The
last ever match to be played at Lansdowne Road before redevelopment
took place on New Year’s Eve, when Leinster took on Ulster
in a re-run of the first ever game staged at the Ballsbridge venue,
before the demolition men get out the diggers and pull down Ireland’s
home for Rugby Union for 130 years.
The Dublin 4 venue has finally had time called on its illustrious career
as an international sporting arena and the bulldozers will now move
in to transform the ageing stadium into a 50,000 capacity ground, with
an anticipated completion date of the 2009 autumn internationals (although
with the amount of time it took to build the Luas – don’t
be surprised if this ends up taking much longer).
As the world’s oldest international sports stadium, Lansdowne
Road has witnessed some great occasions, and in the future will feature
many more under its continuous curvilinear-shaped stand enclosing all
four sides.
Questions must be asked at the decision to increase the capacity to
50,000 considering Croke Park will be full to capacity for all of the
games that are scheduled to be held there, which does go to show that
there is a huge demand in Ireland to watch international Rugby and
Football.
The problems behind the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road stem from nearby
residents, which probably means why the planned capacity isn’t
much larger (it was admitted recently that if planning permission was
turned down, there was no ‘Plan B’ regarding re-development),
but while the new venue will be sleek and shiny, the old Lansdowne
Road will live on in the memory of anyone who ever watched a game there.
Ironically enough, the first game to be played at Lansdowne Road was
Leinster against Ulster, with the result the same as it was on the
stadium’s last outing with Leinster coming out on top on both
occasions.
It had been planned that there was to be a Magners League double header
with Munster due to play Connacht to start the celebrations off, however,
there were fears that there would be an influx of fans from south of
the Shannon who would end up taking over proceedings.
On the day, there was a Magners League attendance record of 48,000
(with 20,000 coming from north of the border) to see Brian O’Driscoll’s
Leinster secure a 20-12 points victory.
The clever big wigs at the Irish RFU have decided that if people do
want to have a piece of the stadium, then they will have to pay for
it as hoping to sell the remnants of the old stadium, including the
pitch, which meant that punters could leave their spades and saws at
home and enjoy the game without trying to scramble to get a piece of
Irish history.
Blades of grass will be made available in key-rings while it is proposed
to sell squares of the turf in glass cases. Bits of Arsenal’s
old Highbury ground was similarly auctioned off raking in a nearly £500,000 – so
you can see the logic behind their thinking considering the majority
of gate receipts from the Croke Park games will be going into the pockets
of those at the GAA.
So now the goalposts are being wrapped in bubble wrap and transported
to north Dublin when both national Football and Rugby teams will take
to the lush green Croke Park sward where on February 4, France will
be the first ever non-Irish, non-GAA team to run out at the 82,500
capacity ground in the Six Nations championship.
It is sure to be an emotionally charged day when England are the visitors
on February 24, a game which will make those opposed to the move shift
uneasily in their seats.
In order to help the Irish Rugby team acclimatise to their new surroundings,
the GAA have revealed that two familiarisation sessions for Eddie O’Sullivan’s
men could take place in Croke Park in late January and training sessions
in the week prior to the games after the IRFU had requested this facility.
It was also explained that a request from the FAI to use Croke Park
for a training session on 5 February could not be accommodated because
of the Allianz National League game on 3 February and the following
rugby international on the 11 February.
Talking about the upcoming games, GAA President Nicky Brennan said: “This
is a wonderful chance for us to internationalise the GAA around the
world.
“We will be very careful to point out to visiting supporters
what Croke Park means to people and inform them about its history.
This is a wonderful opportunity to show the world how strong our amateur
association has become and to showcase Irish sport at its passionate
and thrilling best.”
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