Stadium Updates (All Clubs)

[sbgawa]

Harps and ollie have punched above their weight for a good few years , this stadium could be what it takes to make them a more solid mid table side with occasional moments of triumph. It is still my favourite away day and please God this actually happens. I haven't seen a scale model so that is a good sign

[Charlie Darwin]

.The reason Croke Park weren't very vocally standing behind their club side was due to it being suggested that they may not want to establish a precedent of insisting that publicly funded facilities must be available to all sports going forward and so maybe capital funding might be a tad harder to come by.

The reason Croke Park weren't vocally standing behind TD is because it was all being driven by Dublin GAA against TD's will. They made TD take the case because they wanted to shield themselves from not only losing out on future handouts but responsibility for the legal bill.

[Nesta99]

TD were fine with things until they realised that their legal bluster wasnt going to stick and may have wanted out. I now know thanks to Buller that it wasnt SDCC that dug the heels in but the Minister for Sport, which Im sure was a severe shock to the GAA. TD may well have been thrown under the bus by Dublin GAA but Croke Park were in damage limitation mode so who pushed who first is hard to know. Where Croke Park and the Dublin County Board start and finish was never particularly defined with all the back scratching at the best of times - Dublin GAA was a cash cow even back then. If TD now claim they were forced by Dublin GAA, unwilling to get involved, then they are being a bit revisionist. If they had succeeded Id be confident that they would claim credit and that they stood in the front line. I limited my interaction with GAA as much as was possible as they were just a headache, but I cant see how a county board could force a club in to a judicial review and expose them financially if a club refused, the other clubs would back the refusal and a county board is made up of club people after all. As metioned, there was a lot of back corridor agreements made, not recorded accurately as would be proper and if such decisions happened in formal meetings. That way of doing business was changing but I think Mr Delaney may have ensured change sticks when a PAC will come after ye. One thing is for sure and thats that few if any know everything from that saga, and more than once the towel was almost thrown in by civic agencies involved and just have the bulldozers roll in. Ive had to revise some of my own thoughts on the subject with the Minister for Sport not siding as you'd expect. Its real nerd stuff but I did enjoy all this kind of stuff and still take an interest even if a long way from any involvement so apologies for cluttering threads on the topic.

[Glen Of Aherlow]

Any word on Pat's plans for Richmond ?

[D24Saint]

Any word on Pat's plans for Richmond ?

We were supposed to be in on the City Development plan that’s being worked on by the corpo. I had a brief look through the pdf they have online and didn’t see Richmond mention in the Inchicore section. Unless that’s not the final draft that will be voted on by councillors. We need something to happen with Richmond to give it a facelift.

[Glen Of Aherlow]

We were supposed to be in on the City Development plan that’s being worked on by the corpo. I had a brief look through the pdf they have online and didn’t see Richmond mention in the Inchicore section. Unless that’s not the final draft that will be voted on by councillors. We need something to happen with Richmond to give it a facelift.

Yeah the European game the other night really showed that , brilliant atmosphere but a shame to see two sides of the ground empty for such a big match.

[Philosophizer]

Yeah the European game the other night really showed that , brilliant atmosphere but a shame to see two sides of the ground empty for such a big match.

In a way I love that about Richmond, that it has one whole side and one end of the ground terraced, and the other side's have seating. And you're basically on top of the pitch! Still one of my favourite grounds to watch a game.

[A N Mouse]

Thanks Nigel, interesting read and generally tends toward there being light at the end of the tunnel. A few things of note, how fecking big is the site as €1.1m for DonegalCoCo to acquire the site is a lot (agri land averages at 10k per acre, 29 acres of industrial zoned land in Kildare €125k per acre. Regional differences apply and housing zoned land is costly and sport and rec zoned usually not a whole chunk more than agri or unzoned land. if someone has some up to date figures it'd good to see but they could have picked a cheaper site!!). The site must already be reasonably well serviced as €250k sounds on the low side - for context an unserviced site proposal for Drogheda United a decade or so ago, was priced at about €2m and that would have been if LouthCoCo paid for and did the work rather than a private company, bit cheeky of DUFC to both look for council funding and also have the council pay for and do essential work, permission was denied if anyone was wondering).

Take you mean this bit

The land purchase costs for the Sports Master Plan area were € 1,081,482, which includes the lands leased to Finn Harps FC to accommodate the Donegal Community Stadium.

Which I read as total cost for ALL land purchases related to Sports Master Plan in the county, so not just Stranorlar.

[Nesta99]

Take you mean this bit
Which I read as total cost for ALL land purchases related to Sports Master Plan in the county, so not just Stranorlar.

Ah, that would make sense then. Fair play to DonegalCoCo if they are spending that sort of money acquiring land for sport and rec across the county, especially at a time when land banks that have been used for sport are being reallocated to housing. Does Donegal have a shortage of playing pitches in general, as other areas do?

