Every single Garda in the Newbridge cachement area will be delighted with this one.
CCCC Chairman Ned Quinn’s biggest worry about holding Kildare Mayo in Newbridge was that the reduced number of tickets would lead to crowd troubles.
He fears that ticket-less supporters would be so hell-bent in their pursuit of a golden ticket that they might go to violent lengths in order to get their hands on one of the 8’200 available.
Downtown Newbridge would turn into something out of Guantanamo Bay with Quinn predicting tensions to rise amongst Lilywhite and Mayo supporters.
The losers in all of this; surely the Gardaí in the Newbridge area. With their team already stretched with the Irish Derby taking place in the Curragh out the road, the few lads on duty in Newbrdige would be under serious pressure for their evening.
Luckily for them then that the Kildare County Board have stepped in in their hour of need. They issued a statement on Wednesday morning pleading on their ticketless supporters not to travel to Newbridge.
“We would ask people who do not have a ticket for the match on Saturday not to turn up in Newbridge.”
Statement: Ticketing for All-Ireland SFC Qualifier Round 3 ⬇ pic.twitter.com/kBg6CHJiWa
— Kildare GAA (@KildareGAA) June 28, 2018
Sure the Gardaí are in for a quiet day now.
The thing is though, there are ticket shortages for a couple of games every year. On All-Ireland final day, you’ll always come across a few lads selling tickets in Drumcondra on the way to the game.
Rarely has a voice even been raised involving these sales so it’s a little bit of a stretch to suggest that the Kildare and Mayo fans are going to go ballistic this weekend.
