The Bertie bowl revisited
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Hear Hear.
I always thought the hypocrisy of the GAA accepting payment to exhibit such a WASP-dominated sport as American “football” in Croke Park was laughable.
American football is certainly more “foreign” (read – “English”) than soccer, perhaps even more so than rugby. The GAA should by rights consider banning Gaelic football from Croke Park since it was created by combining aspects of Association football and rugby. Cuchulan played hurling, not football.First time I’ve ever heard American “football” described as English. They do play rounders as well, but call it something else.
Anyone for cricket?
…………and according to historical sources Cuchullainn was a Brit….his original name being Setanta…..which is non Gaelic……suggesting he was captured and brought to Ireland from Britain by the Gaels who carried out raids on old Blighty in those times…..as like the origins of St. Patrick.
St. Paddy and Setanta may have belonged to Celtic or Pictish tribes in Britain.
As I always say Irish history is full of contradictions………and when you throw in religion it is absolute bonkers…….the ongoing troubles in Ireland are partly based on these ongoing myths.(I think baseball has it’s origins with cricket……aka stoolball…………aka rounders…originating in Medieval times in Britain..although many cultures have games involing a ball and bat………..as like ourselves with hurling ……which golf may have come from ……aka the Puck)
That came out a bit confused – I meant that the GAA complain about foreign games, but they really mean English ones. Games like soccer and rugby have been played in Ireland for a long time, longer than Gaelic football in fact (but not hurling or handball), but American football is virtually never played here. Thus it is distinctly more foreign than soccer, and just as foreign as baseball or volleyball.
I agree with you…….
…….and the GAA perpetrate those myths too……
We are all cut from the one cloth……..
Once the GAA smell the money they’ll open Croker up to one and all …even to the devil himself………but let’s hope it is not to late for Euro 2008……………..It is after all in the best interest for the whole of Ireland and the profile we have internationally.american football may be more foreign than soccer or rugby but the perfectly valid reason the gaa have for not allowing them to play in croker is that they don’t want to promote sports that are competing for their players
– most recent examples graham geraghty and brendan devenney . Why should they help their competitors? They’re not hypocrites in my opinion. If they do let soccer and rugby in it will be because they either want/need the money or they bow to public/peer pressure as all politicians do be they heads of government or heads of the gaa.
The real villain in my view is bertie – not mary harney who is showing common sense both in a public finances kinda way but in a the-brief-is-all-wrong anyway kinda way – who wants a f**king 80,000 seater in the middle of nowhere which we need another dart/luas built for just to get to, costing oodles more unnecessary tax payers money!
Bemoaning the fact that the plug has been pulled is idiotic cos it was an arse plan anyway!
It would have been the original white elephant built on a big field near the meath border! A stadium in the middle of nowhere is never going to be remotely self-sustainable.
Any private developer would need a stadium in the city somewhere where economic spinoffs for the stadium and the area can happen allowing them possibility for a return.
Bertie gave the gaa 60 million the day before they voted to keep rule 42 in place – the 60 million removing any financial reason for having to remove the rule and allow other sports in. The greatest piece of bribery seen in Ireland ever and no brown envelopes in sight here, all in the open, the man is a genius and we are sheep with the wool over our eyes!
No soccer or rugby in croker of course meant that his ‘bertie bowl’ (a title which probably really appeals to his ego in private where we don’t know about) thus had a legitamcy and a ‘need’ to be built – for the irish sporting public’s sake of course!. Suited the gaa fine to take the money, why wouldn’t it? And I have no problem with giving the gaa public money to fund croker either cos they have a record of raising money unparalleled in this country and then doing something useful with it. They are entitled to their success – more people watched 4 dublin matches than the semi-finals, 3/4 playoff and final of the soccer world cup this summer! I personally am sick of togging out beside a ditch for my soccer team here in dublin.
Bertie has lead us all a merry dance, he whistled up the pipe dream and hasn’t delivered it in any sense. All the olympic village, velodrome, testing facilities crap that surrounded the stadium in behnischs masterplan were never going to be built, they were just in at the start to be pared back later with just bertie’s monument to his own professed love of irish sport remaining.
