ULSTER Council are set to perform a u-turn and hand Antrim back home advantage for their Ulster SFC tie with Cavan next month.
A meeting of Ulster’s CCC tomorrow night (Wednesday) will allow for further representations to be made by Antrim on the retention of Corrigan Park as the game’s venue.
A site meeting was due to take place at the west Belfast venue yesterday to allow for a final capacity to be agreed with Belfast City Council.
There is the potential that it could hold up to 4,000 spectators, with a minimum of 3,500.
It’s understood that Antrim had also considered erecting temporary seating in the grass area behind the goal opposite the clubhouse end in a bid to improve the ground’s capacity, although it appears unlikely to go ahead.
Having been pulled out first when the draw was made last November, Antrim had felt their recent £1m investment in a new covered, seated stand and concrete terracing in Corrigan Park would deem the St John’s ground fit to host the tie.
The Saffrons’ last home Ulster football championship game was nine years ago, after which Casement Park was closed to allow redevelopment to begin, only for the ground to become captive in a saga that has still yet to reach any conclusion.
But an Ulster meeting last week led to a vote among delegates on a proposal from Cavan that the game should be moved out of the west Belfast venue on the grounds of needing an increased capacity for fans.
It’s understood that Antrim’s delegates had no warning of the topic being on the agenda prior to half an hour before the meeting.
Tyrone and Derry stood by the Saffrons’ case to retain home advantage, but were outvoted by the other five counties backing Cavan’s move.
However, The Irish News understands that some of the county executive committees were unhappy that their Ulster Council delegates had voted to remove home advantage from Antrim.
With the Saffrons appearing ready to dig their heels in and insist the game be held at Corrigan Park to the point of refusing to field if it was moved elsewhere, they will be given another chance to put a properly prepared case to delegates tomorrow night.
It’s expected that a decision will then be taken that would hand home advantage back to Antrim and alleviate the growing pressure on the provincial body over the issue.
While the decision to move the game was defended by Colm O’Rourke on RTÉ’s League Sunday on the grounds that “you could be expecting a crowd of 15,000 at a game like that”, a neutral venue was never expected to attract anything close to that figure.
The 2pm Saturday throw-in coupled with live coverage on BBC NI and the April weather meant realistic forecasts had been set at around 5,000 spectators.
No venue had been set in the aftermath of last week’s meeting, although the game would be most likely to move to Armagh or Omagh if a switch was in order.
That now appears increasingly unlikely and that the standoff over the April 23 encounter will be resolved by tomorrow night.
