Good to see some bit of progress on pairc tailteann hopefully it will be one of the grounds chosen by leinster council for improvement. Although if not surely we as a county can manage over a couple of years to provide terrracing behind the goals.

tulisa (Meath) - Posts: 24 - 08/11/2011 21:12:38    1065485

There's not a chance in hell of Navan being chosen.

Why would Leinster council or anyone else from outside of Meath want to do anything for Meath after Meath refused last year to do what everyone in Leinster and the whole country knew was the decent thing to do.

THE_SNAPPER (Louth) - Posts: 2019 - 08/11/2011 21:40:43    1065526

New seats is something at least but the stand will always be from another era. Having a proper concrete terrace behind at least one goal is the minimum the county board should be aiming for in the medium term. They allowed facilities to remain as is for far too long. All we will see in the near future is the cheapest of the cheap quick fixes.

GlasagusOr (Meath) - Posts: 1348 - 08/11/2011 21:47:17    1065534

I`m a little disturbed at how quitely everyone is taking the situation with Pairc Tailteann.At the moment the grounds capacity has been set at 10,000 before any improvements are carried out.If the works as suggested are carried out this will increase capacity to 18000.I was at the Galway qualifier in Navan this season and while the offical attendence was somehere around 16-18 thousand,anyone present that evening knows the attendence was far in excess of that.My point is that a Meath team in transition can pull in a crowd like that against a Galway team also in transition on a Summers evening,how do we expect to cater for supporters when the fortunes of the team improve or if we draw a big gun like Dublin or Kerry in a qualifier.We are now suffering the plight of our neighbours Louth who for years have been spancilled by the lack of a decent county ground.Pairc Tailteann has been let go to rack and ruin over the past two decades and we are now harvesting that neglect.All this in an era when we were constants in the top 5 teams in the country.It is a shocking indictment of GAA administration in the County over the last 30 years.Leinster council will upgrade 3 grounds.......in other words repaint.The reality is that supporters of Louth,Meath,Wicklow,and Kildare better get used to trapesing into Croke Park on a regular basis.Meath have no one else to blame but themselves.I`m not even going to go down the road of the sponsorship issue.November 9th and still no word?this is our county teams not a junior B club waiting for the local pub to say aye or nay.

The Brickie (None) - Posts: 208 - 09/11/2011 08:40:01    1065573

the stadium should have been done years ago when there was money in the country now in terms of stadia wer behind cavan,longford,westmeath and even carlow. no disrespect inteneded on these counties but what were our beloved county board doing for the past decade? a half baked centre of excellence in dunganny? surely the should have done the stadium first making sure the could cope with crowds on match days and use the money then made from having a decent stadium to fund other projects like dunganny

srgt_slaughter (Meath) - Posts: 462 - 09/11/2011 10:48:11    1065653

ah snapper over 2 years since that happend now and YET ye are still whinging will you do everyone a favour and stop going on like a little girl about it....things happen not everything is going to happen the way it should so just deal with it...pathetic

iamlegend (Meath) - Posts: 66 - 09/11/2011 11:03:34    1065665

Have to agree with the brickie we have to be aiming for a higher capacity than 18,000, we need to be looking at 25 to 30,000 at least, Apart fom the qualifiers if we had a vital leauge match against the like of dublin i would imagine it would draw a huge crowd. Also navan is an ideal neutral venue for loads of counties and access is not too bad in comparison to other venues. there is no sense in playing games in croke park in front of crowds of less than 25,000.
As for you snapper you need to get out more.

tulisa (Meath) - Posts: 24 - 09/11/2011 12:15:43    1065702

Is there not word of a new stadium in an area on the outskirts of dublin or along m50 that the gaa are quietly planning and going to give funding to at the expense of all neighbouring counties needs for upgrading their own stadia?? So it will be used by all those counties and smaller dublin games and probably other championship qualifiers where feasible, with a capacity of 30-40000! All these counties boards need to get the finger out and not be conned by central council into this under some false logic about it being for the greater good of the organisation as a whole! If they dont we can all look forward to no home championship games and all games played in dublin, croke park or this new park!!

jackmeyhoffer (USA) - Posts: 148 - 09/11/2011 16:20:07    1066006

Dunganny was a great investment. Always a dry firm surface all year round, 3 pitches and now an artificial pitch too. The amount of games moved there through poor conditions on other pitches has seriously helped fixture congestion over the past few years. That had to be priority over doing up P.T. Once in a fecking blue moon do we get a 15k+ crowd into P.T. I agree with putting extra barriers on both grass ends would be a great move, safer, relatively cost effective and increase capacity around the 20k mark, which is fine, when realistically no county ground in the country hits that mark more than once in a season, and if they do its a massive bonus windfall.

After that the next thing is to improve the seating in the stand and the internal facilities, which I'm sure is probably fairly expensive, but a few cut backs like foreign training trips, which sounded like extortionate costs, if the figures reported are to be believed, and some fundraising and it could be funded over a 2-3 yr period and then PT is fine. But I'm pretty sure the Dunganny project did put a halt on any PT improvements over the past decade, and people should realise that this was probably more of a priority and has proven a good move.

