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Drive past there every morning and always comment to myself about the quality of the playing surface. Someone is obviously putting some effort in keeping it in shape. It was mowed and rolled last week and looks immaculate.Quote:
Originally Posted by khoop
Out of curiousity, why would it be kept in shape?
Is their LSL teams playing there?
I don't know if any non-Bray fans have already commented on but the Carlisle ground was an absolute disgrace last night. Horribly hard and bumpy pitch. Looked hard not seen water for weeks. Bumpy pitch suits long ball play but makes passing very difficult. There would have been smaller bounch in the car park. :(
The FAI have introduced licencing to bring up minimum standards but they do not have seem to have set minimum pitch standards.
the fai have introduced licensing not to improve things but to give the illusion that things are getting better
It removed Dublin Cty from the league. How is that not a success?Quote:
Originally Posted by passerrby
It didn't - Dublin City was the greatest failure licencing. Dublin City going broke removed them from the league.
The great anti-Cork conspiracy theory rolls on!Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
It was fu*k all to do with the pitch. Cork last night were at best ordinary!. Even with getting the benefit of some terrible refereeing decisions, they still never looked like breaking down a poor Bray team.
Please stay on topic as I never even mentioned the result.Quote:
Originally Posted by Superhoops
:rolleyes:
Is your pitch good enough? Yes or No?
To get back on topic to pitches, one of the reasons some people opposed summer soccer was this very reason bone dry rock hard pitches and so it has finally come to pass. One of the major problems with the close season is it coincides with the months of zero grass growth which means pitch overhauls now have to take place during the League season for the ELOI club concerned.
That means waiting for a window where you have two away games back to back and hopefully an away draw in one of the cups before the club can get any work done on their playing surface. If you happen to be the Tolka Park groundsman no such luck, two teams playing there means a game every week. And beside the bulldozers will be in there in 12 to 18 months so what's the point?
you can only blame summer soccer if all pitches are bone dry etc - they are not, some clubs have excellent pitches as the groundmen have done good jobs of watering etc when required, other clubs don't seem to have put any effort in their pitches.
if it was a winter season, you can be gauranteed that the clubs with the bad pitches now, would be the clubs having the matches postponed for unplayable pitches - which as memory serves happened an awful lot back in the dark old days of the winter seasons.
[off topic - now that the attendances are up, can it be said that it is due to summer soccer, just as summer soccer was being blamed last season for low crowds??]
Exactly, If some clubs can make the effort why don't the others? Surely all it needs is a hose & sprinkler? Maybe some clubs see it as a tactic to stop the fulltime sides a bit like narrow pitch & longer grass?Quote:
Originally Posted by ColinR
You just love getting a few digs in. Your pitch was terrrible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Superhoops
Not this again.....Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
Surely if teams are good enough they can play on the surface given. No matter what. No excuses.
I have to agree with Superhoops, you're bringing up your conspiracy theories again. Get over it.
Maybe this applies to Bray, you've always played the same in every game ive seen you play. If you'd ever seen a team trying to pass the ball along a surface like the RSC or the Showgrounds, for example, or a higher profile choice, Croke Park, you'd quickly change your mind. But sure, ignore that (apparantly) your pitch isnt up to a good standard because "sure it'll do, quit whining.". Thats the sort of small town, small club attitude I'd expect from a purposeless joke of a club making up the numbers with no ambition or hope of improving its 'product' and attracting support.Quote:
Originally Posted by superfrank
grow up.Quote:
I have to agree with Superhoops, you're bringing up your conspiracy theories again. Get over it.
Please answer the question... I never mentioned the result last night. If you are unable to stay on topic maybe post in a different thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by superfrank
I can only comment on the pitches I have seen so far this season. The RSC is usually poor but not seen this year...
It was shocking. The first thing that crossed my mind when we went down there is "how on earth are they going to promote this league to people when somehting as fundamental as the pitches are in this kind of state"Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
I walked the pitch before the match yesterday and yes it was a bit hard but it was a carpet and it always is. the only bad part of the pitch would hav been the goal-mouth at the training pitch end of the ground was a bit dug up.Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
And bray do have a sprinkler system in place and i'm not too sure why they havent been using it. it pops up out of the ground!!
Maybe if you ask your players when they dive on the ground they could roll around a bit more (6 rolls instead of 5) you know the groundsman needs all the help he can get.
Dalymount last night looked like there was sand or something flying up from the surface in places. A few lads went on their snot as well. Might be imagining it.
Tell you what. I don't know, I wasn't playing on it so how would I?Quote:
Originally Posted by pete
The standard of football wasn't great but that's pretty much the same that I've seen everytime I've watched an el match this season, not just Bray ones (before you get all smart).
