Games weekend Friday 19th to Monday 22nd April

[Shinkicker]

You do realise how expensive it is to keep pitches in the condition you expect. The kit to do so would be the equivalent of about what harps need to raise with the sale of a football ground. If every pitch was lifted and proper underground drainage installed places like Tolka could still struggle. Clubs couldnt afford 24hr atrificial sunlight electricity bills never mind the equipment. In an ideal world every pitch has a surface like a snooker table, never going to happen except with advancements in artificial pitch tech. So pragmatically you play the conditions like very football team must. Im not talking about a pitch being used to augment tactics, not cutting grass, no work done at all cause a cut up pitch nullifies a team that tries to play on the deck. Arguably money would be better spent on having a squad to suit - Towell would possibly be a sensible pick before a brittle Byrne on a heavy and uneven surface. Sometimes it just is what it is and we have to suck it up and know that usually pitches improve as the season progresses. We may need to consider the future impact of more seasonal rain especially along the Atlantic coast and those discussions will come to a conclusion of the lesser of two evils and that is the dreaded artificial surface. Id guess the MFA have at least had a rethink on the abominations! Oriel, Tallaght, Dalymount etc are not on flood prone areas and could/should always have reasonably consistant surfaces throughout the season if use is managed, others are not in such a position. So now we talk...

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I don't think any club in LOI would need sun lamps as the stands are not high enough to block the sun and wind, even tallaght has open corners, and wind is a huge factor. Etihad stadium in Manchester has huge controllable vents in the corners to allow the wind to blow through it and these are closed on match days.
If a club in LOI had a stadium large enough to block the sun they could afford sun lamps. As for the artificial pitches, in general they are uneven due to both under and over application of crumb rubber in areas of the same pitch and not brushing the pitch regularly enough.
Also clubs don't include cannon sprinklers in the capital cost of the pitch and depend on Johnny and Mick with garden hoses to soak the pitch prior to kick off.

[Nesta99]

You need the sun lamps if you are trying to regerate the pitch in the off season, or during the winter months. Drainage is as much a problem. I cant disagree on the upkeep of the artificial surfaces, the simply must be maintained as per guidelines and not in an ad hoc manner than seems to have been an issue for different owners in Oriel and in Derry. Under SK Johnny and Mick did a perfectly ok job watering the pitch as requested by SK.

[Shinkicker]

You need the sun lamps if you are trying to regerate the pitch in the off season, or during the winter months. Drainage is as much a problem. I cant disagree on the upkeep of the artificial surfaces, the simply must be maintained as per guidelines and not in an ad hoc manner than seems to have been an issue for different owners in Oriel and in Derry. Under SK Johnny and Mick did a perfectly ok job watering the pitch as requested by SK.

Are you saying the pitch has not been watered since 2018?

[EalingGreen]

You do realise how expensive it is to keep pitches in the condition you expect. The kit to do so would be the equivalent of about what harps need to raise with the sale of a football ground. If every pitch was lifted and proper underground drainage installed places like Tolka could still struggle. Clubs couldnt afford 24hr atrificial sunlight electricity bills never mind the equipment. In an ideal world every pitch has a surface like a snooker table, never going to happen except with advancements in artificial pitch tech.

Those are the pitches of a Junior club in Fermanagh with both having being laid down from scratch (i.e. brand new site) in 2015. Now as it happens, they spent a decent amount of money, at that level at least, and employed top quality pitch installers (do lots of GAA and Rugby as well as football). And while they've had the contractors back to do some bits of repair and maintenance since, nonetheless the day to day stuff is all done by volunteers.

The point being that the main (lower left) pitch is used every week by either 1st team or Reserves and I don't think they've had a single cancellation due to pitch problems this season (maybe one?). Indeed there have been weeks when nearly every other match in the area had to be called off bar theirs. While the upper pitch, which has floodlights, has been usually available for training, or boys/girls matches, throughout the season, too.

Of course, they've not had the problem of the sun being shaded by big stands etc, then again, it's Fermanagh, so they never get much sun in the first place! While this is for a winter season, with Fermanagh being a wet place at the best of times.

P.S. Not only is the pitch physically playable, but it's actually a very good surface too, so it can be done.

EDIT: Don't know whether it needed to be made clear, but those are both grass pitches.

[outspoken]

You need the sun lamps if you are trying to regerate the pitch in the off season, or during the winter months. Drainage is as much a problem. I cant disagree on the upkeep of the artificial surfaces, the simply must be maintained as per guidelines and not in an ad hoc manner than seems to have been an issue for different owners in Oriel and in Derry. Under SK Johnny and Mick did a perfectly ok job watering the pitch as requested by SK.

