket to the all ireland and €120 for most of the 6n seats prices the events beyond large sections of the public.... this is wrong
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