I'm not sure that there is a minimum capacity for championship games. In any case, with capacity for 15k and a new stand which is better than most around the country, Kildare shouldn't have an issue hosting games.
As others have said, something similar would be more appropriate for Casement. They could include handball allies, community facilities, etc. without squeezing a 30k seater stadium onto such a confined site.
Smaller grounds with great facilities for players and spectators should be the aim, encourage lads to get season tickets if they want guarantee a seat or a spot for a big game, nevermind have 30k+ seats so Paddy & Josephine can go to the 1 game a year they play Dublin or make a provincial final. Sell outs create a buzz - look how well the LOI is doing with attendances this weather.
Looking at the Hyde yesterday on TV the upgrade of the main stand appears to be going well
They could, but they would still have to develop somewhere else for big games, Ulster does not need every county to have more capacity than that but it does need one bigger stadium.
Ulster has a big stadium.
The work there is progressing quite quickly all right.
However, it's not the stand that's being upgraded, it's the seating in front of the stand. Previously there were just concrete benches, but now they have nearly all been replaced with modern plastic seating.
It's a real pity when they were building the current stand that they didn't uproot the same seating then and put a full-length stand similar to Tullamore in there. It would be so much better than the current stand.
I'm really interested in these developments in general,kind of like a sad hobby!
I saw the upgraded stand on telly yesterday,up until that point it had be very hard to get any proper info on it.
My takeaways are that it's a bit of a hodge podge of a job with the top of the stand only running 2/3 of the pitch.About 80% of the seats are open to the elements aswell.As was mentioned this wasn't really a rebuild, just replacing the concrete benches at the front,some of which had been closed off for the last few years.
On the positive side it's a major improvement on what was there.Most impressively they've managed to do it on the cheap and not put themselves in debt for generations like other counties.
It's a good example to mid tier smaller counties of what can be done.Fair play to them.
Was a disgrace what was done back in early 2000s when they did the stand.
It was thrown together.
The whole lot should have been demolished then and as you say build something similar to Tullamore.
Saying that at least work has started and more works in the pipeline with new dressing rooms and more toilet facilities next on the agenda.
Looks like Nolan Park will be getting Rugby games next year. The article below also says Croke park for URC final. Would 82k stadium not be a bit big for a URC final?
If Leinster are the highest ranked team to reach the URC final, if they want it to be played in Dublin it would have to be in Croker as the Aviva and RDS will be unavailable. I guess they could nominate a stadium elsewhere but they would have played their quarter and semi in Croker already so they'd most likely stick with it.
I know, and I'd be quite happy to see it modernised, but the NI and London money is not available for this location.
Its all income thats all that matters. I wonder why lenister choose nolan over portlaoise for the URC game as it is has floodlights and nolan hasnt
What NI and London money? The Irish government has offered funding but less than half that amount would leave STP a very good stadium. Could be as little as 10% of the money required for Casement.
Looks like still time to wait for countys looking for the passport money
The Irish News are saying Tenders for casement in the next couple of days. Still no confirmation of British money yet.
It seems they want to have a firm price before committing on funds. It'll be early summer before tenders are returned so expect a lot of wrangling over the summer. The timing isn't good, the politicians will be having a summer break and then the lads in Westminster will be gearing up for an election.
Why do people like you have such a problem with casual GAA fans? Not everyone is interested in it to the extent of going to every game. If Paddy wants to just go watch the big match then where is the harm?
No harm but the infrastructure shouldn't be built for Paddy. It should be built for year round use.
Couldn't of said it better.
Build for the people who go regularly.
Have Limerick building plans for the Gaelic Grounds.
Depends on the meaning of "plans". They signalled an intent to roof the Uncovered stand and land next to the stadium on the sight of a substation was bought in the hopes of someday providing better fan facilities.
But no nothing concrete 🤭 in the works.
Mackey stand must be worst stand in ireland uncovered great place to watch a match
Not the absolute worst but so flat it has terrible sightlines. I'de sit in the Uncovered in the pissin rain before the Mackey
I'm pretty sure there's plans in place to have floodlights installed in Nowlan Park soon enough. Not before time either, I might add.
I'd be more worried about the state of the toilets than lack of floodlights to be honest.
Definitely no plan to have them anytime soon. All that's really been said recently is that they might consider them sometime in the future. Short account here from their County Convention in December - https://www.kilkennypeople.ie/news/sport/1378588/floodlights-in-upmc-nowlan-park-in-the-future.html
But only 3k seating means its not really suitable for year round use, standing out on an uncovered terrace is not appealing to most supporters. I hope they have ambitions to add covered seats on the far side of the pitch
Or cover the terrace on the far side similar to Ennis which is well regarded as a year round ground.
Was the Irish News mislead about the Casement Tender been released this week?
Pearse Stadium Floodlights going to cost around 8 Million. Thats some price.
https://connachttribune.ie/pearse-stadium-set-for-the-spotlight-at-last-790/
Is there something else going on as well? That seems a massive price just for floodlights.
Have just had a look back at the programme for the first floodlit match in Wexford Park last year (v Kilkenny in the Walsh Cup). A piece there tells how the cost of the work was just €1.15 million, and that includes a lot of irrigation work that was done on the pitch too. €8 million for floodlights alone seems astronomical by comparison.
