Plastic Pitches?


johndb
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31 minutes ago, dunblanemike said:

The ladies team are playing on it tomorrow 

To be honest I didn't even know they play on it. It would have been the perfect opportunity for the surface to get a rest which it wouldn't normally get at this time of the year.

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1 hour ago, Rob said:

To be honest I didn't even know they play on it. It would have been the perfect opportunity for the surface to get a rest which it wouldn't normally get at this time of the year.

They don't normally so don't understand why they are next week. Think they normally play at Jeanfield park.

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On 11/16/2022 at 10:06 PM, mainstand said:

they sold a player and invested in a hybrid surface. Motherwell to 'rebuild pitch from the ground up' in new hybrid Fir Park venture | Pitchcare        Costing nearly £2m in all according to some reports

While this is true and the sale of Turnbull to Celtic helped fund the hybrid pitch it's fair to say that Fir Park had still had one of the best playing surfaces in the country before that. Which I imagine is the point @SaintJet and @Cagey were making.

This photo was taken before their last home game last season, the day before the work on the installation of the hybrid pitch started (the thread is a useful explainer for the work that went into it and the underlying issues they had with the old pitch).

https://twitter.com/Alan_Burrows/status/1524388420159746048?s=20&t=ns_j3x6M28A_dK06idAhYw

You're actually going back over 10 years to 2010 for the point at which they were getting fined on account of their pitch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/motherwell/8914193.stm

They brought in a new groundsman in 2015 and coincidentally that's the point their pitch started improving. Irrespective of their new hybrid pitch it's clear they made a conscious choice to prioritise and invest in the maintenance of their playing surface since the mid-10s.

Edited by bunkmoreland
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Imagine the state of it if there was a game today after the all the rain, last Saturday it’s just looks like rolls of turf slapped down, went to east of Scotland today, pitch very heavy but didn’t cut up like ours did last Sunday, someone please take the water remote control off the Hibee along with the lawnmower, fork, tractor, maybe get someone in that knows what they are doing, the mcdiarmid surface is like an ice rink and compared to most grass pitches in Scotland (not just premiership ones) it’s a total mess and very poor for a top,flight team

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On 11/18/2022 at 10:02 PM, Cagey said:

They don't normally so don't understand why they are next week. Think they normally play at Jeanfield park.

It's probably an attempt to raise the profile and give the players an experience of normality that they don't ever get.

If we had a decent pitch there would be no fault in the idea and hopefully no grumbles either.

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On 11/19/2022 at 9:46 AM, bunkmoreland said:

While this is true and the sale of Turnbull to Celtic helped fund the hybrid pitch it's fair to say that Fir Park had still had one of the best playing surfaces in the country before that. Which I imagine is the point @SaintJet and @Cagey were making.

This photo was taken before their last home game last season, the day before the work on the installation of the hybrid pitch started (the thread is a useful explainer for the work that went into it and the underlying issues they had with the old pitch).

https://twitter.com/Alan_Burrows/status/1524388420159746048?s=20&t=ns_j3x6M28A_dK06idAhYw

You're actually going back over 10 years to 2010 for the point at which they were getting fined on account of their pitch.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/motherwell/8914193.stm

They brought in a new groundsman in 2015 and coincidentally that's the point their pitch started improving. Irrespective of their new hybrid pitch it's clear they made a conscious choice to prioritise and invest in the maintenance of their playing surface since the mid-10s.

capt_oats?

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On 11/18/2022 at 10:02 PM, Cagey said:

They don't normally so don't understand why they are next week. Think they normally play at Jeanfield park.

I don't get how you don't understand that giving the women's team the opportunity to play in the main stadium is a good thing.

Why on earth should a Premiership-level football club's pitch not be able to handle one single game of football in a four-week period, in November, when we haven't even hit proper winter yet? In any other season in living memory there'd be two or three men's team home games happening on the pitch in the same period and no one would be flagging it as an issue.

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Agree, giving the women's team the opportunity to play at McDiarmid is definitely a good thing. According to the website, its their first competitive game at the ground. The hope seems to be that they will get a bigger crowd and a good experience for the team. I might go along myself. Definitely don't think the pitch would have fared well had it been last weekend after all of the rain.

Anyway the point I was making was that this period before the worst of winter comes should see the pitch recover a bit, a chance that it would never normally get which has got to be a good thing.

Was trying to think about the work that was done about 7 or 8 years ago at McDiarmid and a quick search seems to suggest we had some sort of fibre reinforced surface put in then which then gets the top shaved off and over-seeded, technically making McDiarmid some sort of hybrid pitch. It could well have changed again in recent years. Like everything else it maybe only last so long. Anyone know?

A few articles I'd read suggested that only Rangers, Celtic, Hearts and now Motherwell are the only clubs in the top flight to have a hybrid pitch but perhaps that's just a specific type with the systems/ technology always changing and improving.

 

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7 hours ago, johndb said:

with Muirton having been a bit of a Gold standard it is disappointing to hear some of this.

Most pitches go through good and bad spells, its just what happens. It's expensive and difficult to maintain a grass pitch and with Scottish weather and winter schedule you can definitely see why some clubs opt for fully artificial.

Edited by Rob
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17 hours ago, Rob said:

Most pitches go through good and bad spells, its just what happens. It's expensive and difficult to maintain a grass pitch and with Scottish weather and winter schedule you can definitely see why some clubs opt for fully artificial.

Its never been the same since the under soil heating came in.

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13 hours ago, Cagey said:

Women's game been moved back to Riverside due to weather concerns apparently .

I assume the under 18s is still at McDiarmid.

Wonder if our groundsman is still watering the pitch.

Cagey maybe funny the first time (doubtful) but gets a bit tiring after the 50th time. I realise you don’t  have much to moan about when saints aren’t playing. 

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