On Tuesday, 5th/6th class went on a school trip to the Aviva Stadium. We hopped on the bus and we were on our way. Soon we arrived. We were standing outside the Aviva like we were going to watch a match.

Next we met, Ed, Oisín and Paul. They were very kind. They brought is to a room with a lot of medals, trophies, pictures and signed balls and jerseys. They were on shelves covered in glass. There was even a signed Polish jersey with the number 16.
Next we went to a conference room where the footballers and managers sit on chairs while the journalists ask questions. There are two translating rooms for journalists and footballers from other countries that don’t speak English that well. Here we watched a film about how the Landsdowne Road Stadium was knocked down and how the Aviva Stadium was built. It cost €310,000,000 (€310 million!).
After that we dashed to the home changing room. It was huge…when I say huge, I mean HUGE!! Oisín said, “If you want to get sick – now is the right time!” The changing room had two beds for people who get sick or injured during a match. There was also a room like a little hospital but we weren’t allowed to go into that because it had to be kept sterile!

After the changing room, we went into the showers. There was a jacuzzi and a cold pool to help the home team recover after matches.

Then, we went to see the pitch. We weren’t allowed on the pitch so we sat where the managers sit. Oisín told us that the workers use a normal lawnmower to cut the grass every two days and they walk 15km each time they cut it!

Last but not least, we went to do some boxing. Half of us went to the ring, and half of us went to the bags, then we swapped over. We practised punches and making up our own timing. We didn’t think the bags would be so hard! In the ring,m we punched pads, practised ducking and we had a fitness test to check how long we could punch without stopping.

We also got to see Michael Carruth’s Olympic Gold boxing medal, the Olympic torch he carried through Dublin in 2012, and a belt belonging to Katie Taylor.

Thank you to our wonderful tour guides for giving us the tour and doing the boxing with us. We had a great day out.