Here Ken It took a Dub to wake you up ....At tonight's Cork County Board meeting, Sheehan said the recent Ed Sheeran gigs marked the last time a concert would take priority over a home championship fixture belonging to the Cork senior hurlers or footballers.
Cork won’t be pushed out of Páirc by concert again, Chairman
Never again will a Cork team be forced out of Páirc Uí Chaoimh at championship-time because of a concert, Cork GAA chairman Marc Sheehan has confirmed.
At tonight's Cork County Board meeting, Sheehan said the recent Ed Sheeran gigs marked the last time a concert would take priority over a home championship fixture belonging to the Cork senior hurlers or footballers.
The two Ed Sheeran concerts at the end of April meant Cork’s Munster SHC home game against Clare had to be switched to Thurles, while the footballers’ Munster semi-final against Kerry, after much toing and froing, wound up in Páirc Uí Rinn.
“Concerts will be and have to be very much part of the calendar here in Páirc Uí Chaoimh into the future, but we will be ensuring that those concerts won’t be in conflict with our senior inter-county teams and their championship dates. That is important to clarify,” Sheehan told the meeting.
In the event of both Cork senior teams making an early departure from their respective championships in the coming weeks, the start of the Cork county championships will not be brought forward from their scheduled July 22 throw-in date.
Defeat for the Cork senior hurlers on Sunday will see them exit the Munster championship, while the footballers, were they to lose their first qualifier outing, could be done for the year by the beginning of June.
With numerous clubs enquiring as to whether the county championships will be brought forward if Cork’s two senior teams exit the race for inter-county silverware in the coming weeks, county board vice-chairman Pat Horgan insisted there would be no new and earlier start date to club championship action.
The first round of the Cork football championship is penciled in for the weekend of July 22-24, with the hurling championship throwing-in a week later, July 29-31.
Elsewhere during last night’s meeting, there was yet another lengthy discussion on the GAA’s cashless ticketing policy, with the Cork top table stating that cash will not be taken at the turnstile for county championship games.
Marc Sheehan said that for county championship games at Páirc Uí Rinn and Páirc Uí Chaoimh, cards will be accepted at the turnstile, and that the executive was currently exploring the possibility of making tickets available for sale in supermarkets for quarter-final games onward.
For all other county championship games, however, tickets would have to be purchased online beforehand, an approach which drew strong criticism from delegates.
“That is regressive,” said John Arnold of Bride Rovers. “We have an older-age denomination who don’t want to use cards. The GAA wants to be modernistic, but we are discommoding a section of the population in the process.” Given Cork’s €1m gate receipts intake last year through online ticket sales, secretary Kevin O’Donovan said, “we might have disenfranchised a few, but we didn’t disenfranchise thousands”.
“There is a generation that don’t now carry cash in their pocket and so if we went back to cash in the morning, they would say they were being disenfranchised," O'Donovan continued.
“It is not maybe the end of the world for the elderly spectator, and we will continue to support them. But in mitigation, it is not some whitewash where we wish to disenfranchise the members who built this organisation.”
STRANGE WHEN A DUB NEEDS TO VOICE CONCERNE ABOUT CORK GAA .Is it any wonder ye win fuck all now . There was a time Cork GAA was the pride of the country only Cork and Galway use to win both Hurling and football Championships ,I would thing young Corkonians who want to play at Park are thinking of learning the guitar instead of handling a hurdle .I grew up in Dublin in the 60s when Offally were the kings Tony Mc Taigue is my favourite GAA player of all time .... Tony McTague (born January 1946 in Clonakilty, County Cork) is an Irish former Gaelic footballer. He played for the Ferbane club and was a member of the Offaly county team at senior level from 1965 until 1975.[1]
McTague captained Offaly to the All-Ireland title in 1972.
He was inducted into the GAA Hall of Fame in 2013.[2]
McTague is his county's top scorer in National Football League history, finishing his career with 9–360 (387) in that competition.[3]