Who Has The Worst County Grounds?

ProudDUB wrote: »

No its not. In countries that are better at planning & designing places where large numbers of people congregate, they are able to understand the concept that sometimes a father may want to bring his young daughter to a game, or a woman her young son. The lone father can not enter the ladies toilets & and his daughter may feel uncomfortable going in by herself. Likewise, a woman can not enter a mens toilet, and her young lad may feel uncomfortable going in by himself.

So the powers that be put in a family bathroom that is unisex and specifically for people with children. It is also monitored by a bathroom attendant so that no one can enter it who shouldn't be. They are very common in US airports, stadiums, train stations etc etc. God forbid we ever do something so that is so forward thinking, or just plain common sense here !

Absolutely agree, although I have to say, as a dad, having been to the Aviva recently with my 6 yr old girl and having to deal with an "emergency", the women in the queue were very understanding and let me jump ahead

back on topic, Pairc Ui Choimh is a dump and hard to get to, don't like Pairc Ui Rinn either, something fierce dreary about it. Main stand in the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick is very shallow and I've always found it hard to see here. Doctor Cullen Park in Carlow is fine on a warm day but there is something about it when the wind blows that I can never get warm there.

It must be such a drain on the resources for county boards to have to maintain stadia that in many cases are dilapidated and in my opinion too big for purpose.

The current championship format means that not every ground gets to host championship matches every year. So a lot of grounds are only really used for club and league matches, which don't generally attract a high attendance, and thus don't need a high capacity. Without the income from regular big matches and use, how can it be justified that first of all GAA grounds are on average too big, and second of all large-scale redevelopment of these grounds takes place.

I think that unless the championship format is changed to one where more grounds are used more regularly or else league games start attracting higher attendances then most grounds will continue to be run down.

Outside of Croker I only see the need for one large (30,000+ capacity) stadium in each province and a handful of medium sized (circa 20,000) stadia that would regularly see championship matches. The rest for the most part would not need stadia larger than 8 to 10,000 capacity. Even then these numbers I have are probably too big.

I would like to see that if the GAA were to consider building new or redeveloped stadia that they be publicly owned and open to soccer and rugby from the start. For example, would it not be cheaper to rent the use of a public stadium when required rather than having to upkeep their own stadium?

event wrote: »

aye, its poor. Sure a lot of clubs have better grounds (the oconnells for one).
hopefully the new pitch is actually built

Am I correct in thinking that the GAA in the past wouldn't put money forward to do up Drogheda as it was owned by the O'Raghaillaigh's club rather than the GAA themselves?

Hopefully Louth GAA do get their stadium in Dundalk IT built, their plans look very good in fairness, only issue for me is that if it is built they won't allow other sports use it, which just shows to me that the GAA remain in the dark ages in some aspects.:rolleyes:

It begs the question of why so many of these things were built in large urban areas?

Clareman wrote: »

When most of them were built they were on the outskirts of the towns, in fact the land the Gaelic Grounds are on used to be in Clare.

Does the Clare-Limerick border mark the coming together of tectonic plates?

Mullet wrote: »

The worst gaa grounds I have visited over the last few years are Newbridge, Pairc Ui Chaoimh. Both these grounds have issues that have been highlighted before. I am aware Cork County Board have planning permission to redevelop Pairc Ui Chaoimh but is there a need for another ghost stadium that maybe full twice a year. Then you have the location that is not very accessible on match day whether it be league or championship.

My favourite county grounds are Tullamore, Carlow, Longford, Killarney.

Tullamore really needs a clock or something though, can't stand not knowing how long is left when you forget to time it

Meath handed some land south of the Boyne over to Louth in the 70s after Drogheda had expanded a lot south of the river. It's expanded even further since then, so it's possible to have an address in "Drogheda, Co. Meath"

Clareman wrote: »

LOL

The origina border was the river, then it was moved out past the Maternity hospital, now it's out past Coonagh

Meelick, Parteen and Clonlara are next

We demand our Liebensraum!!!!



*For what it's worth, when the Gaelic Grounds was built in 1926, it was very much on the edge of the city, surrounded by green fields. The surrounding land area has since of course been swallowed up by the ever growing city.