Home, sweet home?

It’s probably too small, too expensive and in the wrong place. But it is beautiful – and it’s ours.

I went along for the Aviva Stadium opening this morning. After a tour the press were ushered into the very large media room where FAI chief John Delaney and his IRFU counterpart Philip Browne sat at the top table, seemingly, ready to collect the garlands which would surely be thrown at their feet.

Alas, it was not to pass.

A defensive-looking Delaney was compelled to immediately volley back inquiries about the fiasco surrounding the FAI decision to deny Limerick FC the opportunity to play Barcelona.

Likewise, rather than talk about the roaring success that the Aviva evidently is, an unimpressed Browne had to shrug off questions about Eamon Ryan’s plans to snip the IRFU’s purse strings and legislate to make Heineken Cup games free-to-air. This was like asking the father of the bride about a small unpaid debt, right before the speeches on the big day.

But to the stadium itself and the extended version of MTV Cribs that our morning was. We enjoyed a guided tour earlier – and you’d want to be extremely cynical not to be impressed by the facilities.

There’s something about the FAI, in particular, that speaks to the inner grumble in us all, and there was certainly a few grouses regarding the north side of the stadium. Shoe-horned into the old Lansdowne site, that particular goal end holds only 3,000 seated and is bookended by a wall of glass. Personally, I love it. It’s idiosyncratic and unique – though present due to necessity rather than inspiration, it’s ours now – and is instantly recognisable. Many conversion or wayward free kick will hop off it in the future.

And that is what we were looking into. The future.

The same way piano players boast of being trained by a student of a famous maestro or composer. So too sitting into a seat in a stadium – I’ve written about this before – plugs you into a sporting history and connects you with the past.

But yesterday it was more like standing into a flux capacitor. This thing – for better or worse – will be there a long time after we’re not.

The outward shell has already settled comfortably into the capital’s skyline and the thousands of polycarbonate panels that make up the roof’s cladding were shown up perfectly in the early summer sunshine on Dublin 4.

Though my taxi driver afterwards insisted that the stadium is a monument to all that is wrong with both associations (“they didn’t build it big enough to play GAA, who’s excluding who?!”) it really is a special piece of architecture, as you’ll see below.

There’s plenty of leg room in each seat, the views seem good – although I’m uncertain you can see the team benches from the press area in the stand – there’s lots of bars, conference space, two big screens. Oh, and the pitch is lush.

(As an aside, Rick Reilly once wrote about being fed up with preposition golf courses – come play The Florida Experience or The Challenge at the Peaks of Del Frisco – well now we have Punctuation-Fess Football. I realise this is nit-picking on an atomic level, but every newly-erected sign reads something like: The Presidents Room, The Referees Area. Yeah? More than one President and they just hang around. Roy Keane would not approve of this oversight.)

From a fan’s point of view, it’ll probably be a costly night out with ticket prices looking expensive but it’ll be a good one. We’re promised that a pint of Guinness can be pulled in three seconds. When you walk in the concourse to the Atrium (which sounds how one says my name after a few three-second pints) you can see through the glass to the pitch – much like the San Nicola in Bari, for those at the Italy game last year – while there’s a piano upstairs where the Premium level is hosted along with RTE’s stuidio and the conference area.

It’s not quite a home yet. But once it’s full, it’ll be like we were never away.

See pictures, after the jump.

The view from press box:

RTE’s studio. Probably where Dunphy ultimately keels over with a massive Keith Andrews-induced heart-attack during a scoreless draw with Chile in a meaningless friendly:

The piano in the Atrium. It’s above the concourse where the riff-raff swill around and urinate in each other’s pockets. I like to think the Bankers will sit comfortably atop the grand piano and sip cocktails long after half time has elapsed, listening to Brendan O’Connor singing My Way.