Storm Éowyn leaves Longford Town FC needing extensive repairs

Longford Town FC suffered extensive damage to a perimeter wall at Bishopsgate stadium, due to Storm Éowyn but they have praised the community support.

Operations Manager James Donnelly said the club are assessing the impact but it is too early to give an accurate assessment of the repair cost.

He stated there is confidence the stadium will be open to the public for the club's League of Ireland opener.

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Local MEP Ciaran Mullooly, who visited the stadium and called for urgency from the government on EU offers of storm aid, estimated the damage was between €75,000 and €100,000.

However, Mr Donnelly said he did not have the knowledge and information yet to give repair costs.

"The ground is being assessed and it's going to be cordoned off with security fencing to prevent any further accidents," he said. "That is just out of a safety precaution, we don't know what damage might be there that we just can't see."

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Mr Donnelly has urged people to steer clear of the stadium for the moment.

"It's early days yet, after we the full assessment we will take stock and see what way we are going to go with it," he said.

"I'd still be hopeful that we'll have our league opener on Saturday three weeks against Bray."

Mr Donnelly is cautiously optimistic that the stadium will be ready, but the full extent of the damage will not be known until they get an engineer's report.

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"If the damage is contained to that North Stand we will just close that off, isolate that stand and get get work carried out and we will get people into the main Bishopsgate stand and the other stand."

Asked about insurance cover after a major storm such as this, Mr Donnelly replied, "You have to have these things in place".

However, he said the storm was also 'unprecedented' in terms of the force. "In fairness to the community they have certainly rallied around us already,” he said.

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“We've got lots of messages and emails coming in from Longford and abroad too offering support in any way they can and credit to the FAI as well for quickly offering us any help they could.”