Patrick O’Sullivan: Fitzgerald Stadium crowd cap for Munster final ‘doesn’t make sense’

A DIFFERENT TIME: Kerry and Cork supporters observe proceedings in the 2017 Munster SFC final, the last time the bitter Munster rivals faced each other in a provincial final at Fitzgerald Stadium. The crowd will be considerably smaller this weekend. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

A multiple of the 2,500 people allowed into Sunday’s Munster final in Fitzgerald Stadium will be watching the game a few hundred metres down Lewis Road in Killarney town, according to Kerry Central Council delegate Patrick O’Sullivan.

The proprietor of Tatler Jacks pub on Plunkett Street, former county chairman O’Sullivan knows the occasion, the first Kerry-Cork provincial final at Fitzgerald Stadium in four years, will bring crowds to the town irrespective of people having tickets.

It’s a sad irony that O’Sullivan, who is also chairman of his club Dr Crokes, says is also another example of the penal caps put on crowds at games. 

“There are three venues in Killarney town which have big screens outside and between them they will have the equivalent number of people as what will be in Fitzgerald Stadium. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that the capacity is cut so much when you think of it like that.

“Last year, we played against the Stacks in the championship and TG4 were screening the match live. That was the time of the €9 meal. We had screens in the pub and we were booked out. There were 90 people watching the game and there was nobody watching the game in Austin Stack Park. Some of the rules don’t seem to add up at times.”

If it’s not the big screens, pub goers in Killarney will be taking out their phones to take in the game, O’Sullivan believes. The way people access live TV now, they can be sitting out on the street watching the match on their phone and enjoy the atmosphere. There will several thousand people doing just that in the town and the smallest crowd is going to be in the stadium.

“If more were allowed, you might have somebody coming out and saying it was a super-spreader event but I don’t know how much more people can take of this. The Irish people have been so good in following guidelines but there comes a time where we have to say ‘we have to live with this’. Society can only take so much.”

O’Sullivan feels sorry for the many diehards who won’t be able to get their hands on tickets this weekend because of the severely reduced capacity. 

“It is genuinely sad that people, most in their 50s or older, who have been going to championship games for years, rarely missed them, are not going to be able to go to this game.

“These people are fully vaccinated, the risks for them have been reduced as a result of the jabs. I know you don’t want to discriminate between those who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t but it’s such a pity for the over-50s.”

O’Sullivan acknowledges the terraces in Fitzgerald Stadium are the primary reason for the small capacity, over 5,000 less than the number permitted in Páirc Uí Chaoimh for Sunday’s Munster senior hurling final.

However, he is adamant they could have been divided up with individual entry and exit points so as to increase the capacity.

“I don’t know their formula for agreeing how many supporters can attend a game at a certain stadium but it seems obvious that the more seating you have, the better chance you have of being allowed more supporters.

“At the end of the day, Fitzgerald Stadium has its own unique atmosphere being a predominantly terraced venue and the value of 2,500 people is going to be lost. You could have easily put supporters into different sections and steward it properly to allow more in but Nphet (National Public Health Emergency Team) seems to have a different formula than the rest of the world which is opening up irrespective of the variant. We just have to drive on with what we have now.”

Around the time the Connacht SFC final was being moved to Croke Park, there was chatter that the Munster decider could also be moved in a bid to accommodate more fans. O’Sullivan wasn’t privy to those conversations but he highlights Kerry had been long due a home game against Cork.

“There were rumours it was going to Thurles at one stage and it didn’t happen but to be honest when Kerry and Cork play in a Munster final in Fitzgerald Stadium there is something special about it. Putting it somewhere else takes away from that.

“It’ll be different because of the small crowd but it’s still a Munster final and part of the counties’ home-away arrangement.”