Visibility Problems

By Kevin Burke

Last May, I went to Galway to see the College narrowly escape relegation. As you do. On the way to the game, one of the more curious facets of the league was revealed to me: meeting a Galway fan in Eyre Square, he proceeded to lead us to Terryland, telling us every few minutes “just a bit away” to “nearly there”. By the time we got to Terryland, we’d walked so far west as to be almost back in Dublin again. The size of the crowd led you to believe that a Hotel California-esque occurrence was taking place: a group of walkers happening on the ground and never being allowed leave - seemingly wary of the legends, most of the saner locals stayed away.

I was reminded of this phenomenon in Monaghan recently on the long trek from Monaghan Town out to Gortakeegan, and I determined to find out why so many eL grounds are hidden from the public. “Well”, said the Monaghan chairman when I asked him about it, “We did thry to move a few year ago, but d’cows on d’hill over dere - the udder stand as we call it - were opposed to d’move. And in fairness, dey are our largest fan base. ‘Tis many a time when deir humping noises have been d’loudest noise in d’ground, so we felt we had to listen to dem in dat regard, you know?”

The phenomenon of building eL grounds miles out of the way seemed to be a country phenomenon, so I went to Bray last week to investigate the matter further. The Carlisle Grounds is right beside the DART line, unmissable from the train. So I asked the Bray secretary why he thought only the Dublin sides built grounds in places they might be seen. “Begorrah”, said he, putting on his best country accent in a vain attempt to persuade me of his culchieness, “When d’ground was built, boy, d’DART wasn’t coming out dis way at all you know, like? And den dat feckin’ Dustin came along wit’ his “DART to Bray” idea - back den, dat sounded as sthoopid as the “DART to Dingle” now, d’ya know? And then some jackeen gobsheen built the leisure centre across the way as well, like. Well, Jayz, by then every Mary & Kate around knew where we were. I mean, sure, we have success, but at what price?!”

I’ve heard many similar stories of other LoI grounds - from Kilkenny painting the roof of their stand grass green lest it be seen by anyone in an aeroplane, to Cobh attempting to create some of the physics from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and erecting a Somebody Else’s Problem field around St. Colman’s Park, the result of which is that nobody looking for it would be able to see it, and the only ones who would see it wouldn’t be interested, to Oriel Park in Dundalk, which isn’ton the tourist maps of Dundalk outside the train station despite the floodlights being visible from the station (that last is actually true!).

Intrigued, I rang the FAI and queried them as to why so many country teams hid their grounds like in this manner. He sounded deeply concerned when at last he answered, although a touch of anger underlay his voice. “I’ll look into this alright,” he promised, “We’ll do all we can to eradicate the league of this problem and move it forward. Country teams in the eircom League indeed! Not on my watch!”, he said, and hung up.

So, it seems I’m destined never to uncover the mystery behind the positioning of eL grounds. I might as well give up and head for Belfield Park. Across the GAA pitch, through the trees on a path of mud 6 inches deep, around the outside of the ground, admiring the trees all around…

This article originally appeared in print in STIG Volume I, Issue V