The Cavan county board has reacted with fury to the county's allocation of tickets for Sunday's All-Ireland football semi-final with Kerry at Croke Park. Cavan were originally given 8,000 stand tickets for the match and were later given a further 600, but this has proved to be well short of the demand. In a statement to the local newspapers yesterday the county board said that it was "greatly aggrieved" with the allocation and that they were dismayed by the attitude of Croke Park. The board asked for an immediate review of the system for the distribution of tickets.
A Croke Park spokesman pointed out that between the New Stand and the Hogan and Nally Stands there is a total of some 40,000 tickets available. These tickets are distributed between the county boards involved, in this case Cavan and Kerry, and Tyrone, who play Kerry in the minor semi-final. All other counties are given an allocation in proportion to the number of clubs which are registered. The GAA expects a crowd of less than 50,000 for Sunday's match and, as a result, a decision has been taken that cash will be taken at the stiles for the Hill 16 and Canal End terraces. The charges for entrance to Hill 16 and the Canal End terraces will be £8 for adults, £5 for those with student cards and £3 for schoolchildren accompanied by adults.
Commenting on the ticket situation yesterday, the GAA public relations officer, Danny Lynch, said: "We would be delighted to make a ticket available to everybody who wants a ticket. Nobody who wants to get into Croke Park on Sunday will be turned away, but we have a limited amount of seats and we have to depend on the county boards to look after their regular customers. "We all know that more Cavan people live outside Cavan than actually live within the county and this presents a problem as it does with other counties - Mayo in recent times for instance. We are victims of our own popularity and all we can do is say that we do our best to cope with that popularity. "Matches of this nature - and this is an historic match - generate enormous interest, not only within the counties involved. We have a responsibility to all our units who support us no matter who is playing. We always try to do our best but, inevitably, some people are going to be disappointed."
Kerry's supporters, generally notoriously reluctant to travel to All-Ireland semi-finals, have apparently snapped up all 8,500 stand tickets which were made available to them. Iarnrod Eireann is under pressure to put on extra trains from Killarney and Tralee to cope with the demand.
The Kerry county board is expected to make an announcement today on plans to provide more public transport to the semi-finals.
Kerry and Cavan supporters have also evinced considerable interest in the re-enactment of their historic 1947 All-Ireland final in New York. Travel agents have reported that, already, a total of 3,000 supporters from the counties have booked for the event in October and bookings are still coming in. Interest in the New York event, which will also feature the National League match between the two current teams, has forced a change of venue. The Gaelic Grounds has been declared too small and a soccer ground, Downing Stadium, which has a capacity of 20,000, has now been designated as the likely alternative. Meanwhile, next Sunday's semi-final at Croke Park will be marked with a presentation to the former Tanaiste, John Wilson and to Batt Garvey. They were direct opponents, playing for Cavan and Kerry respectively, in the 1947 match. An interesting feature of the Kerry line-up for the minor semi-final against Tyrone is that two sons of the former Kerry captain, Tim Kennelly will line out in the Kerry half-forward line. They are Noel (centre half-forward) and Tadgh (left half-forward).
Tim Kennelly captained the Kerry team, from the centre half back position, which beat Dublin in the 1979 final. He was in Kerry's four-in-a-row team.
