In 2015, Offaly and Limerick ladies Gaelic football teams were in the National Football League final. Both teams were given the option of either playing in Parnell Park without access to dressing rooms and having TV coverage, or using a completely different venue for the match, with dressing rooms but not having TV coverage. Tipperary and Tyrone were taking in part U21 men’s football final in Parnell Park, after our match. There was not enough dressing rooms to facilitate the four teams. As it happened, there are at least four dressing rooms in Parnell Park so why couldn’t both teams have one dressing room each? Or, can someone explain to me why it is absolutely essential for a men’s team to have two dressing rooms each! Two men’s dressing rooms and two ladies dressing rooms seems to be a simple and reasonable solution to the problem.
As a player on this Offaly team, I can remember the excitement felt by the team that morning. It was a National Final, a chance to go up a division and bring silverware back to the county. We were prepared and felt confident going into the match. We were not allowed to tog out at the pitch before the game as we were denied access to dressing rooms. We had to tog out and do our warm up at St Aidan’s Secondary School while Limerick went to Parnell’s, another pitch close to the venue. We arrived at St Aidan’s pretty early so we chilled in the dressing room there for about half an hour laughing and chatting. One girl on the team opened her gear bag in the dressing room and realised she had brought her hair straightener and hair dryer but she forgot her football boots! That gave us a great laugh and we forgot about the nerves for a while (I won’t mention her name but she knows who she is).
We did our warm up in a sports hall in our runners but we weren’t too bothered about that. We were concentrating on the game and nothing else at this stage. Once we completed our warm up, we returned to the dressing room, packed up our gear bags, got back on the bus and headed to Parnell Park. Upon arrival at Parnell Park, we brought our gear into the function rooms which were provided for us. It was pretty cramped in the room. There was a small bathroom where we attempted to get some physio done. We pushed all the gear bags under the bench to make space. When the time came for our team talk, our managers came in but there wasn’t even enough room for people to sit, so some were left standing just at the entrance of the bathroom. It wasn’t ideal but we got on with it and went out on the pitch.