An article recently appeared on our League website which I thought might be of interest to PC members. Especially the football fraternity and those who are also referees:
Unfit or not?
From the posh end of the room!!
28 Feb 2010 by vid
Hi Alladin felt moved enough to write the following to Ian Templeman
"Hello Ian,
I have the responsibility of looking after Littlehampton Town FC and I am glad that you seem to want to get the best out of the pitches, I would however make one comment to your statement - "The groundsman will be the best to tell you how the pitch will react, once you have established that it doesn't matter how long it takes him to put the pitch right afterwards – that is the groundsman’s responsibility - but how it will react on the day." - I am gald to see that his opinion should be taken in to account (in my experience not always the case at our level). However if there is a lot of the season still to play I cannot agree that the length of time to put it right is not relevant - a pitch seriously cut up in december is going to be less and less capable of supporting play. What I am trying to say is that playing an inappropriate/marginal game early in the season will affect the playability of the pitch during the rest of winter whilst the grass is dormant and unable to repair itself. Therefore just one match in bad conditions will lead inevitably to more cancellations later on when conditions are poor.
Perhaps I can suggest that when conditions are good at the start of the season the leagues should be encouraged to get 1 or 2 matches ahead if they can, so that when conditions do turn poor (and this is the worst year i have known) matches can be postponed without pressure. Once the season gets to march we all expect to have to play a backlog of fixtures but at least conditions are starting to dry by then. Referees in my opinion should not be pressured to get matches on during late december to mid february as to do so is to compound the problem that the leagues are trying to relieve
Hope that makes sense and is of some use to you.
Mr vid,
That was pretty much my feeling on the matter. I am in the process of composing an e-mail myself.
From the posh end of the room!!
1 Mar 2010 by Parken
A penetrometer could be for measuring surface hardness (frost)
A “stimpmeter” could you be as a guideline for boll roll (water)
a thermometer (i use one of these) for soil temperature
carry out some test and offer set guidelines
The grounds person should be kitted out and assess the pitch in the morning and call the referee with the results
It potentially may eliminate some guesswork from the science of calling a game off and remove some of the brown and grey areas
I use a ball pre match to test the pitch, but more for ball roll/pace and not to see if players will go bottom over chest
1 Mar 2010 by vid
Parken - you are having a laugh arent you?? I dont need equipment to categorise whether a pitch is playable or not. If I sink in to the ground up to my boot cap tops, or there is sitting water anywhere on the pitch, it is too wet and the ball wont roll far. I agree with the thermometer though - if you cant push it in the ground then the pitch is either very dry and playable or frozen - the temperature of the ground as far as playability goes is irrelevant.
A set of very simple rules could be set without need to resort to complicated and expensive equipment. The top leagues may see fit to equip themselves with this gear but it would only really be to cover their own backs. A few rules and common sense should be all that is needed.
1 Mar 2010 by Parken
Always having a laugh thanks Vid
As you say a few rules and common sense is all that’s needed but there appears from what I read some frustrations, it”s just a thought and no more than that
Clubs do not have to buy any of the expensive equipment,
although a compaction tester is around a couple of hundred pounds would that save money if you didn’t have to employ the referee? And didn’t waste the day prepping? waiting for it to be called off before kick off, I read that was part of the problem
You could make one and just add weights, can you break the surface?
As you know pitches are assessed in heavy rain by rolling the ball across the surface at all levels, so what distance is unplayable?
set a guideline and determine the pace the ball should roll at to be measured
all this would take about 5 minutes and maybe offer some rules
I agree this may all not be necessary and I have none of these tools. I generally feel if a pitch can take a stud its playable, and as you state if it can take a boot its not!!
There appears to be a problem with the inconsistency of the decisions and when there are no guidelines there always will be
There has been debate on calling off games at all levels
Chris
1 Mar 2010 by vid
fair enough, point taken........quite agree with everything you say
2 Mar 2010 by Parken
Morning Vid
can the ball be passed from the goal line to the edge of the penalty area, centre spot to edge of the circle,
The debatable decisions are border line, define the borders
Again these are only suggestions and when I offered my agronomy tools list it was to demonstrate there are way of testing surfaces
Are there guide lines set by the FA?
Surely if we set our own guidelines then these will be questioned by the team management as they are not from an "official" source.
I have a pentrometer specifically for early season use on our rugby pitches , trouble is i cant find any relevant info from the RFU regarding what constitutes a "hard / unsafe" pitch to compare them against.
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