More News Next Week?

[steviex]

While I admit we have had long standing issues with our pitch, I personally hate artificial pitches, horrible to watch and is differnt to playing on grass as anyone who has played on them knows, so would be passed if we changed.
Our park is in no worse state than most pitches outside the epl right now, footy highlights at weekend told you that, to suggest ours is any worse is nonsense, argument for summer footy maybe.
Keep these kid-on surfaces for training and 5s,that's what they are for not professional fitty, Accies and Killie changed theirs to make money, not for quality of the people who paid to watch real games, because they do affect games.

So if the club need to spend 400,000 on the pitch in the close season on top of the near one million quid thats been ****ed down a better drain than the pitch has already you'd find that perfectly acceptable.

[steviex]

I wouldn't quite go that far but yes, teams with a 4G pitch do enjoy an advantage. Artificial surfaces are improving but they have a bit to go yet.

Clubs who install them do so for purely economic, not footballing, reasons. The ball does behave differently on them. Previous managers at both Hamilton and Kilmarnock said that they'd caused injuries and some players had to be picked selectively according to the surface.

So AS Nancy, Spartak Moscow, Neauchatel Xamax, Boavista installed them cos they are skint and likely to cause injuries?

[andyss1886]

Has real Madrid, Barcelona, Man City,Bayern Munich,Chelsea,PSG instaled them because they are the way forward?
I get your drift about cost, but my point is pitches all over the country are run down during winter, that's always been the case, ours is not anywhere near the mud heap it was a few seasons ago, and no worse than anyone else.
If your asking If I would included a yearly budget to maintain grass pitch, then my answer is yes, my opinion that this is part of running a professional club, other s will disagree, that's cool.

[steviex]

Has real Madrid, Barcelona, Man City,Bayern Munich,Chelsea,PSG instaled them because they are the way forward?
I get your drift about cost, but my point is pitches all over the country are run down during winter, that's always been the case, ours is not anywhere near the mud heap it was a few seasons ago, and no worse than anyone else.
If your asking If I would included a yearly budget to maintain grass pitch, then my answer is yes, my opinion that this is part of running a professional club, other s will disagree, that's cool.

I really couldnt care less if every club in this countries pitch is a **** heap that doesn't mean ours is fit for purpose. There is absolutely no factual medical evidence to support the injuries argument its anecdotal comments by some football people who just dont like them.Trying to play decent football on those kinds of surfaces is pointless and blooody expensive to maintain a surface thats suits clugge

[andyss1886]

Ok Stevie, you have your opinion I have mine, no biggie mate.
I don't want to watch my football on plastic kid-on parks, I think they are awful, I have played on them and they are ****, I have watched live games and they are ****.
Aye the big clubs have money to invest, if these parks were the future of our game why wouldn't they have them, as they are the leading clubs who obviously think they are **** too.
I couldn't care about some of the other European clubs you mentioned that want to play on plastic, ash or sand pitches, I like football on grass the way it has been played since day dot.
Not sure where you get your 400K figure to repair the pitch at season end, aye agree we have paid that in the past after issues with drainage, aye there will be costs to maintain pitch, but never heard anything that says it costs us 400K every season to re-lay pitch.
Normally what happens is spring/summer comes the weather gets better and then the grass grows, during pre-season the pitch revives

[Handsome_Devil]

Interesting debate.

I've always been keen to keep grass at Fir Park but there comes a point when not only is it a losing battle - in our case to keep some bloody grass on the pitch at all at times - but refusing to move with the times allows others to pass you.

Plastic at Fir Park would reduce costs hugely and give us a potential new income stream. Other teams, some much better than us, have shown you can still play good football.

Rip it up.

[andyss1886]

Not sure how it is refusing to move with the times, if that's the case there are a lot of big clubs out there who are in bother. Anyway, not going to argue with you boys. Fair debate.

Maybe that is what the news is this week mentioned in the original post. Ripping it up?

[steviex]

Not sure how it is refusing to move with the times, if that's the case there are a lot of big clubs out there who are in bother. Anyway, not going to argue with you boys. Fair debate.

Maybe that is what the news is this week mentioned in the original post. Ripping it up?

I doubt it very much your mud is safe for a few years yet .. on the point of the 400,00 I wasn't saying we have an imminent bill for that amount. Just that who is to say we are not faced with that kind of bill again in the future and to end up where.? in exactly the same place we are now after fortunes that have been spent on it. We are going to have enough trouble paying off the near 1 million pound soft loans we have without keeping our fingers crossed we do not need to invest in the pitch. However as you say a difference of opinion probably best left at that.

[Wellup4it]

I seem tor ecall a couple of years ago that the cost of relaying the pitch was about £125,000 - £150,000. £400,000 would represent major works including relaying new drainage and USH and reseeding.

[well_doon_sooth]

Whilst I can't genuinely comment on the level of footballing quality that can be displayed on an artificial pitch. I can comment on the cost of maintenance of a pitch to EPL (champions league) standard.

A close friend of mine is a member of the rather large ground maintenance team at the emirates and quite literally, the budget spent on keeping the pitch capable of playing the arsenal way for one season would not only buy our ground but also provide long term security for the club for the foreseeable.

I suppose the one thing that hasn't been mentioned during this debate is the fact that the team (to my knowledge at least) spend most of the season training on an artificial surface. So, I beg the question, wouldn't it be easier to transfer training ground practices to matchday if we had an artificial surface?