Poor state of pitch due to 'over-use'

The poor state of the Croke Park pitch for last weekend's soccer international has been a result of over-use of the stadium in recent weeks. According to stadium director Peter McKenna, circumstances will be different next season.

"When you look at it we allowed too many training sessions. Routines and drills are focused in the one area and are hard on the surface. Because of the need for the Irish teams to familiarise themselves there were a number of sessions per match. Generally a team that has home advantage would use it once and the away team once or twice. From next year they won't need that level of familiarisation and there won't be the same number of logistical problems."

These include the need to mark out different playing areas, install different goalposts, locate separate sockets for the different posts and decide on the best locations for advertising hoarding. Sorting these matters out for the first time was more time consuming than it will be next year and involved more traffic on the pitch.

Heavy rain in the past few weeks also contributed to the pitch cutting up but, according to McKenna, the match time wasn't the main problem; it was the activity surrounding the events.

On top of the rugby and soccer demands the GAA also stages its club finals at this time of the year and clubs also need preparatory training sessions.

"We calculated that between everything the equivalent of 20 or 22 matches were played on the pitch in a six-week period. That's well in excess of what any ground takes in that space of time. The Wembley pitch was cut to pieces by the recent under-21 match and that's a brand new surface.

"Chelsea replaced their pitch two months ago and it had been down only a few months at that stage. So we haven't been doing badly."

With the final international taking place tomorrow evening when Ireland play Slovakia, McKenna spoke to players after Saturday's win over Wales to get a first-hand account of how the surface had played.

"I talked to one or two of the players and they voiced their concerns. The managers were fairly balanced in their comments, recognising that it wasn't 100 per cent but not as bad as some pitches. But the players were the ones on the surface and they felt it wasn't up to scratch. I asked them to rate it on scale of best Premiership pitch to worst. They said it ranked somewhere in the middle. We would have liked it to be better but there was nothing further we could do about it."

Although there aren't any immediate plans for concerts this summer, a couple of weeks have been set aside in June in the event of bookings being made. There is expected to be a concert next autumn but details of the act haven't been released.

According to McKenna there are constraints on the bookings the stadium can take. "Obvious restrictions are that the act in question has to be able to draw a crowd large enough to justify the use of Croke Park. Then there is the timing. We might have had the Rolling Stones in August but the pitch is in huge demand at that time of the year so concerts are ruled out."

Another event that could take place in the ground is a Bernard Dunne fight. The Dubliner retained his European super bantamweight title on Sunday and McKenna said there were no planning issues about staging a bout in the stadium.

"It's a sporting event so it would be fine. Obviously Central Council would have to take a view on an issue like that but there's no legal obstacle. I'd say if something like that was to go ahead you'd be talking about a world title fight or a title defence, which would probably be about 18 months away."

He added that for ancillary promotions the minimum attendance wasn't that high. "Depending on the event and its costs, 20,000 and you'd be happy."