Derry City will write a new chapter in their storied history on Friday night when they host Shamrock Rovers at Find Insurance Celtic Park.
With the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium pitch getting a makeover, Candystripes faithful will make the six-minute walk up the road to the GAA grounds for at least five home SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division matches. The Brandywell's oft-maligned artificial surface is no more, ripped up to be replaced by a £1.4m (€1.6m) hybrid grass pitch (95% natural grass, 5% artificial fibres).
Friday's showdown with the Hoops will be the first ever LOI game at the venue; Celtic Park did host Irish League outfit Derry Celtic at one time, but was bought by the GAA in 1943.
Last Saturday's Ulster SFC game between Derry and Antrim left the surface looking a little frayed, but Derry City commercial director Robert Martin is confident it will be in a decent state for the visit of the reigning champions.
"The guys that are doing the new hybrid pitch in the Brandywell (Hayden Turfcare), they've been doing a bit of TLC on the Celtic Park pitch to make it in better condition for us to play on Friday," he told RTÉ Sport, estimating around 7,000 supporters will be in attendance.
"They've done a lot of reseeding on it and they're going to do a lot of rolling and cupping it and striping it. They're going to be marking it out for the right measurements and placing our goalposts in place. The playing surface will be in pretty good nick for Friday.
"It's coming on really well, despite the fact that there's been a lot of training on it, there was a championship game on Saturday night. But apart from that, look, the weather's on our side now this week, so it's going to be in good condition."
It's been a busy week behind the scenes as the club looks to capitalise on the novelty factor around this game. The plan is for Derry City to return to the Ryan McBride Brandywell for the 26 June clash with Drogheda United, so there's a sense this is an opportunity to try new things.
"Because we have so much space, we've reduced the terrace ticket prices down to £10 for adults and £5 for children and seniors," said Martin.
"We're putting in a fan zone and we're going to have an area behind the net, in one of the car parks, where we'll have our hot food trucks and our coffee vans and a beer wagon, maybe have a wee bit of music on there and maybe some face painting and stuff like that for the kids.
"So we're doing a lot of stuff different to try it out, with the opportunity to do it with a bigger venue.
"There's great interest now, to be honest. Having a good positive result at Shelbourne last week helps that. I wouldn't be surprised if we've over 7,000 there.
"We're planning for five matches in total up until our last game in Celtic Park. All being well, we'll be against Bohs on 12 June and then we will host Drogheda on the new pitch at the Brandywell on 26 June."
"We're a community club and we've got so much outreach in all the different aspects in our community over the last year or two."
Derry's situation is not unique: Galway United wil play games at Pearse Stadium duing the summer to allow for drainage works at Eamonn Deacy Park.
However the relationship between the county's LOI club and GAA board looks particularly healthy.
"The collaboration has been great," Martin added. "We've been using the GAA facility for training for the last year and a half in Owenbeg, the Co Derry centre of excellence. Our lads have been training away there, great facilities, and we've built up quite a good partnership and a good relationship and a good agreement. That's carried on.
"Now they're allowing us to use Celtic Park while our pitch has been relaid.
"We're a community club and we've got so much outreach in all the different aspects in our community over the last year or two. We're really ramping that up, and we're making a big difference in the community."
As for the new pitch at the Ryan McBride Brandywell, Martin said: "Grass is starting to come through on it now. The prep work and the removal of the astroturf was done before Easter over a 10-day period, and the fertiliser and the sand and everything was laid down and everything was levelled.
"It's just a case of waiting for the grass to grow before the knitting gets done for the hybrid element of it, so it's all well on track"
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