Tolka Park Capacity

**steveyg2004** · 27/07/2005, 11:27 AM

Alright lads.

There is a bit of a discussion on the Glentoran section of Irish League Forums about how many Linfield fans attended the Setanta Cup Final. Our club secretary Alex has said that Ollie Byrne told him that Linfield had 1140 fans in the Riverside stand and the Bluemen are spitting bricks at this suggestion.

What I was wanting to know is, what is the capacity of Tolka Park, and exactly how much does each side of the ground hold? Does anyone know this or have a link to this information on the net?

Thanks.

PS Good luck tonight, I'll be watching on RTE.

**EnDai** · 27/07/2005, 11:31 AM

9800 seats in the stadium IIRC. (Tonights almost sold out, and cheers for the good wishes!) Not sure about exact number son dies tho, but I thought the Riverside held about 3500.

**Drumcondra Red** · 27/07/2005, 11:32 AM

But Linfield didn't fully fill the riverside dispite what they say!

**steveyg2004** · 27/07/2005, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by EnDai

9800 seats in the stadium IIRC. (Tonights almost sold out, and cheers for the good wishes!) Not sure about exact number son dies tho, but I thought the Riverside held about 3500.

How many seats are in the away seating area behind the goal that we were in last Wednesday? What is disputed is that if the attendence was 6000+ and the Linfield fans numbered 1200, that the 2 home seating areas that Shelbourne fans were in wouldn't even add up to 5000 seats capacity wise.

**EnDai** · 27/07/2005, 11:38 AM

I think the one the Glentoran fans were in is about 1200-1500.

I'm not a reliable source though, trying to remember, but nothing concrete.

**steveyg2004** · 27/07/2005, 11:59 AM

An interesting question, and possibly one that would be impossible to answer given the different locations, but would any of you say that there were significantly more Linfield fans in Tolka in May than there were Glens fans last Wednesday?

**Slash/ED** · 27/07/2005, 12:21 PM

To be honest I would say there were more Linfield fans but that is only based on looking at the crowds on both days. I wouldn't say there would be a huge difference though, it's understandable given one was a saturday and one was a wednesday.

**pete** · 27/07/2005, 1:38 PM

I'd guess if Riverside is 3500 then 2000 at Ballybough behind the goal?

1500 Glens fans last week?

Be surprised if only 1150 Linfield fans at Setanta Cup. Did they keep their receipts?

**Slash/ED** · 27/07/2005, 1:44 PM

The Riverside is bigger than that, over 4,000 iirc. Ballybough end on the other hand is probably closer to 1,750.

**higgins** · 27/07/2005, 1:45 PM

The way I see it is this.

New Stand 1000
Main Stand 2000
Ballybough 2000
Riverside 5000

If it is 10,000 as we are told the riverside holds far more then any other

Maybe its 2,000 to 2,500 in Ballbought and 4,500 in Riverside ?

Linfield had lots more fans then Glentoran did I would say. There was about 2,500 or so of them in there I thought

**Slash/ED** · 27/07/2005, 1:49 PM

You'd never fit 2,500 in the Ballybough end. The Riverside stand is definitely by far the biggest, it's the biggest stand in the league for seated capacity iirc.

**Schumi** · 27/07/2005, 2:02 PM

There was a discussion on this in the attendances thread at the start of the season. I think the figures decided on were: New stand - 1000, Old stand - 2500, Riverside - 4500 and 2000-ish in the uncovered end.

**higgins** · 27/07/2005, 2:03 PM

Thats not too hard Slash is it!!

Anyway if you look at the main stand that holds in around 2000 ? I think it might be 2,200 then look taight across the oitch and the Riverside is the exact same going twice as far back and then a little bit more.

Id guess 4,500 in the Riverside at least with the Linfield fans probably in half of it were they.

Sorry Glens but I do think they had more.

You were by far the more friendly bunch

**steveyg2004** · 27/07/2005, 2:14 PM

Is it true that the decision to put us in the Ballybough end was made at a very late stage (on the day), or had we always been scheduled for there?

I would have assumed that Linfield would have actually been entitled to the Riverside for the Setanta Cup Final because the venue was effectively 'neutral'. For a Cup final where both sets of fans are entitled to an equal allocation of tickets you couldn't stick one set of fans behind the goal.

**Slash/ED** · 27/07/2005, 2:27 PM

It was made a day before the game iirc, but no sooner than that. Yeah we probably had no right to move Linfield but we usually put away fans in the Riverside stand but hopefully that's changed forever now.

**steveyg2004** · 27/07/2005, 6:21 PM

Originally Posted by Slash/ED

It was made a day before the game iirc, but no sooner than that. Yeah we probably had no right to move Linfield but we usually put away fans in the Riverside stand but hopefully that's changed forever now.

To be fair though, I think away fans are entitled to covering if it is pishing down.