The groundsman

Others might call it the fanbase.

You should take a look at some of the other threads today. There’s some good debates going on with many people disgreeing with each other yet resisting the urge to resort to name calling.

But you carry on on with this thread. There’s a level for everyone, I guess

Don’t know what it is with the pitch, but it always seems to be around this time of year, that said I dont really think its anything to do with the Warriors, it was poor at the Notts game and I dont think they’d played then.

This whole myth about the football causing more damage than the lodgers is total bull****.

Latics have played regularly through one of the worst winters on record, the damage was minimal.

After just two RL games the pitch is totally destroyed, it will almost certainly need relaying at a cost that far exceeds the pitiful rent the lodgers pay.

The whole pitch was like a ploughed field, this wasn’t a case of certain areas being excessively damaged. It is certainly no longer sustainable for the lodgers to play at the DW stadium while the football season is ongoing, regardless of the division.

It’s now time the lodgers put into action their back-up plan to play at the LSV, the vast majority of their fans despise the DW stadium, and if they truely believed the crap they preach, they’d happily see Latics ‘struggle’ to pay for it’s upkeep.

Oi you, I have copyright on “divotage” :evil:

With or without the rugby, that pitch is shyte. Always has been.

I’ve only been on it once, when we beat Millwall in the Play Off Semi final. I thought that night that it felt like a badly fitted carpet, underfoot. You know what I mean, movement in it as you walk on it? But the extent it is cutting up to, as seen on SSN last night (big divots, clumps of turf) could seriously lead to us getting fined shortly. Or worse, points deducted. If it’s this bad already, it is heading towards being unplayable.

Give o’er, mon! You’ve obviously never played on that middle pitch at Leyland Park. ;)

I lost a welly once whilst (very optimistically) trying to fork that pitch one Saturday.[/quote]

I played at Parson’s Meadow, Griff. Next to the stream. That was bad enough. If you stood still long enough, you sank.

No, I mean ‘unplayable’ by top-flight standards. They have a rule where each pitch has to reach a certain standard. It is heading towards not being up to scratch. Might take Benitez, O’neill, etc moaning about it, but if it doesn’t get sorted.

From the groundsman’s own lips.

“Rugby isn’t to blame, the football team training on it during bad weather is. Football does more damage than rugby anyway. The real problem is a lack of root mass. The club won’t buy a special lighting system that encourages growth during the months when there isn’t any natural growth.”

I’ve seen the lighting system he’s on about (once at Wembley and also at the Emirates) and reckon most clubs with pitch problems must have one. It’s basically a rack of special lamps on a large frame with wheels that can be moved around the pitch. A bit like a sunbed for grass.

Blaming the rugby is simply wrong.