A lament for Giants Stadium

Old soldiers often visit now-green fields which long ago heard their last gunshot in order to retrace hard-made steps and remember battles fought.

If any gnarled and scarred Irish veterans of the memorable USA ‘94 campaign ever make the pilgrimage stateside, the site of their most famous victory will be utterly unrecognisable.

Earlier today, the demolition of Giants Stadium got started when a massive metal claw bit chunks from the cement helix. Dust clouds poured into the Meadowlands air as concrete and metal spokes poked through the shredded facade.

The stadium is merely 34-years-old and was, apparently, perfectly fit for purpose. But in that most American way, it was decided to topple it and start again. Renewal.

Just like the renowned and beautiful Yankee Stadium which went the same way recently and the Mets’ Shea Stadium, Giants Stadium was discarded like an old fashioned overcoat, before a new ‘facility’ is built right across the street.

There are, I think, few pleasures in life more exciting than a great sports ground in the pregnant hour or two before a much-anticipated event. Like that Heineken Cup TV advert which depicts a grizzled old groundsman recounting sepia-tinted days in the stadium while memories of solid tackles and spectacular tries visibly haunt the turf, sitting in a stadium and imagining the history that was played out in the little bit of real estate is a wonderful little experience.

Anyone whoever played the backroom in Cork’s Sir Henry’s could claim a shared performance heritage with Nirvana and Sonic Youth (and they did) and so too anyone who sat in a stadium seat that was witness to sporting soap opera, plugged into its rich history.

I wasn’t at the game in 1994 on that searingly hot June Saturday. And now, alas, I won’t be able to sit high in the bleachers in New Jersey and replay in my mind’s eye what I witnessed on the televison on the green canvas in front of me.

Due to the mutli-chrome spectrum of sports that was hosted in Meadowlands, I could have made my X on any blade of grass and hit upon a splinter of history.

As well as field goals kicked, Springsteen anthems bellowed and goals scored, labour leader Jimmy Hoffa was said to be buried in the foundations at one end zone (the Hoffa Zone, predictably).

This has since been disproved but it’s a good story, and it’s a great place to be dumped – if you were, in fact, killed by mobsters.

Here in Ireland? We’ll always remember Giants Stadium for Ray Houghton’s looping goal over a stranded Pagliuca that sent the country into absolute raptures. Paul McGrath once recounted a time when Villa played Inter in the UEFA Cup I think and the Italian goalkeeper grabbed him by the arm in the tunnel and sang, unblinkingly, ‘Oooh Aaah Paul McGrath’ at a bemused Black Pearl of Inchicore; a ditty learned that day in New Jersey.

If the demolition machinery creaked to a halt now, you might just hear 50,000 red-neck Irish people oohing and aaahing still.

Cross posted to the Irish Examiner sportsblog.