Bumper ticket sales as Cork bid to end Killarney hoodoo

THE Munster Council is expecting one of the biggest crowds ever seen at a football final this weekend.

It is 16 years since Cork beat Kerry at Killarney in a provincial final and supporters from all over Ireland are buying up tickets to see if the reigning All-Ireland champions can break that hoodoo.

Pre-booking of tickets has exceeded national trends and, should the weather hold, Munster Council chairman Sean Walsh believes it could be a 43,000 sell-out, an increase of almost 20,000 from when the sides met in the 2006 Munster final replay.

“The situation is the stand tickets are all sold,” he said. “All we’ve for sale are terrace tickets. The interest in the game is excellent.

“It’s a good Cork panel going to Killarney and a lot of people are expecting a good game of football. We noticed the interest in it from the day the final was announced.”

And that interest has extended far beyond the Munster border with tickets being sold to GAA supporters in every province.

“We’ll even have people coming from Monaghan. We had been hoping to get around 40,000 at the game. Some people forget there were 36,000 at the semi-final last year.

“This is a final in July now and the primary schools are off. There’s a lot of people on holidays too and from that point of view we’re hoping to get that figure.

” The main factor in amount of people at it has always been the weather.

“What has happened in the past has been that pre-booking has been low but for this game it’s been very aggressive. For those last few tickets it will all be decided on the day. People will see what kind of weather it is and go from there.”

Given the additional revenue expected and Carlow County Board’s recent security issues, when masked gunmen hijacked an employee’s car in an attempt to steal ticket money, Walsh is happy with the current measures in place.

“We also use security to transfer our money and no Munster Council officer ever travels with the cash.

“On the day we will have detectives and gardaí and a firm for moving the cash. We’ve never done it differently.”

Meanwhile, Ulster GAA have announced reductions from 2010 prices for the final.

The new pricing structures include a group rate focused at clubs taking juveniles for the ‘50 4 50’ offer. This allows a group of 50 people (up to 45 children under 16 and five adults) to attend the final for €50.

For families, tickets are available in all open seating sections for €25/£21 for adults and €5/£€5 for U16s. Senior citizen concessions are down from €18/£15 to €15/£13 which is a 16% reduction for all seated areas in the stadium.