If I remember rightly, the original reason why the pitch used to cut up at this time of year was coz the sub-soil drainage stuff had been compacted to closely & wasn’t allowing rain water to drain off
As such it was sitting in the soil & some sort of mossy/virus thing was killing the roots of the grass
So Whelco spent £500k digging it all up & putting the drainage shale in correctly
Last season (after the work was carried out) we had heavy rains all over winter but the pitch was fine
This season we have only had a problem after the persistant sub zero temperatures which has meant the undersoil heating has been running constantly.
Think I posted on here the other week in a similar thread that i was told by a mate of mine who used to work on the groundstaff at Bolton that if you do this it softens up the pitch & leads it to start cutting up as our present pitch is doing. Sure I read on the BBC website the other day Motherwell’s groundsman blaming prolonged use of the undersoil heating for the state of their pitch, so it could well be that combined with the heavy use it is now getting when it is in that condition
