A BUMPER WEEKEND of sport will be held at Croke Park at the end of August 2014.
As TheScore.ie reported earlier this week and following on from the success of last year’s Emerald Isle Classic at the Aviva Stadium, the GAA headquarters will be named as the venue for an NCAA college football game between Penn State and UCF at a press conference tomorrow.
And a spokesperson for the stadium has confirmed that the match, which will be known as The Croke Park Classic, has been pencilled in for Saturday, August 30 – a day before an All-Ireland SFC semi-final is due to be decided.
It will be a challenge but we’ve done similar things in the past,” said Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna. “It promises to be an amazing weekend of sport.”
While futher details will be released on Sunday, McKenna did add that the plan is to hold a series of games in Dublin in the coming years.
“I think it will be a huge success. We already have a number of teams who are interested.”
We should try and get Notre Dame each time so we can get behind one team linked to ourselves and make it almost a home game for them!
Notre Dame are not Irish a bunch of plastic paddies
Ah well I don’t think is claiming they’re Irish but they’d be the closest connection we have
Ireland- the 51st state.
Kieran ya idiot
Woo-hoo, hopefully another thing to look forward to :-)
Wel if I was playin in Croke park the day after for nothin, I’d be askin myself where all the revenue is goin! Fellas in the day before makin a fortune and me bustin me hole the day after for nothin!
College football players don’t get paid
Not only that but collage players in any sport in the US can’t take on sponsorship as they will get kicked out of collage where as gaelic games players can get sponsored for boots a any other way they want
Money that’s been made by the “amateur” GAA lads goes to the likes of Peter McKenna and the rest of the cronies in Crome park… So it’s s case of 30 lads give all year total commitment and a bunch of gangsters live like kings…!!!
That’s not really the point though your not dealing like with like! Officials in the Gaa will make big money out of this an the lads who do all the work since January will get nothing!
Those college teams are full of lads only starting out some of them will go onto high earning pro careers, while the Gaa guys who are at the pinnacle of there sports and who train just as hard will get a gear bag an a pair of boots!
For nothing ? Ya win ya get into an All Ireland final no ?
I wonder if Penn State could beat Donegal’s blanket defence ?!
The blanket defence was no match for Sandusky..
There has to be a Circus in town as there’s a lot of clowns posting comments lately!! “The fighting Irish ” somewhat gives the name away!!
Maybe the GAA should include an American Football side into the compromise rules game.
Hands up who’d like to see the Gouch facing down a 27 stone line backer?
Crap sport. Shouldn’t be played here
The weekend of Aug 20 is already in my diary,the GAA semis and now this has concentrated the mind, but if its only even half as good as the Notre Dame/ Navy fest last year i will be absolutetly delighted.
Do you already own a 2014 Diary Richard ? And if August the 20th wasn’t in it, is ask for a refund!
Wrong stadium though.
Croke park is a huge pitch.
Grid-iron pitches are quite narrow.
The pitch will be lost amongst Croke Park`s vast space.
It may detract from the viewers enjoyment.
(Plus no jumbo-trons to watch).
Should have been in the Aviva.
Well aren’t you just a barrel of fun
The wide pitch space will be used by both teams as bench area kicking zone and tackle and warm up zone, also there are 2 massive screens in croke park that can easily be seen from anywhere in the stadium
American Football doesn’t really cut up pitches unless the weather is exceptionally poor, as in much worse than even a bad Irish August is. The only issue in terms of pitch being adapted will be the goal posts, the American ones that is. They’ll be planted close* to the 20m line on the GAA pitch at both ends. Assuming that can be managed it shouldn’t really be an issue.
*This is an estimate but it won’t be far off.
I wonder will the “no to foreign sports” Celtic fan be out in his brand new bhoys tracksuit along with his placard?
Didn’t you know ‘foreign games’ only = English games. The yanks are grand sure.
That fella the papers photoshopped?
Notre Dame. About as Irish as Tony Cascarino.
Remember when the GAA had a ban on foreign games?
Pepperidge Farm remembers….
Can we call it The Dublin Decider II?
This is where the ground staff earn their corn
It’s a joke if it rains that wend the american football will cut up the pitch for the semi final, the gaa made this mistake before and put profit before its games
just because notre dame have a leprechaun as a mascot does not make them irish
It’s not that they’re Irish it is the origins of the university that tie us to them more than other football team. http://www3.nd.edu/~wcawley/corson/whyfightingirish.htm Give that a read it’s interesting!
some people can’t handle the truth