Personally I would favour a stadium for each of the three sports allowing them to have their own business plans unreliant on each other and giving each their own independent sources of income.
Croker in the north cith centre, landsdowne in the south and eircom park seemd good to me.
Anyone seen vitesse arnhems stadium in holland where they wheel the pitch in form outside the stadium allowing it to be used for concerts, exhibitions and the likes. A 40,000 odd seater built for approx. 100 million quid if I remember correctly would make a nice eircom park. And all this fuss will only get worse when the swiss come to town and people realise the bucket seating in landsdowne is now banned by uefa and we have only 28,000 in two full stands and two empty terraces watching.
I would also favour turning the axis of landsowne for a new stadium there too while we’re at it……but in my lifetime? I dunno……as long as we keep getting the rulers we deserve I doubt it!I think the B…B….Bertie man had the idea of creating an Olympic village with the notion that Dublin aka the capital city of Ireland could host the Olympics one day in the future…..which everyone has failed to realize……(Gay Mitchel once mooted the idea way back when we were a lot poor and had no hopes then….. and everyone shot him down….)
To build Stadia in the city centre will require the gracious permission from the locals to host fixtures cause the noise and disruption causes them pain…….fair enough…..but someone should tell them they are living in a city (aka hustle and bustle) not the bog of allen (aka peace and quiet)…….
The GAA had to ask for permission from the locals to host the recent replays on a Saturday.Abbotstown is out of the way……but anything can be hosted there when buit ….which was the idea…….. …..unless the cows and sheep object…………but I bet there will be still some locals too……..Housing estates are fast developing in close proximity……you’ll notice that ……but that’s if ye’ve ever been out there.
Well it looks as if the IRFU don’t really know what to do now either… you’d think they’d be able to come up with a few ideas themselves but obviously not:
http://www.irishrugby.ie/newspage/24670.html
I don’t really like the way the GAA has been bashed above. Granted the ‘rule’ is incredibly stupid and should have been abolished a long time ago without the need for a vote, but they have done more for this country than any other sporting body and deserve to get every penny from the government.
One really has to wonder what the IRFU are doing now… they have sat back while the Scots, Welsh and English have proceeding to build fantastic stadiums and left Lansdowne crumble… for a long time they were very rich indeed but failed to act…
Croke Park will always be Irelands most utilised stadium and if it cannot be sustainable then there is little hope for any other proposal… remembering that we only have around 3 home rugby internationals, and even in 2003 (a busy year for the FAI) only 3 soccer internationals – two of which are against ALBANIA and GEORGIA !! How many people are going to get into a car and be stuck in traffic for hours out in Abbotstown for those games ?!?
Lots of problems i know, but for me the only solution is to get the government, local reps, and the IRFU/FAI at a table and sort out a way to turn Lansdowne through 90 degrees…
The number of matches played there will be the same as now, the capacity of a new stadium will be the same as the old (50,000 say) and the transport infrastructure is there… Give the residents a host of new amenities (say crèches, new roads, decent parks etc etc) and everybody can be happy…
thats just the problem with inner city stadiums….the gaa are beholden to the residents and keeping them on-side has become quite a headache…
I would prefer to have the National Stadium somewhere within or around the canal’s but objections from every resident and their mothers in the vacinity would probably stop or severely delay any plan…
Abbotstown is no more out of the way than the proposed site for Eircom park which you seem to approve of dmcg … I don’t consider anywhere in dublin county to be “the middle of nowhere” + the extra land surrounding the site at least leaves us the option of proceeding with the campus should we discover a few dozen oil wells off the coast of donegal.
