Gaa Grounds and stadiums

Timmywalldo

As an Irishman im proud of my heritage ,,,, Other sports like rugby and golf are becoming increasingly popular .....

What i cant understand is why the Gaa has not rolled with the times ...

for the exception of croke park .... none of the other gaa stadiums are hardly a thing to be proad of ....

Stands ,,, uncovered areas ,,, Weeds growing up throught seats ....

Its just not acceptable ,,,

the fact that gaa sports are amateur ,,,, where is all the money going

Browney7

I'm very proud of Jackman park, Tallaght stadium and Ravenhill myself,,,, Some of the finest sporting arenas in Europe.

cruiserweight

Timmywalldo wrote: »

As an Irishman im proud of my heritage ,,,, Other sports like rugby and golf are becoming increasingly popular .....

What i cant understand is why the Gaa has not rolled with the times ...

for the exception of croke park .... none of the other gaa stadiums are hardly a thing to be proad of ....

Stands ,,, uncovered areas ,,, Weeds growing up throught seats ....

Its just not acceptable ,,,

the fact that gaa sports are amateur ,,,, where is all the money going

Which stadia in particular are you talking about?

LeoB

Its going to be quite a long process to upgrade all the grounds the G.A.A. have. Work has been done on loads of county grounds but more importantly look at what little clubs are providing facilities wise up and down the country. I drove up to Omagh yesterday and the facilities I saw up in Monaghan, Emyvale, Aughnacloy and Cullaville were equal to what any other organsation has. As far as I now upgrades are planned for a number of grounds around the country

Around Dublin look at the floodlights and all weather facilities clubs are providing. Thats where the money is going and thats where it should go, to the clubs who are the heartbeat of communities up and down the country. We dont need 32 stadiums which will never be filled.

The question I would ask is what have the other organisations done with the millions they got from their professional Inernational bodies?
The G.A.A can be proud of most of its work

KevIRL

Timmywalldo wrote: »

As an Irishman im proud of my heritage ,,,, Other sports like rugby and golf are becoming increasingly popular .....

What i cant understand is why the Gaa has not rolled with the times ...

for the exception of croke park .... none of the other gaa stadiums are hardly a thing to be proad of ....

Stands ,,, uncovered areas ,,, Weeds growing up throught seats ....

Its just not acceptable ,,,

the fact that gaa sports are amateur ,,,, where is all the money going

This post is wrong on so many levels. The GAA has most definitely 'rolled with the times', the most obvious sign of this is allowing soccer and rugby to be played at Croke Park.

It is however still an amateur organisation, the money goes back into the grass roots. Also a lot of good work is being done to improve grounds around the country, Semple Stadium Thurles, Gaelic Grounds Limerick, Nowlan Park Kilkenny, O Moore Park Tullamore and Pearse Stadium Galway spring to mind for me. I'm sure some of the football guys will be able to give more examples.

There are some very poor substandard grounds, but by and large a lot of work is been done. Also it must be remembered that as it is an amatuer sport, and the nature of the competitions mean that having a lot of Croker style stadiums around the country would be a waste of resources, a lot of them would be vacant or half empty a lot of days over the year.

The atmosphere at some of the county grounds can be second to none. I defy anyone to go to Semple Stadium on Munster final day and not be taken aback by the atmosphere

Diabhal Beag

We might not have any Bernabeu or Old Traffords but as Kev said the atmosphere is the best is the world for any sport with the exception of huge derby matches in soccer.

Have you ever been to Thurles or McHale Park OP? Have you savored the atmosphere? Would you rather have grounds like Twickenham with flat atmospheres and very little crowd reaction?

I for one am proud of our stadia.

toiletduck

Timmywalldo wrote: »

for the exception of croke park .... none of the other gaa stadiums are hardly a thing to be proad of ....

I have to ask, have you actually been to any? And if so, which are you talking about?

Orizio

TBF, outside of Croker, most 'major' GAA stadiums are too big and too basic.

LeoB

Orizio wrote: »

TBF, outside of Croker, most 'major' GAA stadiums are too big and too basic.

I cant disagree with that but what do we need really? The grounds were built when attendances for challenge matchs were as big as what you get for league semi-final now.

Neighbouring counties should look at sharing grounds especially where there are low populations and low support. The G.A.A. would be mad to keep pumping money into grounds that will never be full, not even for a senior championship match. What was the biggest attendance so far in the league? 15-20,000? The fiercest rivelary would be hard pushed to get that size crowd for the league.

We need grounds that can hold 15-25,000 for the league and play all championship games at neutral venues maybe 6 stadiums along with Croke Pk, Cork, Thurles, 1 in Connaught, 2 in Ulster and 1 outside Croke Pk for Leinster. If we had this the G.A.A could then look at improving basic facilites in county grounds on the basis of attendances at league games.
We could upgrade the some facilites, toilets and food areas but thats it.

ShamoBuc

Pairc Uí Chaoimh, Semple, Gaelic Gronds , Fitzgerald Stadium... just some of the grounds in Munster capable of holding 35000-45000 people. The professional associations of rugby and soccer have what exactly? Surely the qiestion is why have they Nothing like what the GAA have?
The gaa club grounds all around Ireland have seen enormous development , care to guess how many are floodlit?
The Gaa have poured money in at grass roots level. They are proud of their history and are well prepaired for their future.

Shakeandbake!

I was in McHale Park today and it's a credit to the Mayo county board and the G.A.A.

aidan24326

Timmywalldo wrote: »

As an Irishman im proud of my heritage ,,,, Other sports like rugby and golf are becoming increasingly popular .....

What i cant understand is why the Gaa has not rolled with the times ...

for the exception of croke park .... none of the other gaa stadiums are hardly a thing to be proad of ....

Stands ,,, uncovered areas ,,, Weeds growing up throught seats ....

Its just not acceptable ,,,

the fact that gaa sports are amateur ,,,, where is all the money going

On the contrary, what we have is too many big grounds, with too much emphasis on increased capacity and not enough on facilities. Take McHale Park as an example. Now it's a fine job and all that, but did Mayo really need a stadium with a capacity of 40,000+ ? When it will ever be full, or even close to full? A Conaught final against Galway would go close enough to filling it, but it's hard to think of another game that would.

I don't mean to just single out Mayo, the same could be said of The Gaelic Grounds in Limerick, Pearse Stadium in Galway etc etc I agree with LeoB that what we need is more grounds with capacity of around 15-20,000ish (big enough for 90% of GAA games) and then a few big stadia scattered around the country which could hold major championship games. I know that situation exists now to an extent, but we really don't need all these big stadia (like the ones mentioned above) which are rarely full or even close. It's a case of pumping money into the wrong area (increased capacity) which is just wasteful.