You're wasting your time trying to water an astro in this country, you might as well be pishing on it, it drys as soon as it hits it.

In Scandinavia where a lot of the pitches are astro they have proper watering systems, until we have that we are wasting our time with astros.

I seen Derry had a lad with a power washer out at the weekend, a total waste of time as I said.

[Nah Nah Nah Nah]

Derry get a suspended closure which only matters if they don’t cause any trouble at the next game. Crazy stuff. Could imagine what would have happened if it was the Shams fans who caused the trouble. The FAI really are a shower of total imbecile's.

[ontheotherhand]

Derry get a suspended closure which only matters if they don’t cause any trouble at the next game. Crazy stuff. Could imagine what would have happened if it was the Shams fans who caused the trouble. The FAI really are a shower of total imbecile's.

I wonder what the logic is - that the trouble came from outside the ground?

You'd always get a few rocks thrown at buses on the way out, but the last two games in Derry have been particularly bad for us and I've heard similar from other clubs. Metal bars, rocks and flares thrown in last week and before that we had a borderline warzone created in the car park by people who may claim some affinity with the club but don't represent the Derry fans I know. Such a shame. It's a wonderful away trip and Derry's support are good craic but it's getting to the point we will see boycotts unless something is done about these scuzzbuckets.

[brendy_éire]

I wonder what the logic is - that the trouble came from outside the ground?

Suppose so. We don't actually know though, since the disciplinary process isn't transparent.

It's a wake-up call for the club. I honestly am not sure what the solution is though. It probably needs to involve the PSNI, despite the difficulties that would bring.

The other solution is to move out of the Brandywell, which plenty would like to see done in the longer term.

[ontheotherhand]

Suppose so. We don't actually know though, since the disciplinary process isn't transparent.

It's a wake-up call for the club. I honestly am not sure what the solution is though. It probably needs to involve the PSNI, despite the difficulties that would bring.

The other solution is to move out of the Brandywell, which plenty would like to see done in the longer term.

I feel for you brendy. We haven't been short of a few toerags bringing the clubs name down in the past obviously. It's always hard to take. This stuff is on another level to most of the trouble in the league in recent times though (bar maybe the bohs/wrexham clowns at the cup final) and the Derry Ultras post today about the PSNI makes me think it's going to be very, very hard to solve.

Moving the away fans back to the other side would maybe help? Would need seat kills but the loss of ticket revenue might be better than the damage these shower are doing. Moving games to Sunday afternoons maybe?

[Shinkicker]

You're wasting your time trying to water an astro in this country, you might as well be pishing on it, it drys as soon as it hits it.

In Scandinavia where a lot of the pitches are astro they have proper watering systems, until we have that we are wasting our time with astros.

I seen Derry had a lad with a power washer out at the weekend, a total waste of time as I said.

Totally correct, cannon sprinklers are the only answer.

[Nah Nah Nah Nah]

They had a fire brigade (one engine) at the showgrounds pre game last night. I assume they were after watering the pitch, I noticed Alan Keane there, so it is not for lack of effort of clubs that pitches are bad. Also with the ladies league there is extra games being played on some pitches like Tolka. League of Ireland managers have been giving out about the poor pitches after games for many years now (also missing light bulbs, B Kerr), so don't expect the complaining to change.
A very competitive game between Sligo and Galway with I think a draw was a fair result. A really nice and friendly venue to visit. Great work being done by the folks there to keep the show on the road and I am sure they are not too concerned about the opinions of Stephen Bradley etc.
Do people in Sligo think that the gate would drop by much if the kick off time was brought forward to say 7pm, especially for Monday games?

What would the point of that be? No one kicks off at 7pm

[Nesta99]

Are you saying the pitch has not been watered since 2018?

Has it rained since 2018?

[Nesta99]

You're wasting your time trying to water an astro in this country, you might as well be pishing on it, it drys as soon as it hits it.

In Scandinavia where a lot of the pitches are astro they have proper watering systems, until we have that we are wasting our time with astros.

I seen Derry had a lad with a power washer out at the weekend, a total waste of time as I said.

Again yes the system designed for watering artificial surfaces should be used simply as they use less water with greater effect than what happened in Oriel in the past which was essentially flooding the pitch with hoses running to differnt areas of the pitch for half the day before match natch night. I havent seen that level of effort with the pitch under more recent managers, a garden sprikler might have been switched on the odd time an hour or 2 befor KO. We opted against embedded water cannon spriklers for fear of Ollie breaking them, he only liked a pitch watered when it was going to turn it to mud!

[Shinkicker]

Has it rained since 2018?

That's why I got out