Munster Council deny responsibility for match delay

The Munster Council has denied claims the delay to the starting time of the Cork-Kerry replay last Saturday was down to organisational problems and the decision not to push terrace ticket sales in advance.

Supporters were incensed at the huge queues at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, which led to the throw-in being delayed for 20 minutes, with some fans blaming a lack of organisation and poor stewarding for the chaos at the turnstiles.

Pre-match, the anticipated attendance was 20,000, in line with Cork-Kerry replays in 2002 and 2006, but the game drew 30,240.

This led to serious backlogs at the entrances to the terraces, as cash was being taken at the stiles.

Just 12,500 tickets were sold in advance, 10,000 of those on Leeside, despite the Cork County Board selling tickets from Páirc Uí Rinn on Friday.

There were similar delays last year for the Cork-Dublin hurling qualifier in the Park, while fans spilled on to the pitch from the Blackrock Terrace at the Cork-Tipp Munster semi-final.

Munster Council chairman Jimmy O’Gorman said: “Saturday was a working day too, and with people arriving at 5pm, maybe in future we could try to have a suitable curtain-raiser to bring people in early.”

There were also major problems for fans driving to Páirc Uí Chaoimh with tailbacks from the dual carriageway from 3pm.

Council PRO Jim Forbes, said, in tandem with the Cork Midsummer Festival, there were an extra 12,500 cars in the city last Saturday.

“The problem is people arrived late,” he said. “If you’re putting people with tickets through a turnstile it takes an hour to admit 750.

“If you’re taking cash that number goes down to 500. We had 39 turnstiles open from 3.45pm.

“That would mean roughly 20,000 an hour, which was roughly the number we were expecting, so even allowing for ticket holders we needed a far better spread of people arriving.

“Instead, people came late and the reason was traffic congestion.”

Fans are calling for a major examination of Saturday games in the Park.

Article courtesy of The Evening Echo newspaper.