Tomorrow, Republic of Ireland face Argentina in a friendly which will also serve as be the christening of our new Aviva Stadium… For the last few years, Croke Park has been our temporary home for international matches but Croke Park never felt like ‘home’…
After years and years of planning, red tape, more planning and more red tape, the old ‘Lansdowne Road’ stadium transformation is now complete and has been rebranded as the ‘Aviva Stadium’ (‘Aviva’ being an insurance company for those wondering). Also, for my non Irish readers, the stadium is also the home of Irish Rugby.
I’ve seen it from the outside a few times and it looks impressive. Certainly more impressive than what went before it 🙂 Trawling through my photo archive, unfortunately i don’t have many of the old stadium, which is one of the reasons why i’m so eager to take as many photos as possible of everything these days… things change but photos always stand still and it’s nice to able to look back and remember… I’ll try to get a panoramic like i did in croke park;
These photos of the old stadium were taken in October 2006 when we played the Czech Republic in a Euro 2008 qualifier and drew 1-1.
I also found this video which i’d completely forgotten about. One of the guys behind us lit a flare when Ireland scored. Flares are illegal of course inside the ground (rightly so for safety of everyone) so it was a very rare sight and the fact i was standing right next to one made for a great photo opportunity & video 
If only i had a slightly better camera back in those days…
Anyway, i’ll probably take hundreds of pictures tomorrow so there’ll never be any danger of forgetting the event. This isn’t the first match to be played in the Aviva, but it’s the first international match and the first meaningful one. The first competitive international will be played in the Aviva on September 7th against the mighty Andorra (who are ranked 201st in the world or 2nd from bottom spot).