New Canal End will rise from the dust

Already, the water in the Royal Canal at the city end of Croke Park has been reduced to a mere trickle, and giant yellow CAT diggers are scavenging on both banks of the waterway which Brendan Behan immortalised in song. The preliminary work on the next phase of the stadium's metamorphosis has started and the tail end of 1998 will witness the death of the Canal End as we know it.

Or, perhaps we should say the rebirth of the Canal End. Although the old terrace structure will be in place for all the big matches of the coming year, it will be demolished once the 1998 All-Ireland football championship is finished. Modern engineering and construction methods, however, allied to the amount of land (stretching across the canal to an area previously reserved for car parking) behind the Canal End terrace, will enable building on the new structure to actually take place prior to that demolition. Tenders for its construction are due back by the end of January. And, in effect, the phoenix will be rising before the ashes have even been dispersed.

Plans to commence the redevelopment of the Canal End were in place prior to the Government's allocation of £20 million (over three years) in the Budget. As with the New Stand, the new Canal End stand will have a phased introduction and, in fact, the lower tier of the facility will accommodate a similar number as the existing structure (about 10,000).

The expectation is that the all-seater lower tier will be available for championship games in 1999. The demolition of the Canal End terrace in the autumn is expected to take one month, considerably less than the three months required to level the Cusack Stand. As the stadium continues to take strides into the next millennium, the association itself will actually dip back into its past with the opening, in May, of a £3 million GAA museum.

The museum has been constructed under the bottom tier of the New Stand and measures 10,000 square feet. "I think people will be surprised and impressed by what they see," comments Dermot Power, the marketing manager in Croke Park. The main focus of the development will be inter-active facilities, numbering half-a-dozen, and the "high-tech, very modern" facility will enable visitors to practise the skills of hurling and football, avail of commentary and film of old matches and such things as video games where it will be possible to take a shot against a famous goalkeeper.

One of the impressive initiatives is the presence of a modern theatre where visitors will be able to experience a "Sunday In September," taking in the background to an All-Ireland final.

The GAA has actually taken a leaf out of the books of foreign sporting bodies to develop a facility that, it is hoped, will be used by 100,000 people annually within three years. The museum is based on similar ones developed by the English Rugby Union at Twickenham and Barcelona soccer club and has been designed by Robin Wade and Partners, who are also developing a museum at Old Trafford.

Wade, an Australian, was joined in the development by Dublin architect Orna Hanly.

So, quite apart from the playing side, the coming year will be another one of progress for the GAA.