Isn’t it about time...

[griff]

...that we put a boiler on the end of those pipes?

[Dick Large]

That's just what I have been thinking. But in the Fred era he deemed the cost to be prohibitive. Nevertheless he must have had something in mind, not just that the pipes he got installed would never be used.

Perhaps we could get it done gradually in terms of several boilers being needed. Start with a boiler for the pipes in the most vulnerable part of the pitch. I am no physicist but presumably the heat from one boiler spreads to all the pipes but is substantially better near to its individual boiler.

Maybe nowadays it is possible to hire a boiler on a truck just for the duration of the forecasted low temperatures leading up to a match.

The counter-argument to all this would be :-
In the most icy, windy and snow-bound conditions would we want to stage a match that nay b­ugger would venture out to watch (in normal times)?

But overall there can be times when getting the fixture played is more important than the immediate financial loss involved in taking extraordinary measures to get it played. Such is now the case.

[griff]

Your last paragraph made my point neatly. We need to get games played to keep momentum going and avoid a fixture backlog at the end of the season. And imagine Leyton Orient knowing that they had to travel 600 miles there and back in arctic conditions to play a guaranteed fixture in the frozen north. Points in the bag.

[Dick Large]

The general opinion seems to be that before the last flood we had covering for the whole pitch, made with fleece. Subsequent to the flood we now have a somewhat inferior replacement for that covering, despite the fact that the insurance would have been enough money to buy a like-for-like replacement of the original fleece cover.

[cocopops61]

Your last paragraph made my point neatly. We need to get games played to keep momentum going and avoid a fixture backlog at the end of the season. And imagine Leyton Orient knowing that they had to travel 600 miles there and back in arctic conditions to play a guaranteed fixture in the frozen north. Points in the bag.

That's an interesting point that you make about teams doing a 600 mile round trip for a cold Tuesday night game but don't most clubs stay overnight in a local hotel and wouldn't Utd be most affected as I'm presuming that every away game can b hours away but the other clubs only have to do it the once

[griff]

Most stay over but not all Chalky. They don’t all stay nearby though and the point stands. We always have a stretch to travel and sometimes stay over and train in the Birmingham area though covid has made that difficult at present.

[Dick Large]

It is of course prudent, for our journeys to the likes of Leyton Orient, to travel the day before the match and stay in a hotel. But common sense should dictate that the hotel should be at least 80 miles north of north London. There's no reason whatsoever to pay London / Hertfordshire hotel prices. Try on the northern periphery of Northampton.

Then travel back the whole journey after the match.

[postmanpete]

Don't know why they can't cover the pitch in straw.
It worked in the 70s.

[Acido]

...that we put a boiler on the end of those pipes?

What, you mean an ugly person holding the pipes ?.

[Dick Large]

...that we put a boiler on the end of those pipes?

So, we have the under-soil pipes and here is a company with a Penrith depot that hires out boilers ranging from home to substantial industrial strength boilers.

https://www.andrews-sykes.com/locations/

If tomorrow's match is off because of a frozen pitch then there have to be severe a­rse kickings administered.