STIG Investigates

This issue STIG will investigate media claims that Dalymount Park could be developed into a modern 20,000 seater stadium

By John Craddock

STIG Investigates Dalymount Park

Recent media reports have suggested Bohemians and Shelburne are at an advanced stage of negotiations to use funds from the sale of Tolka to redevelop Dalymount Park into a modern stadium with a capacity of between 15,000 and 20,000. Below is an aerial photograph of Dalyer with the border of Bohemian’s property highlighted in yellow. The Jodi stand is on the left of the picture and it can be clearly seen that there is no room for it to expand into. It backs onto a narrow lane behind private residences and extends all the way to the pitch. This is obvious to anyone who has visited the ground. There is a small amount of room at the top of the picture, shown by a green box. The photo shows that the space is approximately 20% of the size of the Jodi, so if money was available and there were no planning objections the capacity of the stand might rise by about 500 to 3,300.

It can be clearly seen from the photo that there is no room to increase the capacity behind either goal without shortening the pitch. Bohemians believe that they can add an extra 400 seats behind the shopping centre end and still keep a pitch of acceptable length, this is shown with a red box.

It is clear that the only place where any significant increase in capacity can arise is in the Connacht Street car park. You can see that the shape of the existing stand follows that of the bounding wall with the gap between the two increasing as the height of the stand increases, so as to not cast a shadow on to the neighbouring houses. If this pattern were to be replicated, shown in blue, the extra land area under the new stand would be approximately 120% of what is currently there. Giving an extra capacity of approximately 4,800. It should be noted that these calculations assume that there will be no roof on the new structure. Adding a roof would significantly reduce the height and therefore the capacity of the stand. If all these potential improvements were to be put in place it would give the stadium a capacity of just under 14,000. Of this about 4,000 seats would be under a roof. Some expensive engineering, such as lowering the pitch, might allow for some more seats to be added. Convincing the locals not to object to living in the stadium’s shadow would allow more of the seats to be placed under a roof.

It does seem impossible that a modern 20,000 seater stadium could be fitted onto the site. To give readers an idea of what that would involve, the west stand in Lansdown Road has a capacity of about 10,000 and occupies 2.4 times the land area of the Jodi Stand. For the claim being made in the media to be realised, a structure of almost that size would have to be placed on either side of the ground.

This article was first published in Volume 6, issue 2 of STIG.

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