Oh maybe you missed that one. But pete seemed to think that UCD deliberately didn't cut the grass at Belfield when Cork travelled there last season as it was a perfect excuse for them to stop Cork playing that brand of total football you're so famous for.Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
i'd hardly call that conspiracy theories, i've seen plenty of teams 'adjust' the playing surface depending on who they're playing, including City.Quote:
Originally Posted by superfrank
Check out the third post down!
http://forum.shelbournefc.ie/chat/vi...=116350#116350
Rumour has it we are playing in Whitehall as a result!:confused:
http://file028a.bebo.com/4/large/200...437660739l.jpg
Dermot Keely's intention to "make tolka a fortress" gets off to a good start with lads digging trenches.
Actually, the move to summer football is part of the problem and makes pitches far harder to have in decent shape for the first third of the season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Nightdub
Summer was previously the time when your pitch got time to recopuerate and grow in preparation for the new season. It was the time when any groundsman worth his salt earned his money as the work done in the close season was what got a pitch through the playing season.
The groundsmans objective was to have the pitch like a carpet in late July, and try and keep it in shape through the winter months till spring. By the end of a season it would always be struggling unless its was a particularly well located/drained pitch, but if it limped through to May the groundsman could patch it up for next year. Look up any resource on groundsmen or pitch maintenance such as the Institute of Groundsmanship in the UK and you will see that this is how the whole art of groundsmanship was focused.
Now with "summer soccer", bearing in mind that summer is a state of mind in this country, groundsmen get to November with a bog of a pitch. Can't go near it over the winter to do the vital close season work, and hit into a playing season in March. Usually theres not a let up in the rain to allow even a basic sanding and verti draining job to be done and the pitch starts off the season in shaky shape, and when the weather improves the groundsman has to take his chance when theres a couple of week window and try and do his job.
e.g. Shels having to relay their pitch at the minute, as its the first chance they'd have goten to go near it with machinery.
Harps are doing work on their pitch at the miniute too as we have 2 free weekends and finally a bit of weather.
Come about July and all eL pitches will be fine, naturally enough, as some kind of summer usually takes effect by then, however "Summer Soccer" actually impacts very negatively on playing surface conditions in early season, and yet another of the percieved benefits of summer soccer has proved to have been ill thought out and non existant.
Simple logic - sure its sunny in summer, the pitches will be great.
Actual story - we start playing just after the wettest quarter of the year and pitches will be terrible till July, decent for 2 or 3 months before tearing up again just in time to be left over for the winter.
Makes sense now that you explain it. Fair play, Mr. T.
Except that its been exceptionally dry this year. Down here anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erstwhile Bóz
I would have no problems with Shels crawling down to Cork to die :)
A statue has been erected in Tolka to honour of Ollie Byrne.
:)
Yeah, but yous have a different climate down there! I remember going to Cobh when there was still snow lying up here and the bloomin daffodils were, well, blooming.Quote:
Originally Posted by GavinZac
Seriously though, we've had a dry few weeks through the second half of March, but how dry was January and Februay and up to Paddys day!!
You now have to start the season with a ****e pitch and try and shape it up while playing on it as the weather improves. Over the course of the past 3 or 4 summer seasons this has probably lead to a gradual diminishing of the condition of eL pitches in comparison to junior pitches playing the traditional season.
In last years 'summer' season Harps had 2 games postponed in March due to the pitch being either frozen or waterlogged.
imagine, then, what would (did) happen when the majority of games took place between october and march. more postponements, and an acceptance of a lower standard to avoid build upQuote:
Originally Posted by Mr_T
not trying to extend my thread but just heard the FAI has appointed a pitch inspector to carry out an assessment of all eicom league pitches, sounds like a good move
Mr. T, how then do you explain the discrepancies - some pitches are OK (haven't heard anyone complaining about Richmond, Turners Cross, Belfield, Dalymount) and some are in a poor to shocking state? Dublin and Cork haven't had a different climate to the rest.
Cork fans haven't stopped complaining about Belfield.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Nightdub
He does raise an interesting point, although the quality of gruondsman will still be an important factor in how good the pitches are.
This is also very true. Some groundsmen may just have been caught out by the change in how things needed to be done.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Also, some pitches are harder kept than others, our is notoriously bad draining and no matter what the playing season 2 days of heavy rain will f*ck it.
Incidentally, the FAI did run a course for groundsmen earlier this year, which may have had something to do with trying to educate them to improve pitches in the summer scenario.
TG
Isn't it the case that Dublin only has one third of the rainfall levels of the Northwest though?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr.Nightdub
Ridden Rock Solid?
I have a problem with the length of the grass at Belfield but we will never agree on that.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The Turners Cross pitch seems to be deliberately left a little long at the start of the season maybe to protect it. I noticed this last year & seems to be cut shorter each week so in good shape after 4-6 weeks. Maybe some other clubs might adopt that but I am no groundsman...
how many teams only allow there senior team to play on the pitch during the season and no training on it either that along with a good watering system would solve all problems
Pats do all of the above. However I understand some teams allowing their reserve sides to use it rather than shell out for rent of a pitch elsewhereQuote:
Originally Posted by passerrby