Magazine - Then there was light

8 Oct 2003 by David

How much would it cost to run????? At a time when funds throughout football are diminishing and budgets are being cut, how many clubs would sanction an obviously expebsive system like this which will without doubt only encourage very weak unatural growth throughout the non growing season??

David , Berkshire

8 Oct 2003 by lj

as yet, we are waiting for a costing as to the running of the system. as for affording it, many people once thought that man city had no money at all-yet in the last two and a half years almost two million pounds has been spent on new machinery and the development of the training pitches, add that onto the cost of the stadium pitch-almost £900,000- then it goes to show that money is available if a club is properly run and manages throughout all of its departments, not just the groundstaff. dont forget that last year was the first time in 6 years that we had stayed in the same division since 1997-three promotions and three relegations havent given us the riches that many of the established premier league teams have, yet the club has recognised that in order to have the best, they need to invest wisely, which has been proven in the last twelve months. we are merely recognising as a club that investment in the pitch is an investment in the team, and clubs always find money to spend on the team dont they? cost of the overall system will depend on its success-the better results, the more orders, the more orders the cost will decrease, but as always someone has to try it first, and just like pitchcare we are trying to find ways forward which will in turn benefit groundsmen.

hope this helps.

9 Oct 2003 by David

LJ

I appreciate that man city are in a better financial state than others but my worry and concern is for the clubs poorer than yourselves. I appreciate that the system sounds good and could work well, but what a ball ache having to pull all of those frames in and out of the ground. Surely time could be better spent being a groundsman! Is it the same system trialed up at Sunderland? Do they still have it up there? Their pitch certainly looked good for the England v Turkey game earlier this year so it must be doing the business for them. Hope it works for you. Try and keep the trial going for 20 years or so. It won't cost a penny then!!!!! Good luck to the CITY !!

David, Berkshire

9 Oct 2003 by lj

there are others in better states though that dont spend on pitches unfortunatley! as for the rig, it only takes 5-10 minutes to put on and it is one unit, not a series of frames as per sunderland, who trialled a different system and am led to believe may still have it. the pitch for the england game was completely returfed two weeks prior to the game being played, but if you look at tv clips of the pitch before that point, the area used for the tests was clearly evident.we do now have a running costing and yes, it isnt cheap to run, but then again, neither is returfing!!!

thanks for the interest.

10 Oct 2003 by David

Cheers for your comments LJ. It's shed some light on the matter as they say.

David , Berkshire

11 Oct 2003 by Matt aka plastic terminator

Firstly, such products are interesting but not of much relevance to stadia with less than 10,000 seats and less than 10m vertical rise pitch edge to roof edge. Unless the stadia is of very strange design/location/climate. I know I am opening a can of worms here but generally speaking these clubs have less enviromentally related problems with their pitches than big stadia and being less capacity are less likley to be able to generate revenue in the first place and thus are not really in the market for innovative turf research that will cost them a large chunk of their turnover and perhaps get them nowhere. Therefore the comment about expense is a little off the mark(david).

The point I would like to make and I think it has a relevance to most of my comments on plastic pitches is I think money invested in solving the problems associated with stadia pitches is money well spent and I applaud Manchester city.

As for expense by larger clubs it has all been said before, the net profit generated from say a full house in a 40,000 seater stadium covers the annual normal maintenance budget for the stadium pitch and training grounds with ease.
The approximate(according to an article in the independent newspaper) average weekly wage of a champions league team sqad member player 01/02 season is 4870 gb pounds. That is essentially a 100,000 pounds a week wage bill for a 20 man squad.
That does not include the background staff/coaches /stadia/merchandising etc etc.

You do the math!

Quite simply if a club is well managed and a leash is very quickly put on ever increasing player wage bills(and I am sure we are all agreed are now well beyond ridiculous.) I also realise though that people like a beckham or a ronaldo can generate huge amounts of revenue for clubs in merchandiising & marketing etc. but I am generalising and trying to show you that most clubs do not put money into their STADIA unless forced to do so. Obviously recent stadium investment has been massive and continues to be so but this was after the Taylor report and the compulsory all seater rules. How much would have changed if Hilsboro' had not happened? For the answer look at the clubs who have not yet been forced to comply completely for whatever reason but are doing well now. They stand out like a sore thumb!
The same can be said for investment in pitches, and we must take the initative by being as innovative as possible.
I know there are exceptions(and my employer is one of them) who simply want the best natural turf pitch and stadia facilities which is great because we get sensible budgets that allow us to actually acheive something. At the same time however the club you work for will want to recoup it's investment and that means extra usage, concerts etc.
Finally regarding the point raised about encouraging weak growth; all I would say is there is a break point when any growth is better than no growth and keeping what you have (if desirable coverage/density is there) is the prefered option to turf removal. Of course if such a system increased divoting/damage despite increased cover and thus affected playability then this would have to be assesed dependant upon the extent of damage.
I for one will be following the trials very closely.

regards matt,