The 2025 All Ireland Senior Football Championship (Sam Maguire Cup)

Is there a table of pitch playing surface sizes on the net anywhere?

https://www.rte.ie/sport/hurling/2022/0511/1297395-size-matters-gaa-pitch-dimensions-irk-beyond-measure/

Semple Stadium - 145 x 90m

Pearse Stadium - 145 x 90m

Cusack Park (Ennis) - 145 x 90m

Dr Hyde Park - 145 x 90m

O'Connor Park - 145 x 90m

Ballybofey - 145 x 90m

Croke Park - 145 x 88m

Nowlan Park - 145 x 88m

Dr Cullen Park - 145 x 87m

Aughrim - 145 x 86m

Brewster Park - 145 x 83m

Páirc Ui Rinn - 144 x 88m

Páirc Ui Chaoimh - 144 x 88m

Fitzgerald Stadium - 144 x 82m

Athletic Grounds - 143 x 88m

Breffni Park - 143 x 86m

Markiewicz Park - 142 x 90m

Clones - 142 x 87m

Páirc Sean Mac Diarmada - 142 x 87m

Wexford Park - 142 x 87m

O'Moore Park - 142 x 86m

Healy Park - 142 x 86m

Walsh Park - 142 x 80m

Parnell Park - 141 x 82m

Cusack Park (Mullingar) - 140 x 82m

Glennon Brothers Pearse Park - 138 x 88m

Celtic Park - 138 x 84m

Gaelic Grounds, Drogheda - 138 x 83m

Páirc Elser - 138 x 81m

Gaelic Grounds - 137 x 82m

MacHale Park - 137 x 82m

Páirc Tailteann - 135 x 87m

Newbridge - 135 x 80m

Wow. I'm surprised it is as short as that. I think Meath will cause them a lot of problems. 8 point handicap is very interesting.

Is this the weekend where football at All Ireland level gets to breathe? What great articles are in store this weekend when the media have a weekend to reflect on the championship so far?

The Tailteann Cup preliminary quarter-finals are this weekend.

Offaly v New York

Sligo v Carlow

Wexford v Antrim

Westmeath v Laois

Group runners up will always be favourites at home. Carlow, Antrim and Laois have gone well in this competition previously. Surprising Offaly and Westmeath didn't win their groups.

I hope they have cool archive footage etc. and not the usual slow-mo of chaps playing and cheesy 'folklore' stuff that cropped up a bit on the hurling equivalent

Unwatchable. There must be a bunch of newly graduated film school students working on these docs these days or something because they're so over stylized and filtered you can't focus on the story. Shame as there's some great raw material for a fascinating doc there

watching on plus 1 as I forgot about it

Only middling so far

Jaysus, the first 10 minutes of the Football documentary was unwatchable. Interns let loose with video editing software would be the kindest thing you could say. Was about to turn off and then it actually stared. The instincts were for the stupid montages to return for the rest of the show, however in a 1 hour documentary there was about 20 minutes of good content. Should have made it more about the likes of Dickie Fitzgerald and Sean Lavan, giving an insight into how the game became what it is and less about Shane Walsh slowly kicking the ball against the gable. Throwing 10 lads in nikes and tracksuits out into a tiny rocky field to give an insight into the early parish to parish game was pretty ridiculous too.

This should more have focused on the people and less on the visuals. Juxtaposing the current game with the historic one to serve to highlight how the culture and game developed.

They talked about the game getting codified in the 1880s and then 3 years later there being 1000 clubs around the country but nothing about how that happened. Instead of montages they could actually have gone to one of the first clubs that is still running, talked about the history, how it was founded, people behind it and the people still involved etc.

It also talked about it having being a parish to parish same but became a game based on a 140 yard pitch with goals. Would be interesting to understand why 140? Soccer and Rugby teams at the same time would have had much smaller pitches so what was unique in the GAA that resulted in the larger pitch? How did the scoring mechanism come about - there was an early photo of a single soccer type goal with side uprights like AFL - but this was glossed over. On the development of the solo, it was like as if one day Lavan decided to solo the ball and everyone said ok, thats how we play now but I am sure there must have been controversy at the time but never talked about. - as an aside - Mayo were so reluctant to kick the ball long even 100 years ago they invented the solo.

Mayo teams have really carried Lavans tradition too far. Excessive soloing, carrying the ball into tackles, heads down football and missed opportunities to give an early ball to forward lines. We've been perfecting it over decades.