Hurling to return to St Brendan's Park

[kinnittyman]

Am I looking at this too simplistically or is this the case in a nutshell.....

Health and Safety inspect St. Brendan's Park and they put a maximum figure on what is an acceptable/safe attendance.

If that figure is too be tested due to a certain match the options are a) to make the match all ticket so only a certain amount of people can get in or b) move the game to Tullamore??

Am I right in saying this?

Also if the figure to be placed on St. Brendan's is to be the rumoured 5,500 then that seems to me to be below what would be required for the county hurling final and definitley inter-county championship matches. Health and Safety are going to have the final say here it seems and it doesn't look like it's going to be pretty for Birr.

[blue biffo]

lad we can talk all we want and guess and predict capacity but we may wait till birr gets a health and safety report iam reading figures from 5000 to 12000 no one seems to know yet, when will it be done and when will we hear? When it is decided that will start a whole new debate looking forward to that one already.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Yea, but Nenagh (grassy banks and all) must have this Secondary inter-county status or whatever it is that Birr need.

If I'm not mistaken, Nenagh wouldn't get anything bigger than a North Tipp final or a league match where 2000 to 3000 would be the height of the crowd.

[Plain of the Herbs]

There's no point carrying out the inspection until the terrace behind the twown end goal is completed. If there really are design deficiencies like what I have pointed out this morning then they should be dealt with before the builders get paid and are gone off site.

Thing is, there's a Ciunty final in a few weeks time. If (as seems likely) the Final will be in Tullamore then the semi-finals should be held there too in order to give the clubs a chance to do a dry-run of their Final-day routine.

lad we can talk all we want and guess and predict capacity but we may wait till birr gets a health and safety report iam reading figures from 5000 to 12000 no one seems to know yet, when will it be done and when will we hear? When it is decided that will start a whole new debate looking forward to that one already.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Would you believe, I've never actually exited SBP through that gate you mention. I've been on the hill on the very odd occasion they open it, and any time I was in the stand it's been closed and I've had to go the long way around!

They don't even open the gate at the town end of the stand, which would be a major help in getting the crowd out of the ground quickly and safely after games. Indeed, maybe they would be best served in having this, and the gate at the opposite end, as the only access to the stand. I prefer the freedom of going in and being able to pick between the stand and the terrace dependent on the weather, but if you want to be a county ground, you've got to look and act like a county ground and this is the norm in most places. In keeping with that, there should be a seperate gate for players and officials entrance at the dressing rooms, with access to the dressing rooms not possible from the terraced area.

[Plain of the Herbs]

It's in tomorrow's 'Tribune'. 5,500 it is. Oh, and they want nicer seats for the VIPs (bless them). Link here:-
http://www.midlandtribune.ie/articles/s ... r-council/

[kinnittyman]

It's in tomorrow's 'Tribune'. 5,500 it is. Oh, and they want nicer seats for the VIPs (bless them). Link here:-
http://www.midlandtribune.ie/articles/s ... r-council/

Well at least it's all out in the open now and all ambiguity about the whole thing is gone. Although I'm sure we'll still have a fair volume of people going crazy about the hurling final in OCP and won't know exactly why it's not in Birr.

Birr GAA have a nice amount of work to get through to get the county final etc back to St. Brendan's so to me it looks like OCP for the considerable future.

Here's hoping this will put the argument to bed once and for all.

[uibhfhailiabu]

Here's hoping this will put the argument to bed once and for all.

100% agree, this debate about OCP and Birr has been rumbling on for too long.

[bracknaghboy]

I know some people have complained about OCP and the amount of money and effort put into it. But we should really be glad of it now. I see Newbridge has now been capped at a capacity of 4,000. Yes 4,000 down from 13,000!! Health and safety are moving towards new modern grounds and the GAA are pushing for it as well. Kildare will now be forced to seek a new ground. Even the newly developed St. Brendans Park in Birr is struggling to get clearance for over 6,000 and this is further proof that the push is one for modern stadiums. The Offaly county board have got much wrong but getting OCP in the great shape it is has to be commended.

Newbridge capacity cut to just 4,000
St. Conleth's Park in Newbridge has had its capacity for future championship games reduced to just 4,000.
Stunned Kildare county board chiefs have been told by health and safety officers that unless improvement work is carried out, the ageing county ground won't be able to host future championship games involving the Lilywhites, who have one of the biggest followings in the country. Until now, the town centre venue's capacity had been set at 13,000.
St. Conleth's Park isn't the only county ground in Leinster to have had its capacity greatly reduced with Pairc Tailteann in Navan also recently having its capacity halved from 20,000 to 10,000.

[Bord na Mona man]

Its interesting to look at the Dublin satellite counties who experienced the biggest explosion in wealth during the Celtic Tiger and see how they never managed to translate it into bricks and mortar county grounds.

Kildare and Meath are playing in archaic and now low capacity grounds. Louth don't even have a home championship venue and Wicklow are hardly much better. While Offaly probably suffereed from paying boom time construction prices for the Tullamore development, the ground is a credit to the county.

[Lone Shark]

In many cases, particularly Kildare's, they got tied up in knots when so much money was offered for the town centre venue. Developers offered large sums for the town centre site and the debate about whether or not to move tended to lead to a sort of paralysis. Nobody was willing to bite the bullet and move out of the historically significant venue, but neither would they upgrade.

Naas GAA club is a wonderful example of the benefit of moving a little bit out of town. It's not ideal for those who like to be close to pubs, but for everyone else, it's a fantastic facility and one that will stand to the club for years to come.

[TheManFromFerbane]

In fairness to Kildare they have started to develop this site, I lived close to it when I lived in Newbridge and it looks like it's going to be a fantastic development

http://kildare.gaa.ie/index.php?option= ... Itemid=266

[JohnnyB]

As my first post on this site im going to be controversial and get back into this debate about o connor park or st brendans park

i wonder after attending st brendans park saturday for the u 21 games what doees everybody think? there was a bigger crowd there than any offaly game anywhere over the league

St. Brendans Park Birr looked unreal this evening! Easily twice the crowd that was at any Offaly hurling league game this year! Thats where we should be playing! Simples

This is a reference from offalys star Tullamore hurler who also seems to want to bring hurling back to the motherland food for thought

[DAF]

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

Welcome Johnny B, but just go back through the threads and debate away yourself.