Kildare GAA green light on St Conleth's Park redevelopment expected within weeks

It was standing room only — and no it had nothing to do with the Allianz Football League defeat by Cork — but Tuesday's first gathering of the 2023 season at the Bird's Nest in St Conleth's Park, Newbridge, of club delegates of Kildare GAA, commonly referred to as the grassroots, brought the biggest attendance we have witnessed for many a long day.

In fact some delegates were forced to remain standing for the duration, which really and truely in this day and age is hardly acceptable.

Old faces, familiar faces and new faces and while, as usual, the main attendance consisted of the male species there was a welcome number of female delegates which seems to be growing, slowly mind you, but growing, year on year, which is great to see.

And while age grade levels dominated most of the meeting, it was near the end of the gathering that the news everyone was waiting for finally arrived.

Chairman Mick Gorman informed delegates that “over the last number of months a lot of progress has been made on the project (redevelopment of Conleth's Park) and we are at the stage now that a major announcement will be made in the next couple of weeks, it can't be made at the moment due to a couple of legal issues and things to be finalised but in the next couple of weeks a major announcement will be made and that will include a commencement date.”

The Chairman added that “I don't see any championship games being played in St Conleth's Park in 2023.”

So after a long, protracted delay, hit by covid and everything else including building inflation, it seems finally that the long awaited redevelopment of St Conleth's Park is finally about to get the green light.

As the chairman said he does not envisage any club championship games in Newbridge this year, and that in itself will certainly cause some headaches with Manguard Plus Centre Of Excellence becoming the No. 1 venue for club action later this season.

Prior to the chairman making that announcement, albeit about an announcement, Colm Farrell, Co. Board Vice-Chairman said the much promised work on improving facilities at Hawkfield will start next Monday (February 13); a tender has been accepted; the work will take some six to ten weeks to complete and will include improved facilities for spectators while the car park area will be tarmacadamed.

So the pieces seem to be finally falling into place.

The re-development of St Conleth's Park, originally costed at around €9m has risen to close to €16m but it seems the county board officers are confident that monies will be available to complete the project, which includes floodlights, something that will open up tremendous opportunities in the years ahead.

We await the announcement confirming the start of the project, which if commences as expected in 2023 should be fully completed for games to resume two years later — all going well.