Gaelic Games

Dean Rock: Time to play Leinster SFC final and All-Ireland quarter-finals outside Croke Park

Empty seats at Croke Park is a sign GAA should heed

Dublin supporters in splendid isolation in the Cusack Stand before the All-Ireland championship clash against Roscommon at Croke Park. Photograph: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Dean Rock's picture
Dean Rock
Sat Jun 01 2024 - 06:00

Attendances tend to be a big talking point in GAA circles, and never more so than when they are low. In recent weeks, they have been worryingly low in the football championship – including for Dublin’s games at Croke Park.

It has been clear for some time now that the Leinster senior football final needs to be moved out of Croke Park – and I think we also now need to look at fixing certain All-Ireland quarter-finals for more suitable provincial venues.

I wasn’t in Croke Park last Saturday evening for the Dublin-Roscommon match. For some reason, a full programme of club adult football league games had been fixed in the county for the same day, directly clashing with the Dubs match.

We were playing Whitehall Colmcille in Collins Avenue at 6.30pm, and many other clubs were caught in a similar predicament which left those involved with little or no chance of attending the game at Croke Park. We just don’t help ourselves at times!

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John and Paddy Small were craning their necks out of the Dublin team bus as it drove by Whitehall’s pitch, trying to get a look at the scoreboard to see how Ballymun were getting on. Bonkers stuff.

It was only after our match I found out about the low attendance at Croke Park – such were the vast swathes of empty seats that seemingly an official attendance was not even announced during the game.

Not that I was surprised by the low turnout. There are a couple of contributing factors – not least the current championship format. It’s an issue I have touched on here before, three teams coming out of a four-team group doesn’t make any sense.

You could predict with relative confidence the three teams that will emerge from each group – all that is happening right now is a squabble over positions in the table.

Dublin fans realise their team will be in the knockout stages, so they are making a decision not to attend – whether that be for financial reasons, time commitment, the amount of games or simply the lack of competitiveness – perhaps all of the above.

But the structure of the championship doesn’t make it a hard decision – because we all know there will be other days out for Dublin this summer.

Yes, perhaps Dublin players are architects of their own downfall in this regard too as they have been such comprehensive winners in so many of their games. But the question is, what is to be gained by playing a match at Croke Park in front of 12-15,000 spectators?

I can only imagine the eeriness of coming out to do your warm-up last Saturday, it would have felt like matches during Covid. Watching the game back during the week, you could hear people shouting in from the sidelines. The optics of it looked terrible from a presentation point of view for the GAA – because the empty stands indicate this is not a product for which people are prepared to spend money to attend.

And the knock-on impact of an empty stadium leads to a game which lacks any real bite or energy or flow. The kind of claps and cheers that greet scores almost sound melancholic.

On paper the Galway v Derry match was a big game between two of the top five teams in Ireland. Yet only 7,602 spectators turned up to Pearse Stadium. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

And this is not just a Dublin issue, either. The recent Galway-Derry clash was one of the most significant games in the football championship so far, a contest between two of the top five teams in the country.

And yet only 7,602 spectators turned up to Pearse Stadium. What does that tell us? It’s clear the system is a problem right now, and because people don’t believe there is enough on the line in these matches to justify their time and money, they are choosing to stay away.

During my Dublin career I was often asked about playing outside of Croke Park. As players, we were aware of the conversation but our response was always the same – we would happily play anywhere. And that wasn’t us just spinning a line.

In fact, there was a feeling over the years we were missing out on getting the opportunity to play at many grounds across the country – but particularly in Leinster.

Because there weren’t too many other Leinster teams in Division One, the only opportunity we had to play most counties in the province was in the championship, but invariably those matches were fixed for Croke Park.

I don’t know why it took the Leinster Council so long to schedule Dublin for a championship game outside of Croke Park, but I do know every player in the Dublin dressingroom wanted to experience a championship match on the road.

You want to look back on your career and say you played in as many grounds as possible and I can still remember the 2016 match against Laois in Nowlan Park – from the Dublin fans outside the ground having a few pints to the immaculate carpet-like pitch and a chant during the game about Eoghan O’Gara – which you just wouldn’t have heard at Croke Park.

Dublin fans at Nowlan Park for the 2016 championship clash with Laois. It was one of Dublin's rare appearances at a provincial venue for a championship game. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

I always enjoyed our matches away from Croke Park because afterwards the fans would be allowed on the pitch and in a matter of seconds you would find yourself surrounded by kids looking for autographs and selfies. There was always a lovely buzz in those moments, and they felt important.

You don’t get close to supporters at Croke Park, once the final whistle goes you are usually ushered down the tunnel. At times it felt a bit robotic, a bit sterile.

I went through my intercounty career never playing a single championship match at Parnell Park. Indeed, the only league game I had at Parnell Park was the Covid match against Meath in October 2020 – though it is a match I have fond memories of because I surpassed the great Jimmy Keaveney’s scoring record that night.

Perhaps the conundrum for fixture makers now is that whilst Croke Park might have become too big for certain Dublin football fixtures, Parnell Park is possibly too small.

It is likely we will see a bigger crowd at the Leinster senior hurling final next week than was at the football decider between Dublin and Louth. And I hope that is the case for the Dublin hurlers, because they have worked incredibly hard to get back to this stage.

Thankfully, another full round of club fixtures – scheduled to clash with the Leinster SHC final next Saturday – have now been moved until Sunday.

The Leinster Council need to move the 2025 Leinster football final out of Croke Park. Irrespective of who is in the decider, the game would be a much better spectacle in Portlaoise or Tullamore or Navan. There’s no point waiting any longer, the time to move is now.

This might seem irrelevant, but the prematch parade at provincial finals is a real part of our identity in the GAA – that moment players walk by your section of the stand and everybody gets to their feet, flags flying, trying to cheer louder than the other lot. The players feed off that energy, it creates real atmosphere and occasion.

Walking slowly behind the band around an empty Croke Park achieves the exact opposite. Look at the noise and colour the parade generated in Clones before the Ulster final between Donegal and Armagh, that is such an important part of the GAA.

Let’s play provincial finals in provincial grounds.

And beyond that, I believe the GAA need to strongly consider playing some All-Ireland quarter-finals outside of Croke Park too.

I understand there are obligations to sponsors and season ticket holders, but championship matches should be events people really want to attend – and right now you couldn’t say that’s the reality.

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