MacHale Park to close to County Finals?

THE Mayo senior club football final may be the only one of the county championship deciders to be played at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park in Castlebar this year.
That was the message from Mayo GAA chairman Seamus Tuohy to club delegates at last week’s monthly meeting of the County Board.
The Mayo News understands that significant work needs to be carried out on the playing surface at MacHale Park in order to address drainage issues that have arisen since the pitch was resurfaced early last year.
As a result, Tuohy told delegates that ‘after July or August there will be a minimum number of games here’. “A lot of [County] Finals will be played outside MacHale Park, maybe with the exception of the County Senior Final.”
“We have agreed a programme of work with Colman Warde and we’re getting costings of that at the moment for the main pitch,” explained the chairman.
“It will cost a considerable amount of money.
“A lot of it will come down to our usage of the pitch in the second half of the year, so when the weather changes a lot of the games and finals will be happening in clubs right around the county.
“There are some great pitches in the county and no reason why a lot of these finals can’t be played outside MacHale Park.”
The condition of the playing playing surface at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park was described as ‘a very serious concern’ by Tuohy at last November’s meeting of the Mayo GAA Board.
Resurfacing works, which cost of over €300,00, were only completed 12 months ago.
Meanwhile, the chairman also said last week that a review had been carried out into the ‘exit procedure’ used at the end of big matches at the Castlebar stadium after an incident where not all exit gates were found to be open at the end of the recent National League match between Mayo and Monaghan.
“We have a new procedure in place that hopefully means the same thing won’t happen again,” he added.