Locker Room: We were in Parnell Park yesterday. Not one of the world's most celebrated stadiums but one for which we have a little affection having invested so much time and heartache there.

You develop feelings about sports venues, and those feelings colour a lot of what you see there. The Neller with its squat confines and its gentle presence set behind a row of Donnycarney houses is like a neighbourhood local. I'm always happy to be there.

It was never good between myself and Lansdowne Road though. Before the days of making a living as a hired pencil I endured many miserable afternoons there watching the Irish soccer team play. The stadium seemed to have a spiteful knack of only staging exciting matches in my absence. I got off or mitched off from school to see Ireland play England there in 1978 and got a touchline berth so low down that the sun was actually eclipsed by Kevin Keegan's bubble perm. All I remember is that I was making an intellectually valid point to my mate as Gerry Daly scored Ireland's only goal and to my horror there was no action replay.

I remember being there when Ireland beat Switzerland a couple of years later. Don Givens scored giving ballast to a theory I've held ever since through the era of Stapo, Aldo, Quinny and Robbie that pound-for-pound in big games against decent teams Don was the best Irish goal scorer ever. Nothing to do with the manly crush I formed on him when he scored the hat-trick against Russia in 1974 or the fact that he always seemed to play for louche but cool teams like QPR or Birmingham City.

Beating Switzerland was what Eamon Dunphy might describe as a good day not a great day. I know this because I was never there for the great days. Wandered down but couldn't get in when Ireland played and beat France in 1981. I was in the recovery stages of a St Etienne addiction and although Les Bleus weren't packing quite so many of les verts as they had been for their visit in 1977 it was still a chance to see Dominique Bathenay, Michel Platini, Claudio Lopez and others.

Not happy to trudge away as the crowd started roaring. Not happy at all.

I remember being there for a Mick Martin goal against Spain, an own goal but I was there and then between one thing and another, (emigration, courting supermodels, the drink) I don't really remember anything till the enthusiasm-quenching friendlies before Italia '90. Traded a limb to go and see a draw with Finland which had the merit of preparing me for eternity in hell but nothing else.

In the days when I was indentured to my masters in newspapering it was considered acceptable, amusing even to send me to cover rugby matches. Once on behalf of our publications myself and the current soccer correspondent of this paper in a spirit of ecumenism and adventure accepted an invitation to pre-match dining delivered to us on behalf of Lansdowne FC. When we turned up with our invitations in our hot little hands the disappointment was written all over the faces of our putative hosts. We weren't eminent rugby correspondents but scruffy freelances with whom one wouldn't want one's servants associating, let alone one's team.

We were hurried through a thicket of blazers and into what seemed like an enlarged broom cupboard full of cleaning substances. Presently a man rushed in and threw a couple of hot beef rolls at us and left before we could infect him with anything.

Oh those frostbitten afternoons in Lansdowne covering club rugby matches for the princely sum of £7.99. Misery in its distilled form. The older journalists used to use us as foils for their own amusement, exposing our perfect ignorance of all matters rugby to loud guffaws. Then they'd disappear off to the Berkeley Court Hotel with a curious northern journalist called George Ace from whom they were apparently buying suits. George could always somehow tell that I wasn't in the market for a suit.

Covering big games was no more fun really than covering those small games. A few testy press conferences in the little bandroom down in the corner and a general lack of facilities will be the abiding memory.

I wasn't quite convinced as I walked away from the crumbling old place the other night if it was actually the last time I'd set foot in it. Hard to imagine that next time we're all back there for a soccer international there'll be something new and comfortable and well fitted lurking behind Shelbourne Road. Hard to imagine, too, that the next time most of us cover a game in Croker it will be a soccer game. All good though. Change keeps us alive.

If change happens of course. Something about Lansdowne's location and the sort of demographic who will be contesting every line of the planning applications suggests to me that we could be back there sometime in maybe 2010 or 2011 as the old Bertie Bowl idea gets another airing.

If not, though, the new Lansdowne is a construction devoutly to be wished for. I find I'm sentimental about almost everything in life except stadiums. The bigger, the flashier, the more-in-your-face the stadium the more I like it. I apply the same criteria as for accommodation. The personal touch is creepy. Big and impersonal is good.

I love, for instance, Wrigley Field in Chicago but it's chirpy claim to be the "Friendly Confines" puts me off a little. If they want to raise it to the ground and build something resembling a space ship in it's place I'm all for it.

Indeed I was all for it when Chicago took the historic Soldier Field at the other end of town and modernised it by placing a large space saucer type construction inside the old shell with it's classical columns making it the weirdest looking stadium in the world.

I'd drive hundreds of miles out of my way to see a stadium, preferably a spanking new one. Living in London I spent many happy afternoons in Highbury and a few in Stamford Bridge and White Hart Lane but I'd rather the Emirates Stadium or the new Bridge. Covered matches on successive days in Parc des Princes and Stade de France. Donnez moi le stade thanks.

Loved Bayern Munich's new Allianz Arena last summer. Not enough done to Hitler's old Berlin Olympic stadium though to make it exciting. Worked for a while in the old Wembley but can't wait for the new Wembley. Lived half a life in the old Croker but the new one beats it hands up every way. Yet even the almost new Croker looks dated beside Herzog and de Meuron's design for the Beijing Olympic Stadium which is worth a Google for those of you who find staring at pictures of stadiums to be the advanced middle age version of pornography.

We could go on and on here. The point is that old stadiums are the pieces of great public architecture we should mourn the least. Sport is about making new memories and not standing still. In their different ways Irish rugby and Irish soccer are ready to move on. Hopefully the new Landsowne will emerge on time and as an exciting piece of architecture and a new focus for the city.

After all the agonising over green field sites and Abbotstown, etc, Lansdowne has one thing in common with Croke Park which makes it perfect as a stadium. A big match in either one brings pulsing life to the city, people walk to the game, filling the pubs, the pathways and restaurants along the way.

The old Lansdowne is gone. Long live the new.