The Leinster Council's proposed solution to the problem of too many games being played at Croke Park is to build another stadium on the outskirts of... Dublin.
In the Irish Examiner last week, Paul Rouse elegantly demolished the M50 stadium idea (go and read that) on the grounds of both romance and economics.
Pairc Red Cow Roundabout doesn't exactly stir the soul.
But what could be more anaemic than the prospect of going to a soulless, off-the-shelf sports stadium on the edge of Dublin?
Is that really the height of the Leinster Council’s imagination?
Martin Skelly, former chairman of the Leinster Council, this week announced his intention to run for the Presidency of the GAA.
His mindset chimes with that of Paul Rouse. He is dead against the M50 stadium idea. When he became chairman of the Leinster Council in 2011, the proposal was included in an existing strategic plan. Skelly was happy to shelve the idea. However, since his departure in 2014, the idea has been resurrected. He told Brendan O'Brien in the Examiner;
Dublin could probably initiate a stadium of its own such is the funding available to them in the county and good luck to them.
What does (another Dublin) stadium do for Newbridge and Navan and Drogheda? It irritates me. I had nailed that one on the head.
It's possibly unsurprising that a Longford born administrator, particularly one with memories of the last time Dublin left Croke Park, is hostile to the M50 stadium proposal.
I have a picture of the ground in the house, 16,000 people in a full Pearse Park. People in Longford still talk about it to this day. The buzz for weeks beforehand and weeks after it was incredible. It lifted the whole town and the whole county.
He favours upgrading the existing grounds to a 'realistic size' and talks about the buzz a big championship game generates in a county town.
Hopefully, his vision is the one that wins out. Down with colourless stadiums on the edge of motorways.
