Croker deciders to get ‘Super Bowl’ makeover

GAA officials are hoping to ape the success of gridiron’s Super Bowl by taking their All-Ireland finals beyond the gates of Croke Park and creating a Dublin-wide festival for the month of September.

The deciding game in the American football calendar, dubbed ‘The Greatest Show on Turf’, is a week-long extravaganza that sucks in America’s elite from the fields of sports, politics and entertainment — and the GAA will take the first steps towards an Irish equivalent this year.

The inaugural FeverPitch festival will be held at HQ on the evening of Saturday, September 17, the night before the All-Ireland football final, and will feature musicians such as Ryan Sheridan and comedian Hector Ó hEochagáin.

The indoor event, which will also include a GAA legends section, will be limited to 1400 people but stadium director Peter McKenna has more ambitious plans for the period surrounding the two All-Ireland finals.

“We are trying to do something here. I’d really like to see this in two or three years’ time develop into a really large festival in the city where we may get a weekend of Gaelic games and celebrate everything about it.”

Offering the analogy of the Super Bowl, McKenna continued: “Others will come on the back of it, enhance it a bit more. Everyone benefits; hotels, taxi drivers, bars.”

The GAA and its games have, until now, been an underused promotional tool for tourism in Ireland and it remains to be seen if Dublin City Council and Fáilte Ireland buy into such ambitious plans.

Croke Park and its award-winning museum is still not a part of the official Dublin Bus Tour, despite its ability to attract a huge footfall made up of visitors from both home and abroad, and the GAA is known to be frustrated by that.

The fact is that this weekend’s three football quarter-finals and round four qualifier in Croke Park will pass by without the knowledge of thousands of tourists currently visiting this country but Donegal’s Paul Durcan has more pressing concerns right now.

The goalkeeper faces Kieran McGeeney’s Kildare on Saturday evening and Durcan admits that their first Ulster title in 19 years will be tinged with regret if they fail to build on that triumph in the weeks to come.

“After talking to people in the county, they want us to go on and do more and I know the team want more success,” he said.

“We will be very disappointed if we don’t go on and beat Kildare but it will be the hardest game of the year. We need to push on to make it a good year.”

Jim McGuinness and selector Rory Gallagher were in Croke Park last weekend to watch as Kildare dismantled Derry and the Donegal players were talking about that performance amongst themselves even before Sunday’s draw was made.

“You see Kildare running forward the last day with the power of their running. People chat about our blanket effect but there is nothing a blanket defence can do about that.”