O'Connor Park terracing

[Bord na Mona man]

New terrace for O’Connor Park
16 February 2007

The Offaly County Board are to proceed with a 13,500 capacity terrace and new dressingrooms in O’Connor Park at a cost of €2m.

The Faithful County have just competed a 7,000 seater stand at the venue which opened last year to much praise.

On the opposite side of the pitch a grass bank has been in use since the venue was established but now the county board are keen to replace that with a new state of the art terrace.

Four dressingrooms, a press room and new turnstiles will be included in the project and the work is expected to take just four months to complete once started.

The project will be done in two stages with the first phase taking 8,000 spectators and the final stage at the back of the terrace will allow a further 5,500 standing capacity.

The work will increase the overall capacity of the venue to 24,000 and the Offaly Board are hopeful that this will allow them to host championship games in the future.

http://www.hoganstand.com/Offaly/Articl ... x?ID=72883

[Bord na Mona man]

I must say 24,000 seems sensible.
Enough for Offaly to get home games against Leix, Wastemeath etc without breaking the bank.
Otherwise we were going to get screwed by the Health and Safety people who would only allow 1,500 on the grass.
Hopefully the project gets started soon.

I hope there is provision to put in floodlights.

[Lone Shark]

My thoughts on this are well documented, but equally it's fair to say I'm in the minority, so fair enough. Seeing as it is going ahead, I'm glad it's being done over a short amount of time, and equally that there's seems to be provision for more than just a load of concrete to stand on.

Certainly I would say that floodlights are crucial - last weekend was interesting in that there were as many NFL games were played on Saturday night as were played Sunday afternoon, and generally the attendances were considerably better. Friday and Saturday night games will become all the more prevalent in the coming years, and for the purposes of our club championships it will be no harm to have this as an option either. For most Offaly supporters I would imagine this would be of a much higher priority than a lump of concrete on our grass bank.

[Plain of the Herbs]

While they're at it, and building terracing behind both goals, any chance they could lengthen the playing area?

It's very short for hurling as it is, and placing the end lines where the wire is at present, giving an extra six yards or so would suffice.

[Lone Shark]

I would have thought that O'Connor Park would have been very narrow for hurling rather than necessarily very short. I don't know the measurements though, so it's only guesswork on my part.

Having said that, it could be argued that our footballers, right now anyway, would be best served by the biggest pitch possible too.

[Bord na Mona man]

There should be plenty of scope to widen the ground because of the land behind the Hill.
As for the length. Space should be available, and I don't see the need to put a lot of terracing at either end. I'd rather see a bigger side terrace than a lot of resources being put into developing terracing area where people don't traditionally go to.

Also, can anyone tell what the pitch width in Birr is? Maybe it's an optical illusion but it seems narrow by hurling standards. I often wonder was this a help to Offaly in the 80s and 90s. Croke Park was a narrow field in this era also and Offaly's ability to intelligently play in its tight spaces was a hall mark of the team.

Munster teams were used to tearing around the more open spaces of fields like Thurles. I know a few Munster hurling people who always felt that Offaly being a Croke Park team meant that they played instinctively more intelligent hurling and that Munster teams found it difficult to come to Croke Park and play on a smaller field. Remember in before the 1995 All Ireland Ger Loughnane had Cusack Park in Ennis narrowed by 6 yards to match Croke Park's dimensions for Clare training sessions.

Since 2000 Croke Park has increased and size and it certainly has handed advantage to the more fit and physical teams.

[Plain of the Herbs]

I would have thought that O'Connor Park would have been very narrow for hurling rather than necessarily very short. I don't know the measurements though, so it's only guesswork on my part.

It's difficult to compare the width of GAA pitches. It's alot easier to compare the respective lengths, by comparing the distances between the two 65 metre lines. Have a look next time you're there (or see it on TV) and compare to other grounds. OCP is definitely shorter than Birr by 3 or 4 yards, and a good 10 yards shorter than the pitches of any other 'tier 1' hurling county.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Munster teams were used to tearing around the more open spaces of fields like Thurles. I know a few Munster hurling people who always felt that Offaly being a Croke Park team meant that they played instinctively more intelligent hurling and that Munster teams found it difficult to come to Croke Park and play on a smaller field. Remember in before the 1995 All Ireland Ger Loughnane had Cusack Park in Ennis narrowed by 6 yards to match Croke Park's dimensions for Clare training sessions.

Since 2000 Croke Park has increased and size and it certainly has handed advantage to the more fit and physical teams.

Munster teams were never short of an excuse when it came to explaining a defeat to Offaly.

The smaller pitch in CP suited the Clare model of the 1990's of suffocating the opposition.
Remember they haven't won a match in Thurles since the infamous 1998 Munster Final replay.

The advantage Croke Park gave to Offaly was that it took three ground strokes to get the ball from one '21' to the other rather than four.