Saturday, September 17, 2016

Whinging Senators and GAA Tickets #106

Fine Gael Senators Michelle Mulherin and Catherine Noone (both from Mayo) put their feet in it this week by moaning about not getting All-Ireland tickets for tomorrow's big game between Mayo and Dublin. Their sense of entitlement did not match their sense of publicity, and both looks like the fools they are because of it.

From last year's pulsating All-Ireland drawn semi-final between Dublin and Mayo.
Tickets for tomorrow are like hen's teeth - it seems they can't be got unless you have connections or a pile of money. There are two tickets for the Davin Stand (lower) for sale on eBay this morning priced at a whopping €840 - these are by no means the best seats in the house (no - I'm not buying!). I even entered a competition on Facebook, for the first time ever, to try to win tickets (no - I didn't win!).

Getting to almost any GAA game in the country is easy enough - apart from the two All-Ireland Finals. Tickets are always available on-line - I buy them from gaa.tickets.ie. But tickets for the final are never on-line (apart from the likes of eBay). Some people moan that they go to all the games, but can't get tickets for the final. One Facebook user this week called it "laughable" that so many people claim to go to all the games. You can buy season tickets that give you preference for final tickets if your county makes it there - for Dublin, this only entitles you to stand on Hill 16. I am one of those people who bemoan the fact that I cannot get a ticket having been to so many games this year - here's the evidence from my tickets.ie account:


That's a total of €440 spent going to Croke Park since the Allianz League Semi-finals back in April. However, I do not think that I should get a final ticket ahead of anyone else - there's no entitlement to this. Even if somebody who has not been to any game this year gets a ticket, nothing gives me preference over that person. There's four and a half million people in this country, but only 82,000 tickets - so that's a lot of people who can't go. Whether you are a senator or a simple fan like me - suck it up that you are not entitled to anything, and go and enjoy it on the telly. I will.

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