New Stadium Announcement

The IRFU Ulster Branch welcomes the announcement of Government funding for the final stages of the development of Ravenhill.

We are very grateful to the Executive, Minister Nelson McCausland, Sport NI, all political parties, the GAA and the IFA for their assistance, as we have worked tirelessly to deliver a result for all three sports.

This will bring tremendous benefits to Ulster Rugby in terms of its ambitions in European rugby and will also bring many benefits to the game at grass roots level.

Sir Nigel Hamilton, President of the Ulster Branch made the following statement:

“We are delighted that we have received the funding that we sought in full to complete the re-development of Ravenhill.

I would like to thank Minister McCausland, Sport NI and all those who made representations on our behalf. My counterparts, Jim Shaw at the IFA and Aogan O’Fearghail at the GAA worked together with Ulster Rugby for the benefit of all three sports.

This funding will allow us to move towards our vision of becoming a major force in European rugby with first class facilities at Ravenhill and a thriving club game throughout Ulster.”

While this is good news for Ulster Rugby it is somewhat worrying that Ulster’s vision is not as large as the other two sporting organisations with Ulster receiving a paltry £14.7 million compared to £61 million each for the IFA and GAA!

However the FRU can assure you that the meagre sum will be spent wisely producing a “World Class Stadium for a World Class Team” as pictured above easily accommodating the regular 45,000, 30,000, 20,000, 8,000 that turn up week after week about once a fortnight for the Ulster games.

Yep, all joking aside Ulster have got it spot on in my opinion, looking to take the facilities up to a more comfortable night out for around15,000 supporters and then pushing on at a later date for an 18,000 capacity is the realistic and prudent thing to do.

Really we shouldn’t even be thinking of pushing facilities up to the 18,000 level until we have 10,000+ season ticket holders and the surplus of quarter final tickets shows how far off we are in terms of that level of support. Until then, if we do start regularly qualifying for the knock out stages of the Heineken Cup on a regular basis it will be nice to have the choice of two stylishly re-furbished stadiums within spitting distance of each other to choose from!

I’m sure both will be looking for plenty of sell out games to help offset their vastly increased running costs.