Harps eyeing pitch upgrade at Cambuslang Rugby Club base
Tir Conaill Harps have launched a 16-month plan to redevelop their pitch, having doubled in size since moving to Cambuslang Rugby Club two years ago.
And club president Anton Gallagher says with the playing surface unplayable the Gaelic football club don’t wait to“be floating around Glasgow”looking for a pitch.
Gallagher says the pitch is currently unplayable in the middle of April, and says a situation like that is unacceptable, pointing out that if it were not for the Covid shut-down, they would have had fixtures to play.
He said:“If the season had not been delayed because of Covid we would have been in a position right now where our pitch still isn’t playable, and that’s unacceptable in some respects.
“We need to look to the bigger picture here and improve this for all of our teams.
“We can’t be expected to be floating around Glasgow, using other teams’ pitches or stuff like that.
“We want somewhere we know is going to be playable – unless it’s torrential, unless the weather’s ridiculous.
“This is massive for us, because we’re basically now looking to the long-term, in terms of what we’re wanting to do with the club, settling into the area and properly setting up for the next generation of Gaelic footballers.
“I work in construction and I’m not playing it down or anything, but the pitch is there, all we’re doing is upgrading the drainage and redeveloping it in that aspect.
“We’re just trying to set ourselves up properly for the future, because right now the playing surface is not the best.”
With Harps constantly expanding, Gallagher says it’s important to move with that as a club.
He said:“We now have teams from under-6 right through to under-16s, and we have two adult men’s teams and a women’s team.
“We’ve completely doubled in size since we went to Cambuslang and went into sporting partnership with them in