That's a serious piece of kit. What would that cost to do a pitch?
Afaik Shelbourne developments is gone after his nama episode. I’m not sure if GK main arena is property anymore. I was under the impression that he had his finger in other pies. He seems to be keeping a lower business profile these days compared to years ago, whatever his business portfolio involves.
For anyone interested, a full interview with Paul McLoone, the Harps director in charge of the stadium development. Details what the money will do and what we'll need to do going forward for the project.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
Great interview. I really hope that ye can get the full €8m together and get it done in one go. He sounds like a man that just gets stuff done
Good man Paul, he has been knocking on every door for years to make this happen.
Will be a brilliant piece of infrastructure for Donegal. Cant wait to get up there again.
How well did the car draw do Nigel if you know? People are talking about the Louth GAA house draw but that being a county thing tickets were sold out A car draw is far more feasible for a town club like Dundalk. Would Harps have a county wide appeal that a house type wide fundraiser could work, relatively?
He's a grounded and great advocate to have for Donegal sports never mind Finn Harps listening to that interview. There is certainly a lot of ambition still to fulfill the plans but the obvious concern is the provisional nature of the recent grant and what is needed to draw that down. Maybe its in place, finances there, but not finalised yet. The original builder musnt be the only crowd involved going on what was said and what could be done with this grant. Imo Harps should go for getting this site opened even with a single stand and work from there rather than say eg 2023, with €8m the full plans will have been implemented. There is no doubt that pitch capacity is needed for all Harps sides and so Finn Park is part of the plan. But whatever money is available should be used to draw down this grant and get Stranrolar functional rather than spreading finances thinly by also trying to upgrade Finn Park in tandem, be it pitch or whatever.
Last edited by Nesta99; 14/04/2021 at 8:29 PM.
Think the car draw went well for the club. Not sure we'll get any figures from it, but certainly should be enough to see the training facility up and running for June or July.
I would presume that more draws of that type, or one of the house draws will be required to raise significant money towards the stadium development.
The grant application for Finn Park is separate too. We still need to play there for the next couple of years so there's no point in neglecting it either.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
Champions League money would arrive just at the right time for Harps and save a whole lot of effort!
So there is a separate application in the pipeline for Finn Park too? Thats a serious amount of work to get the finances together to draw down 2 grants. Yeah Finn Park needs to be kept usable but imo at minimum commitment until things have restarted on the new ground. Risk of ending up falling between 2 stools, and development of the training facility also. unless of course there is money sitting ready to go.
I don't know all the ins and outs of it and I'd be doing a disservice to the club trying to explain, but there's a separate application in for Finn Park to upgrade the floodlights (which are pretty f*cked) and to upgrade the playing surface.
https://kesslereffect.bandcamp.com/album/kepler - New music. It's not that bad.
Yeah that is correct- a separate application for Finn Park under Sports Capital Grant this year. These grants can be up to 95% I think so if it was awarded, and we obviously have no idea yet, the commitment from FHFC would not have to be massive- as the max is €300k under this programme. Very different scale to the stadium project.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
Disgrace that Dundalk (and every LoI club) are not at minimum putting in SCG applications yearly, 300k would cover the remainder of The Shed and build a toilet block that side Town End.
Not at LoI level but I do smile at the different perceptions of what is considered significant for a clubs contribution to draw down a grant. I remember one local club scoffing at a potential hole of €150k as not much to be bothered about and another club's treasurer almost in tears at having to find 20k to draw down their grant.
That particular grant cannot be used for spectator facilities. Also the limit is €50,000 if your lease is not long enough. The FAI and Walter Holleran in particular put a lot of effort into highlighting the grant to clubs, encouraging them to apply and guiding them through the process with a number of workshops. The number of applications from football went up 96% from the previous round of funding which is great to see.
BTW the list of applicants for this is here: https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/b62...-applications/
Last edited by Mr A; 15/04/2021 at 4:44 PM.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
A tractor for brushing the pitch then, I just want to see an effort being made by club owners or admin in applying. Be interesting in due course to see how grants/amount awarded to football correlate with the number of applications. It is great to see such an increase, it was one of the key roles of LSPs to increase awareness and run application workshops well in Louth anyway. Again the baseline from previous years would be an interesting stat (not so much that id go looking for figures though these days). I know it isnt the case but a 96% increase could be from 10 to 19 and a bit. The proportion of those eligible who dont apply could well pique more interest.
Fair play Finn Harps, v interesting interview. Great to see someone like him involved. Its about time League of Ireland started getting its fair share from these sports grants.
Very encouraging to see more football clubs applying this year.
I've seen a couple of Shels supporters online commenting on saving Tolka. Is there any substance to this?
https://mobile.twitter.com/RedsIndep...96886430662660
This is where I saw it most recently. I haven't read the article.
Big plans and serious money, a lot of bucket collections. https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2021...m-and-academy/
Ask for 17m funding and get about 5m would be good effort.
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