Another GAA-insider's view on the Maze Stadium

[Evil Genius]

(Admin - If this should be added to another thread, or even moved to the GAA section, by all means please do. It's just that I didn't want it to get lost in some of the other threads on the topic, sidetracked as they are into interminable rows* about flags and anthems etc)

http://www.sundaylife.co.uk/sport/article2815030.ece


GAA: Grounds for concern

Should the GAA back new stadium?

Sunday, July 29, 2007

By Maurice Kennedy

Funny how with this whole debate about the proposed new stadium for the Maze/Long Kesh, the one thing that has been taken as given is that the GAA is unequivocally on board.


It's ironic that while Minister Poots has called on all interested parties to have their say there has been precious little transparency within the GAA over its involvement.

Maybe I'm missing something but I can't recall any dialogue on whether or not the GAA should hitch its wagon to the so-called national stadium for Northern Ireland.

Maybe now that the Stormont government is weighing up the issues it's time the GAA's Ulster Council did likewise before it gets ahead of itself. Now there are all sorts of conspiracy theories as to why the GAA has, seemingly, given its unqualified support for the new stadium. Some of them might be deemed unhelpful but hey, that's free speech for you.

One particularly cynical line of reasoning argues that you don't bite the hand that feeds you and that, yes, the GAA has (quite rightly) benefited greatly from Sports Council funding. Now it's payback time and the GAA has to be seen to do the right thing.

That might all be very well but there are still a few issues that GAA people need to be looking at.

It might not seem all that important in this new era of political pragmatism, but you can't ignore the fact that the GAA has already got a 'national stadium'. The suspicion is that that there's a political agenda behind the proposed 'national stadium for Northern Ireland' and that's something a lot of GAA people committed to a 32-county set-up wouldn't be entirely happy about.

But even that might not be the main issue - what ought to be, however, is the lack of open and honest debate on what exactly the GAA has in mind for other stadia like Clones and Casement.

Talk of a multi-million pound refurbishment of the west Belfast venue seems neither rational nor credible if indeed the GAA is signing up to hosting a few of its top games every year at a new sports stadium 10 miles down the road.

And as for Clones - even allowing for the hosting of the Ulster Final there for the first time in four years - there is a deeply held suspicion, not just confined to Monaghan, that the standing of the once undisputed home of Ulster football has been deliberately undermined.

There's an argument commonly proffered east of the Bann that Clones is isolated and out of the way and that no amount of redevelopement could get St Tiernach's Park up to the kind of comfort levels we've grown used to at Croke Park.

Firstly Clones is a great deal more central to a greater number of people across Ulster (nine counties, of course) than any big carpark on the edge of greater Belfast. Try telling someone from south Donegal, Fermanagh, Cavan or west Tyrone that it's only a run up the M1, and now that the border roads have been restored Clones is accessible from all points on the compass.

There might of course be good financial reasons for the GAA rowing in behind the Lisburn stadium proposals but it would be disingenuous in the extreme to say that Clones can't cope with future Ulster finals if the decision has already been taken to deprive it of major investment.

There are plenty of us who still have a tremendous attachment to Clones as the home of the Ulster final and who believe the sense of tradition and the special atmosphere that surrounds big match days in Clones is something we should be celebrating and capitalising on, not abandoning in the name of progress.

If it was all about creature comforts and corporate imagery, the Munster final would have long since departed Thurles.

Leaving politics out of it - and I'm not sure that that is possible - the GAA already has two fine stadia of its own which, with some investment, can be enhanced and improved to cater for all but the very biggest games in Ulster.

Of course Croke Park was pressed into action in recent years because Clones simply couldn't cope, but now we're being told that the Lisburn stadium will be only marginally bigger and certainly not big enough to host the odd monster gate that only Croker can cater for.

The new Lisburn stadium might be a great idea for other sports, and good luck to them, but the GAA has enough of its own.

It's one thing to say you'll play the odd game in Lisburn in the interests of sporting ecumenicism - it's another to allow yourself to be billed as an anchor tenant.

Is there something we're not being told?

Maurice Kennedy is editor of Gaelic Life





* - Usually blamed on me, into the bargain!

[Donagh]

A "GAA-insider"!

[GweylTah]

Who would be regarded as "GAA Insiders", then, anyone who has anything to do with the GAA who says something critical about this seems to be branded an outsider or ignorant.

Does the GAA not see how it might be being manipulated with this, does it and its members enjoy having their strings pulled by darker forces or those who have an interest in the scheme that doesn't have a concern for the GAA at all?

[Donagh]

That you have to ask such a question simply betrays your total ignorance and lack of understanding of the Association. As such you are hardly best placed to be offering the GAA any advice.

[GweylTah]

Donagh, well then offer your perspective, analysis and teaching to those of us who are outsiders or just interested spectators.  Are you an 'insider', or just someone on a high-horse?

[Fluffy Che]

A fairly solid discription of yourself there, Gowayon.
If you don't mind me saying..

[GweylTah]

Whatever you say.

And your views on the stadium and whether the editor of Gaelic Life is an insider or an outsider?  Are you an insider or an outsider?  Are your comments here just fillers?  What is it?

[Fluffy Che]

Just fillers..

[SammyG]

That you have to ask such a question simply betrays your total ignorance and lack of understanding of the Association. As such you are hardly best placed to be offering the GAA any advice.

So basically anybody that agrees with Donagh is an insider and anyone who disagrees isn't. Right excellent, gald we got that cleared up. 

[Orior]

I'm all for Long Kesk Pairc, particularly if it winds up owc. And its good to see a DUP man (Pootsie) standing up for LK Pairc and the Irish language.

Its laughable that unionists wont travel 10-12 mile down the motorway to a soccer match, when I'm quite prepared to travel 60 mile to my provincial stadium, and 100 mile to my national stadium. Those same unionists will think nothing of travelling to their mainland to watch glasgow rangers, manu, liverpool or arsenal soccer teams.

Unionist arrogance - it hasnt gone away you know!

[Donagh]

That you have to ask such a question simply betrays your total ignorance and lack of understanding of the Association. As such you are hardly best placed to be offering the GAA any advice.

So basically anybody that agrees with Donagh is an insider and anyone who disagrees isn't. Right excellent, gald we got that cleared up. 

Sammy please point out were I said anyone was an insider or an outsider.

[SammyG]

Sammy please point out were I said anyone was an insider or an outsider.

You said that the editor of Gaelic Life wasn't an insider and when asked to quantify who would be considered an insider you made snide comments about people not understanding the GAA. Unless I've completely mis-read your posts, on this thread.

[Donagh]

You said that the editor of Gaelic Life wasn't an insider

Would you like to point out where I said that?

Unless I've completely mis-read your posts

Obviously, but then you have a tendency to read what you want from other peoples posts.

[SammyG]

You said that the editor of Gaelic Life wasn't an insider

Would you like to point out where I said that?

Your first post on this thread.

[The Gs Man]

What is it with OWC and this whole "conspiracy theory" (as per Gweyltah and the OWC site)?  Someone get Mulder and Scully out of retirement.......or maybe this is a job for the Mystery Gang.