Antrim legend Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton has hit out at the ongoing Casement Park impasse.
The home of GAA in the county has been locked shut since 2013 and has fallen into ruin as planning permission has been stalled for the past two years while the cost of the proposed rebuild has spiralled.
It has resulted in Antrim county teams playing their home games at club grounds, while they had to move their Ulster SFC tie to Armagh’s Athletic Grounds this year despite it supposed to have been a home fixture.
McNaughton blasted: “How important is it for Liverpool to have Anfield? How important is it for Celtic to have Celtic Park? It’s f*****g ridiculous.
“What has happened there was just pure and utter bad management. It’s scandalous what’s going on. We can put people on the moon but we can’t build a f*****g stadium in Belfast, you know.
“Now they’re talking about putting a bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland… give me a break. Like where is the common sense here? Just build the stadium.
“We want it, whether it’s 20,000, 40,000, I don’t really care. We need a base, we need a home.
“We’ve no home. Generations were lost that will never play in Casement Park, it’s a mortal scene and the powers that be need to sort this out now,” said the Cushendall man, who was inducted in the Hall of Fame at the GAA Museum in Croke Park yesterday.
McNaughton did react positively to the news of former Tipperary goalkeeper Darren Gleeson’s recent appointment as the Antrim senior hurling manager, however.
“I’m excited about Gleeson,” he said. “He’s not coming in cold, he was there when we brought (Liam) Sheedy up, he came in, he knows the players, the players like him.
“I’m helping out with St Enda’s this year and he was at our game looking at players, talking about players, he’s doing the right things. He’s a good coach.”
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