Alias (Tipperary) - Posts: 463 - 09/11/2011 16:29:18    1066019

Alias is right about Dunganny. Fantastic place to play matches when everywhere else is unplayable. Also you could argue its a better location than PT for underage meath training since there is no traffic congestion in Dunganny.

monkeyd (Meath) - Posts: 163 - 09/11/2011 16:55:44    1066039

I have to agree with you on that one Alias (although it pains me to admit it). I am sure we would all love to see a brand new 30,000 capacity stadium in Navan, but we have to be realistic about what we can afford. Other county boards have gotten themselves into serious financial difficulties spending ridiculous money on new grounds, and are now left with expensive white elephants that are never filled. As you rightly point out, how often do we have crowds of 15,000+ attending Navan - once a year in the qualifiers? Twice this year admittedly, but that is not going to pay the mortgage. Even if we spend serious money making Pairc Tailteann into a state of the art 30,000 capacity stadium, the Leinster council or Central Council still aren't going to fix any decent championship games in it. Nowadays, most Leinster championship games are held at Croke Park as double headers bringing in 30-40K supporters at best (unless Dublin are playing). Even with fine new grounds in Portlaoise and Tullamore, they still won't fix championship games there. So why does anyone think they would fix big games for Pairc Tailteann if it was done up.
Personally I feel that the first priority should be to improve the facilities for the crowds that they currently get. Do up the stand so that it can hold a decent crowd in comfort. Improve the toilet facilites which are nothing short of disgusting at the minute. Then when the 5-10 thousand people who usually attend games there are catered for, we can think about increasing the capacity by concreting the two ends or revamping the exisitng terrace.
By all means if a sugar daddy comes along willing to throw money at the county board for naming rights to the stadium, then take it and spend it on making a bigger grounds. But in this economic climate that is unlikely - the county board will have to tighten their belts like everyone else and not spend money they don't have.
Incidently what is the story with Dunganny. I haven't been out there in years. What are the pitches like? Have they managed to build dressing rooms yet? It seems to have taken them a long time to build it but if they haven't racked up huge debts in the process then fair play to them.

anfearbeag (Meath) - Posts: 1134 - 09/11/2011 19:37:06    1066208

As far as I know there are no permanent dressing rooms/clubhouse just lots of green containers. Pitches are the best features of Dunganny not the dressing rooms.

monkeyd (Meath) - Posts: 163 - 09/11/2011 21:04:59    1066323

is this project going ahead or what is the story? It would want to get moving fairly sharply!

baba_blue (Meath) - Posts: 14 - 10/11/2011 12:10:23    1066549

Successive county boards have been asleep at the wheel. We missed out on the boom when some of the road frontage could have been sold for a big sum, and saved for a rainy day when building costs were lower (like now). We've ploughed money into Dunganny which was a good thing, pity our "partners" in Meath Co Council have held up the development of dressing room facilities. The result of that is recycled prefabs behind the stand in Navan..... Pairc Tailteann is in big trouble lads and lassie, call a spade a spade. There's no mioney for redevelopment...hell the dont even know if they have a main sponsor for 2012.....
Maybe...just maybe, the Treasurer will be asked some tough questions at Convention about how the Financial Plan the Co board have is panning out

CommitteeeeMan (Meath) - Posts: 153 - 10/11/2011 13:46:09    1066639

the only way to carry out improvements to the ground with the current economic climate is to do it in phases similar to the way croke park was done over a number of years. For instance next year it could be planned to do a concrete terrace at the o mahoneys end. The stand is in poor condition but we could probably manage for another couple of years cos i think the terraces need to be prioritised, its going to really take away from the atmosphere of a big game with nobody behind the goals.

tulisa (Meath) - Posts: 24 - 12/11/2011 17:13:13    1067773

Exactly ,refurbish in phases ,its a no brainer, unless the club delegates start getting real and oust the regime we wont have anything . The club and intercounty players ans supporters deservice a half decent statium it is 2011 and if we want to play with the big boys we need to act .

royalpainter (Meath) - Posts: 874 - 13/11/2011 11:32:29    1067909

They badly need to do sumtin with the stand


1.Because theres not one seat dat doesnt have bird crap on it

2.And because you cant see the full pitch because theres two pillars in your way every where you sit

RossiesRock (Meath) - Posts: 369 - 13/11/2011 18:33:14    1068143

Pairc Tailteann will hopefully be picked by Leinster Council as one of its stadiums for investment, it has the space and potential to be developed to a 30'000 + capacity and geographically it is perfect for catering with the northern end of the province. In the meantime it would not take a lot to bring the place back up to near 20'000 with realining the seating in the stand and uncovered areas and extra barriers on the terrace, a drop in capacity to 10'000 was ridicoulously excessive in the first place.

Richieq (Meath) - Posts: 3734 - 13/11/2011 21:50:40    1068355

Well there will be no big new stadium for the foreseeable future. We dont have the money and no way of raising it either. I wouldn't fancy going round knocking on doors selling tickets etc. the way things are at the moment and the economy is going to get far worse before it gets better.

I do believe upgrades should have been done far sooner and this safety ruling should have been seen coming! but if you look at it the other way at least were not crippled with debt after forking out for a new stadium in the boom times.

This stop gap measure will have to be done to bring the capacity back up to 18,000, which should be fine for "most" of our games.

NAIL_BAR (Meath) - Posts: 457 - 14/11/2011 11:51:54    1068486

Richieq
County: Meath
Posts: 859

1068355 Pairc Tailteann will hopefully be picked by Leinster Council as one of its stadiums for investment, it has the space and potential to be developed to a 30'000 + capacity and geographically it is perfect for catering with the northern end of the province. In the meantime it would not take a lot to bring the place back up to near 20'000 with realining the seating in the stand and uncovered areas and extra barriers on the terrace, a drop in capacity to 10'000 was ridicoulously excessive in the first place.

Last weeks Fine Gael/Labour government announcement that the proposed rail line to Navan is not now going ahead should end any hope that Navan and Pairc Tailteann may have had of being picked for investment.
Investment in Dundalk or Drogheda would be a better option as than Navan as both this towns/city's are geographically better placed for catering with the Northern end of the province.
Plans for developments/redevelopments in either Dundalk and/or Drogheda are currently being viewed by Croke Park.

THE_SNAPPER (Louth) - Posts: 2019 - 14/11/2011 20:42:17    1068999