[nigel-harps1954]

There's loads of sporting facilities in Donegal. Between GAA, junior and intermediate football there's a massive amount.

Thing is, there's no real central spot for sport. All dotted around the county. Finn Valley centre and Finn Harps development is only part of what's planned to be a massive sporting centre. They have a huge amount of area to develop there. Will be several football pitches, both grass and artificial, running tracks and full athletics facilities, swimming pool, rugby pitches, GAA facilities, and a heap of other bits and pieces within a stone's throw of each other once it's all developed and will be on a par with anything in the country of it's kind, from the bits and pieces I've saw of it at least.

There's a massive regeneration plan for the twin towns area to coincide.

[Nesta99]

Sounds like a cohesive project rather than the old piecemeal spread the funds wide and thin, keep the politicians happy so that the can claim credit for securing funding, but nothing moves past a Phase 1. It will be some feat if its fully delivered on a reasonable timetable

To keep funding on track we just need to make sure inflation isnt through the roof - the cost of servicing national debt isnt rising, no war in Europe, keeping energy crises at bay, keeping supply chains open while avoiding a dollar/euro parity when importing and shipping costs are already high on the back of a pandemic that shut the world down, not letting housing stock fall and rents rise, and just for the heck of it the FAI not having a €63m hole in their finances and the GAA being fine with sharing a sporting centre of excellence. Or the money is in a bank actually earning interest and everythings grand!

[joey B]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022...lymount-plans/

Dublin City council say current plans for Dalymount Park are unviable cost wise,plan to revise plans and demolition of the Connaught street stand to begin in August….

[Philosophizer]

I've had a feeling this was coming for a while. The wording in the last announcement a couple of months ago was very interesting - "Such a redesign could also deliver a higher capacity facility".
I think the folks in the know at Bohs and DCC have probably known for a long time that a full redevelopment with a cost of 30-50 million was never really on the cards. A more likely outcome all along was to keep the Jodi and just rebuild the other 3 stands, which would probably bring it above 8k, with a bonus of never having to leave Dalyer at all.

[Philosophizer]

The 42 has more details on the "second option", which will end up with a capacity closer to 9-10K, rather than the "first option" that had a capacity of 6k...

"The second is ‘option 2′ from the MCA appraisal, which includes: leaving the Dalymount pitch in the same position, refurbishing the Jodi Stand, a new Main Stand with a potential capacity of 4-5,000 and community facilities, a new covered terrace with a potential capacity of around 2,000 and a small terrace at the east end of the stadium with a capacity of around 250-300."

[nigel-harps1954]

A Dalymount Park with a ~10k capacity makes far more sense.

[DCWA]

The 42 has more details on the "second option", which will end up with a capacity closer to 9-10K, rather than the "first option" that had a capacity of 6k...

"The second is ‘option 2′ from the MCA appraisal, which includes: leaving the Dalymount pitch in the same position, refurbishing the Jodi Stand, a new Main Stand with a potential capacity of 4-5,000 and community facilities, a new covered terrace with a potential capacity of around 2,000 and a small terrace at the east end of the stadium with a capacity of around 250-300."

That would be absolutely fantastic if it materialises.

Perfect surely?

[GUFCghost]

The league's unique selling point is that it's rustic. Of course rustic is a very vague word but hopefully it can be taken into account when building new grounds and redeveloping old ones.
We should be encouraging safe standing, spectators as close to the pitch as possible and stadiums that aren't bland uniform arenas. It'd be interesting if the league had it's own architectural philosophy, basically.

[ger121]

The 42 has more details on the "second option", which will end up with a capacity closer to 9-10K, rather than the "first option" that had a capacity of 6k...

"The second is ‘option 2′ from the MCA appraisal, which includes: leaving the Dalymount pitch in the same position, refurbishing the Jodi Stand, a new Main Stand with a potential capacity of 4-5,000 and community facilities, a new covered terrace with a potential capacity of around 2,000 and a small terrace at the east end of the stadium with a capacity of around 250-300."

I think most Bohs fans would be very happy if that option is the one they end up going with.

[EatYerGreens]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2022...lymount-plans/

Dublin City council say current plans for Dalymount Park are unviable cost wise,plan to revise plans and demolition of the Connaught street stand to begin in August….

No real surprise. Hopefully whatever new plan is designed has a capacity larger than 6,000, which really is too small now for North Dublin. Should be aiming for 7-8,000 absolute minimum at Dalymount (with Tolka 5-6,000 ?).

What's the story with the hospital car park at Dalymount ? How could the capacity get to 10,000 with that thing eating into one entire side ?

[Nesta99]

30-50mil? Ah here there is taking high costs in this country on the chin, and then there is taking the p!ss! FFS there are stadia of 30k knocking around for that kind of money that rejuvenate an area and a stadium as a centre piece. Sounds like a few people may have noses out of joint. maybe having lost Tolka Park (to a wink and nod) and now throwing a strop on Dalymount. SDCC should pop in to say hello!...