No Irish grounds for concern

LATE breaking news from this small capital city shoe-horned into the high Pyrenees: rumours of the distress of the Andorran pitch appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

The Irish team finally got to train at the Estadi Communal here in Andorra La Vella last night and, after he’d availed of a chance to walk on it, former Ireland manager Eoin Hand was able to allay a lot of fears about the state of the surface. “It’s fine, there’s a few bobbly bits but there’s plenty of grass,” he reported.

Certainly, as viewed from the distance of ground’s only stand, the pitch looked in reasonably good nick, although it is substantially shorter and narrower than the norm.

Ireland deliberately narrowed their own Gannon Park training pitch to cope with this and, indeed, the overall set-up at Malahide United’s home is not entirely in a different universe to the municipal ground here in Andorra which, incongruously, has the FIFA flag proudly flying inside.

The 200 Irish fans who were lucky enough to get tickets will be installed in four rows of tiered plastic seating behind one of the goals. A running track circles the pitch and, across from the very modest stand, a very high wall provides the other main architectural feature.

Above it, and across a road which will be blocked off tonight, another 30 Irish fans have booked into the Camping Valiri campsite, offering them a novel version of a ‘vantage club’ view of the game. Croatian fans threw flares onto the pitch from the campsite on a previous occasion, so the Irish camper-supporters will be closely monitored by police tonight.

Another 150 to 200 ticketless Irish fans are expected today, doubtless hoping the locals won’t fill the rest of the 850-capacity stadium. And a further 2,000 visiting fans are expected to watch the game in Barcelona, where they will be joined by FAI chief executive John Delaney.