The Pitch

[olaftab]

I blame Brexit.

[PROVERBS1966]

i really noticed it. Its the worst I have seen for 10 years at least. The ball wasn't rolling along it properly, I noticed at half time there were only 4 or 5 people repairing it with forks when before there would have been a dozen or more. Its down to budget for me we have had plenty of poor weather in the past and the pitch has always remained perfect.
A few years ago I was through work talking to a guy from a sports turf company, then early Lerner days Small Heath's pitch budget was about £7k while ours was about £900k.

[UK Redsox]

There was standing water on the pitch before the game yesterday (about five yards in field from the dugouts).

Maybe the drains are clogged.

[Deano's Mullet]

Worst I've seen the pitch was second half of the 95-96 season. This was the last season before undersoil heating. Boxing Day Vs Liverpool was cancelled and by the time of the FA Cup semi between Man Ure and Chertsey it was almost Baseball Ground like in quality.

[AV82EC]

Yep I’d say worst for over 10-15 years. As others have said too much Youth Football during the wet spell. I’m sure it’ll be sorted.

[Hookeysmith]

It is 2 years overdue to be replaced. Relegation has meant it being put off as it is a huge expense to change. We play more games on it now at all levels and have had quite a long sustained period of wet weather. All of this has contributed to it starting to look worn out. The staff do a 24/7 job on it to maintain it. The previous guy did leave but we have won awards since so its not down to current personnel. As always it's a financial outlaybthat has had to be managed.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

I blame Brexit.

I blame Springsteen.

[villa `cross the mersey]

I blame it on the Boogie

[four fornicholl]

I blame it on the Boogie

Well, you can't blame it on the sunshine.

[Bad English]

Last season former Villa Flymo supremo Jonathan Calderwood got an average score of 19.1/20 for the quality of the PSG pitch (which was voted best pitch in L1). This season I read that he is getting around 15.5/20 due to weather, frost and so on. He earns around €20,000 a month as 'pitch manager for the Qataris.

[thick_mike]

Looks like we didn’t win the raffle for that robotic lawnmower someone was offering on here a few months ago.

[FrankyH]

I haven't driven past Villa Park at night for a good while now.When I last did , you could tell the UV lights were on because of the orange glow.Maybe they don't use them anymore ?

[curlytailavfc]

no more air traffic coming over dropping wee on the pitch before landing at bmx

[Top Cat]

It's  the smell of freshly mowed (?) Grass that always reminds me of VP

[mr underhill]

considering how awful the  weather has been it didn't look too bad to me yesterday.