Does Rovers spat reek of anti-soccer prejudice?

A row over Shamrock Rovers’ proposed new stadium in Tallaght threatens to drag relations between GAA and soccer back into the dark age.

Craig Fitzsimons, 27 Mar 2006

In the wake of last year’s historic decision by GAA Congress to open Croke Park to the once-despised ‘foreign games’ of soccer and rugby, the hope was widely expressed that small-minded factional rivalries between the followers and administrators of different sporting codes were, finally, a thing of the past. Such idealistic assumptions have been shattered by the ugly spat now developing over the future of the proposed Tallaght Stadium.

For tenuous political reasons, GAA enthusiasts used to feel that those who took an interest in rugby and soccer were somehow being ‘un-Irish’, a position which in retrospect seems petty, ridiculous and faintly fascist.

Undoubtedly, an equally knee-jerk anti-GAA reaction can be seen to have prevailed among soccer and rugby enthusiasts of a certain age.

Ireland has changed beyond recognition in the last 20 years – in most respects for the better – and one of the positive side-effects has been the virtual disappearance of such sentiments on either side of the old divide.

Today’s average Irish sports fan takes an unabashed interest in all four of the main codes. The current Taoiseach, devoted equally to Manchester United and the Dubs, would be a good example. Sport, after all, should be about bringing people together, not dividing them.

Or so you’d think. The Tallaght saga appears to suggest that in certain quarters, sporting bigotry is alive and well. The as-yet-unfinished, 6,000 capacity stadium is intended to house Shamrock Rovers and, possibly, St. Patrick’s Athletic. The Government are happy to fund its construction, provided the stadium is used only for soccer.

Six GAA clubs in the south-west Dublin area (Thomas Davis, St.Anne’s, St. Mark’s, St. Jude’s, Faughs and Croi Ro Naofa) have challenged this edict, requesting that the stadium be ‘re-designated as a community facility’ and available for Gaelic games.

The request sounds reasonable, until you bear in mind that the GAA receives government grants in the region of e17million every year for the upkeep of stadia which it steadfastly refuses to share with other sporting codes.

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