Dollin' Up de Pairc

17th Oct 2007

Dollin' up de Pairc
Alan Ger

Sunny days at the Blackrock end

It's the berries to hear the GAA are thinking of upgrading Pairc Uí Chaoimh. Plans were unveiled last Monday at City Hall as part of the City Development Plan to increase the capacity to 60,000 - making this the second biggest stadium after you-know-where, in Ireland.

We would urge those proposing this "super stadium" however to consider going the whole hog and out do the Dubs. If the official capacity of Croker is 82,300, the new Pairc Uí Chaoimh should aim for a minimum of 82,301. Why sell ourselves short?

Surely with all the wrangling, nods, winks, elbows-in-the-ribs, raised eyebrows, head-shaking and double guessing that goes on between the Cork County Board and GAA Central Council, the county's top brass could arrange such a magnificent and triumphant march into top spot?

We don't want the same old discussions in twenty years about the stadium being too small to bring certain events to the county. Let's get it right, now.

Holding pen needed for disidents at Pairc Uí Chaoimh

WIGGLE ROOM
At the moment down the Pairc, anyone with a bit of length on them is forced to crouch like a processed chicken in a cage crippled in discomfort with the lip of the seat in front digging into your lower sticks. The alternative for those above six foot is to sit with one's legs spread out like a yoga student and you know how our dear County Board feel about foreign sports on their turf...

In no other stadium do you see the entire crowd standing up out of their seats for the duration of half-time, purely to get some brief respite from their Guantanamo Bay-esque torture positions. At the county final on Sunday, the brass band seemed to be considering playing the national anthem again such was the unanimous vertical movement once the half time whistle blew and the musicians poured on to the pitch.

DUBLIN RATTLED
The best bit of all is that we won't have to go to Dublin for the All Ireland final. Instead of setting the alarm for 6.30am and sitting in traffic for a twelve hour round trip, abandoning the car at the Red Cow Roundabout, taking the Luas to Connolly Station and then a taxi to Jones's Road….all we'll have to do now is hop on the Metro a few minutes before throw-in and get off at the biggest stadium in Ireland.

Instead of those endless mickey-mouse arguments about Cork having to turn down big events and conferences because of the lack of space, we'd all enjoy sending Westlife back up to Dublin because the capacity at the Pairc is "too big for ye lads". World order needs to be restored.

DETENTION CENTRE
For those who seem to go to matches simply to be seen leaving early, the GAA should also install a chip system whereby those leading the minority mutiny of support for Cork teams towards the end of a match can be denied tickets at a future date.

Too much gel and not enough muck. Dass woss rong witchye!

Furthermore, traitors who walk out with ridiculous excuses like wanting to "beat the traffic" or "sick of the same aul thing" should be followed with electrocuting cattle prodders out of the stadium and be herded into a high-tech "Traitor Holding Pen" with replays of great Cork comebacks and victory speeches played at high volume whilst being doused with paint in the colours of Cork's opponents.

They can be released a few hours after the final whistle - the exact time calculated by adding an additional five minutes detention for every point in the wining margin. Soggy chips will have never tasted so good.

MIRRORS AND HAIR GEL
Such were are the swanky hairstyles among Cork's aspiring young hurlers last weekend at the County Final that the GAA might find themselves under pressure to install all sorts of metrosexual gadgetry in the toilets of the new Pairc Uí Chaoimh.

GAA fans normally judge a stadium's bogs not by its hygiene, but by the amount of "trough space" available for the real purpose of going to the bathrooms and not missing any on-field action.

Basic, coldly concrete and occasionally featuring a 20 stone red faced mountain man (the Cork version of a Yeti) who appears, by the ferocity of his output, not to have gone to the toilet in over two weeks - stadium toilets need little else.

Helmets keep the hair styles down

Judging by the startling amount of aspiring Cristiano Ronaldo's at the county final last weekend, by the 2015 championship the GAA could be looking at demands from punters for a lot more than just the basics. As part of their development plan the county board should be planning to add hair dryers, full length mirrors, sun beds, masseuses and churns of hair gel to the new jacks down the Pairc.

If you don't believe us get down to the football county final and watch thirteen year olds throw each other filthy looks across the covered stand, "dissing" each other's perfectly groomed spikey hair.

Normally a hair style reserved for males who work in mobile phone stores and make you feel inadequate because your phone doesn't allow you to watch Eamon Dunphy in a small room moaning about the premiership, this is a hair style that takes over two hours to prepare each morning and should not be dismissed as a fad.

To score maximum points a-lá-mode one needs bright foxy hair shaped with something slightly stronger than bostick glue into tall stiff vertical spikes. The spikes are then arranged into a perfect oval shape encircling the head like a halo. Acute care is taken to make sure that parting lines are clearly visible. This is a subtle declaration among more rural GAA-kids that they house no parasitic head lice.

In order to maximise the colour clash between bright foxy hair and clothing, the green and yellow of a Newtownshandrum jersey allows maximum contrast and glare for onward-looking fashion philistines.

Add in the pale white freckled skin, gleaming like a lighthouse in the dull light of a woefully bad summer and rosey red cheeks of somebody with far too much fanta in their capillaries and you have the complete under-age alpha male.

Don't say ye weren't warned.