Croke Park's capacity for the Leinster football final on Sunday has been increased to 75,000. The game is now set to produce the largest GAA attendance in 37 years, and also surpass the record capacity of all other stadiums in Britain and Ireland this year.

Cardiff's Millennium Stadium has a capacity of 74,300 - before now the highest available in these islands.

Earlier this week it was announced that because of the ticket demand and hype surrounding the Dublin-Kildare final, the upper deck of the new Hogan Stand would be partially opened for the first time, increasing the capacity to around 72,000.

Yesterday the Leinster Council were informed that several more bays of the upper deck could also be opened, increasing the number of seats available by a few more thousand.

"I believe now it's going to be a landmark attendance," said Leinster Council secretary Michael Delaney yesterday. "I'm confident we'll get the full 75,000 because we're fast approaching that figure at the moment."

Even with the redevelopment of the new Cusack Stand, Croke Park's maximum capacity in recent years was in the mid-60,000, though in 1965, prior to the conversion of the old Cusack Stand terracing on the lower deck, the Galway-Kerry All-Ireland football final drew 77,735.

A year later, when the lower deck of the Cusack Stand was converted into seating, the Croke Park capacity stood at around 75,000. The last time Croke Park's attendance surpassed the 70,000-mark was in 1983, when 71,988 came to the Dublin-Galway football final.

Wembley Stadium, before it closed two years ago, had a capacity of around 80,000. When fully completed, including the plans to extend the terracing at the Hill 16 end, the new Croke Park will have a capacity of 82,000.

The massive demand for tickets was illustrated yesterday morning when the Dublin County Board put on sale at Parnell Park their remaining allocation of around 5,000 tickets. Originally the offices were meant to open at 9.30 a.m., but from 6.30 a.m. a crowd had already gathered and instead the offices opened at 7.30 a.m.

By 11.0 a.m. all tickets had been sold, though the county board is still hopeful that they may get a several hundred more tickets before Sunday, including a surplus from Meath, who didn't require all their allocation ahead of their minor match with Longford.

Even with live TV coverage it now appears certain the demand for tickets will exceed the supply. An official attendance of 65,898 saw Dublin beat Meath in the semi-final last month, although at that stage none of the Hogan Stand upper deck seats were available.

The all-time record attendance for Croke Park was in 1961, when 90,556 packed into the Down-Offaly football final. But the 75,000 due to show up on Sunday will make it the largest sporting attendance of any sort in the country since the 1965 final.

Part of the attraction (beyond Dublin's quest to win their first Leinster title in seven years, and Kildare's quest to win a last title under manager Mick O'Dwyer), is the new Croke Park playing surface. Already described as the best of its kind anywhere in the world, Dublin manager Tommy Lyons has also praised the type of game that it helps produce.

"If you can't play football on this new Croke Park surface then you can't play it anywhere," he said. "It's that bit wider and that bit longer and just makes for open and fast-flowing football.

"But the surface is just unbelievable. I mean there's no excuse anymore about hitting a hole just before you take a kick, or that old hollow at one end that players used complain about. The bounce is perfectly consistent and it all makes for a fabulous setting."

Meanwhile, there were indications yesterday that Kerry county secretary Tony O'Keeffe intends to step down from his position following his appointment as principal of Tralee CBS.

O'Keeffe will take up the new responsibility at the beginning of the new school term in September, at which point he is likely to quit the job as county secretary which he has held since 1985.

O'Keeffe was behind much of the redevelopment work at Austin Stack Park, and on the playing field won four county senior football championship medals with the Austin Stacks club.

Recently, he was one of the leading campaigners who helped his fellow county man Sean Kelly become the first Kerryman to lead the GAA as president. Among those in the running to become his successor are Eamon O'Sullivan, the chairman of the GAC and Munster Council delegate for Kerry, and county PRO Willie O'Connor, who served as Bord na nÓg secretary for several years.