This article is from page 68 of the 2011-09-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 68 JPG
CLARE’S hopes of being allowed designate two venues as secondary county grounds has emerged as the primary reason for the protracted delay by the county board into naming the club facility favoured by Croke Park officials as being ranked second in importance to Cusack Park.
Board secretary Pat Fitzgerald made the admission to delegates at the first monthly county board meeting since June after the controversy over the delay in making the announcement official was raised by way of a letter from the St Joseph’s Miltown Malbay club.
“The decision to deal with this mat- ter was made a county board meeting in Carron in July 2009. Unofficially we have been told that the venue selected was Hennessy Memorial Park and we are at a loss to know why the official decision has not been announced by the county board,” the letter stated.
“The club’s county board delegate has raised the matter at four monthly meetings with no satisfactory report has been forthcoming. We must insist that the decision be made known at the next meeting of the county board – should this not be forthcoming we would be left with no alternative but to raise the matter with a higher authority within the association,” it added.
“We were hoping that diplomatic relations might work and that we might get away with – because of the situation in Clare where you have a very definite football area and a very definite hurling area – two county grounds,” admitted Fitzgerald.
In this scenario, the county board would have been able to give secondary county ground status to both an east and west Clare venue, which would ensure that both a hurling and football club would have the coveted recognition.
“The decision with regard to secondary county grounds belongs to this county. It belongs to this committee. Croke Park are not too exercised about where the secondary county ground is,” suggested Cooraclare delegate PJ McGuane.
However, the county secretary added that “it is worth pointing out that one of the problems is that we have an instruction from the Munster Council that it’s a secondary county grounds, not two secondary county grounds. They would not in anyway approve of two secondary county grounds. They have the approval of it”.
“All we asking that the decision that has been made be announced,” said St Joseph’s Miltown delegate Noel Walsh.
“The announcement will be made at the October meeting of the county board,” confirmed chairman Michael