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Sport

26th Jun 2018

On the Kildare vs Mayo venue issue, there’s now a t-shirt and petition to keep the game in Newbridge

Paul Moore

Newbridge or nowhere.

As previously reported, Kildare GAA are absolutely adamant that their upcoming Round 3 fixture against Mayo will not be played in Croke Park.

The GAA have argued that the game should take place in Croke Park, rather than Newbridge’s St Conleth’s Park, in order to accommodate the large number of travelling Mayo fans.

Kildare GAA have stated that as “soon as the draw was made, we were in contact with Newbridge Garda Síochána immediately and they were happy with the fixture going ahead, their only request being that it throw in at 7pm” and “having received the backing of the Gardai, we sent an email to the CCCC advising them that we would have no difficulty in hosting the fixture as an all-ticket affair and were already putting plans in place to do so.”

The statement adds: “The Management Committee of Kildare GAA has been in constant contact with Kildare Senior Football Manager Cian O’Neill. We are all on the same page, adamant that the game take place in Newbridge as the draw dictates. When notification arrived that the game was fixed for Croke Park, we informed the CCC that we would not be fulfilling that fixture, because it was a home draw for St Conleth’s Park.”

The GAA have since replied.

According to the Irish Times,  Feargal McGill, the GAA’s director of games administration, said that “the game has been fixed for 7pm in Croke Park, and that is not going to change under any circumstances.”

He added that if Kildare refuse to show up to GAA HQ’s for the match, the win will be awarded to Mayo.

At present, there appears to be a standoff and speaking on the RTE News, Kildare manager Cian O’Neill has put the onus back on the GAA.

“We were drawn fairly and squarely, we were pulled out first. The rules clearly state that the first team drawn out has a home venue… and that’s exactly where we’re going to be on Saturday night. We’ll be in St Conleth’s Park, togged out, ready to go.  That’s our home venue. We earned it by winning the last two matches on the road and that’s not going to be taken away from us,” he said.

Well, since this news broke, there’s now a petition entitled ‘Kildare say no to Croke Park’ which is pretty explanatory.

Aside from this, the very talented people at Hairy Baby have already created a t-shirt to commemorate this controversy.

Whether or not the game takes place in St Conleth’s Park or Croke Park, we can see these t-shirts being popular with the Kildare fans in the stands.

Topics:

GAA,Kildare,Mayo