Tallaght Stadium goes green - and not just for St. Patrick’s Day – as new green seating plan unveiled

Macdara Ferris reports from Tallaght Stadium

The red, yellow, white and green block style seating arrangement in Tallaght Stadium’s West and East Stands is currently being replaced with 6,000 new seats in a two tone green arrangement – matching the pattern installed in the recently opened North Stand.

The 15-year-old West (main) Stand seats in Tallaght have all been removed, with new seating installation underway. The stand was closed for Saturday’s 1-1 draw between Shamrock Rovers and Wexford in the Women’s Premier Division match due to the works, with the 859 spectators at the game accommodated in the North Stand.

When the works in the West Stand are complete, the old seats in the East Stand will be replaced. This will please many Shamrock Rovers supporters were never fans of ‘Lego’ style seating plan in the South Dublin County Council owned venue.

Seating upgrade works began here at Tallaght Stadium last Tuesday. The project will see nearly 6000 new seats installed in the East and West stands, tying in with the North stand design. The South stand will be reviewed in due course. pic.twitter.com/K6Wq4DK1IA

— Tallaght Stadium (@tallaghtstadium) March 11, 2024

Visual liveliness

The original sketches of the stadium produced by Rovers in the late 1990s showed green seats. But following the council taking over the project after it stalled for years, there was surprise amongst Hoops supporters at the seating pattern that emerged ahead of the stadium opening in March 2009.

There were green seats…check. White seats…check. Yellow seats…can we check this? Red seats…ah now come on! 

When asked about the arrangement at the time, the council noted the stadium was now a municipal facility, not a stadium owned by Shamrock Rovers and went on to explain that the reasoning for the seating arrangement was that it is common in stadia to have 'an assortment of colours across the stand. This reduces the appearance of emptiness on television for events with a small attendance. It also adds visual liveliness when the stadium is not in use'. 

Having the mixture of seats is indeed a practice seen in a number of stadia around the globe but the arrangement in Tallaght was not the “visual liveliness” most were looking for or had seen elsewhere such as in Thomond Park stadium, or Sporting Lisbons’ Estadio Jose Alvarde amongst many others. 

North Stand

Ultimately most Rovers fans just shrugged their shoulders with the arrangement, happy to finally have a long term home of their own after years of wandering around venues in Dublin following the loss of Milltown.

The club’s partnership with the council has grown in strength over the years – with the recent stadium expansion bringing the capacity up to over 10,000.

The Hoops pay an annual six figure sum in rent to use the venue, with the council adding the South Stand in 2019 and the new North Stand this season.

On Saturday the club opened their new club shop in one of three spaces below the North Stand. The club offices are in the second space, with the third one set to be filled by the local authority.

First time sitting in north stand in Tallaght today - no surprise it was cold 🙂 - the new shop that sits below the stand was open pic.twitter.com/FVtYRxRroF

— Macdara Ferris (@macdarabueller) March 16, 2024

The council have said they expect to issue before the end of April “an Expression of Interest advertisement to source a use for the space, that would be complimentary to the Stadium, and will also provide an income source to the Council, towards the operating costs of the Stadium.”

They are also undertaking a review of the stadium PA system within the stadium as a whole with a view to upgrading it.

With the venue now a regular home to the Ireland Women’s senior international team – albeit with two of their upcoming EURO2025 qualifiers taking place in the Aviva – the council are going ahead with a two tone green seating arrangement around three sides of the ground.

The works should be complete ahead of Rovers’ next home game at home to Bohs.

The seating in the South Stand is under review but, with plenty of green seats available following work in the other stands, they could look to simply replace the red, white and yellow seats with salvaged green seats from the other stands.

League Report: Shamrock Rovers 1 – 1 Wexford FC https://t.co/QdFUaM04ggpic.twitter.com/UStFCLX3rF

— extratime.com (@ExtratimeNews) March 17, 2024