I like tom humpheries (?) suggestion; the irish bottle company land is a pretty good site. no immediate local residents and a central location. Flog a bunch of the land at abbotstown, revamp landsdown, and stick a nice new 40,000 capacity stadium at irishtown.
at least peter you seem to realise how likely it is that any irish government would ever build the rest of the ‘olympic facility’ originally proposed for abbotstown.
eircom park was at least sited within tallaght (a most neglected part of dublin city) would spread our cities 3 stadiums around nicely in a geographical sense and will be served by the luas. abbotstown meanwhile would need it’s own new luas line or similar, requiring at least one previously undiscovered oil field to be found, and is not a part of the city although the cows are being squeezed out by the ever creeping closer new housing estates in the area. Also wouldn’t it be a shame to lose John Tuomeys laboratories out there not to mention unnecessary in my view. What’s the cost of building them again somewhere else? I unashamedly favour stadiums in the city and feel that that’s the price to pay for residents who can walk to stephens green in the case of the two we have already. After driving past a tail-back which stretched from Abeeyleix almost to Kildare town at 10.30 on the night of the hurling final, it was the residents of abbeyleix I felt more sorry for, not those beside croke park. Stadiums and big matches cause disruption – shoving them to our cities fringes is not the way foward.I’m really getting fed up of people slagging Bertie’s stammer. A real case of playing the man and not the ball. And is there no way to change the subject title of this thread, Paul? I don’t think it does this excellent site any favours to be mocking the taoiseach’s speech.
Ah common it’s only a bit of banter… ….and the Bertman would probably agree too…….with his pint of Bass in Fagan’s…………I mean he is our Premier…..as in head of the State………he does’nt have a stammer or stutter in a medical sense, but he does play the auld unfortunate ‘I don’t know’ Irish bit ……..it’s just the way he talks………………………aka Up the Dubs. We will be back for the Sam next year……….Croker is our home……………….only kidding
As has been previously stated the Odyssey Arena in Belfast is the only enclosed sporting facility in Ireland. The Waterfront Hall is truly a ‘national’/ international venue compared to the ‘National exam hall’ on Earslfort Terrace. We only have to look north for guidance and direction when it comes to the realisation of leisure and cultural centres. The big difference is that these projects up North have been funded with the help of substantial Lottery funding. Our Lottery was loudly proclaimed on its much heralded inception as funding for major sport facilities. All that has been funded is mickey mouse projects by the lobbying of local TDs ensuring that local parish pump groups got their bar extensions built on to every GAA and golf club from Malin Head to Mizen Head and no government interest in any grand national plan for Stadia or public leisure centres.
That’s very true what you say ……but however I would’nt use our ‘NO NO NO’ Northern brethern as role models …..
I mean it is all part of the Peace process to help reconstuct society there in ‘Norn Iron’…..Investment in leisure facilities is a key to help heal the rift up there between the communities……..We on the other hand are left to our own devices…..and of course we make a b*****ks of things but we don’t have the gentle nudge in the back as like what our brothers and sisters in Ulster have from the Brits the USA and Ourselves.
They also have a bigger pool of money to splash about from the Lotto funds becuse of the more substantial population of the whole of Britain….where as we only have a minute fraction in comparison.
Pity about the loss of our National Conference Centre………but look at Croke Park what we have……….you could fit 3 Windsor Parks in there. We are no longer are the poor bogger Free Staters……okay there are still one or two turnips about here.
How about Windsor park being used as an alternative venue to Landsdowne Road whilst they redevelop it………
Good on Armagh yesterday winning the All-Ireland…..it was a great victory for the underdog, the whole island and sport………however I did ‘nt see any of Trimble’s or Paisley’s gang there ……and they had the right opportunity to wear their Orange sashes too.I’d be delighted to see Internationals played in Windsor Park and Thomond park whist Lansdowne is redeveloped as something akin to the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. Don’t know what the soccer boys would do though? Dalyer anyone?
Apart from Windsor Park being an awful dump of a ground that makes Lansdowne Road look space-age, its situated right in the middle of a staunchly Unionist area i.e. the kind of area with union jacks flying from every available pole and kerbstones painted blue, white and red. The chances of an Irish team other than Northern ireland playing anything there in any degree of comfort and safety are slim to say the least.
…but not as slim as an Irish National team playing on the sacred holy ground of ‘our national’ games… (keep or rather stay of our Irish grass)… Croke Park… National Irish Teams need not apply. All Ireland is as good as it gets for them thanks be to God ….as they really loose the run of themselves.
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