Accrington Stanley set to invest in their Crown Ground pitch

Accrington Stanley are set to invest in their Crown Ground pitch again this summer as Paul Cook looks for a playing surface to suit passing football.

The Reds spent £70,000 on the pitch two years ago in a bid to make big improvements to the surface but suffered continuing problems with the surface.

A further £30,000 was spent last summer and, while that prevented the same level of postponements seen in recent years, Cook believes the pitch could still be more conducive to his style of play.

The Reds boss would also be keen to use the pitch for some training sessions if possible but acknowledges that groundsman Martyn Cook is doing his best with the surface.

Further work is now likely to take place following the end of the current campaign, with Stanley finishing their season at home to Crawley next weekend.

"If you want to play football and move the ball quickly you need a pitch," said the Stanley manager.

"The pitch then needs a groundsman to work hard at it, which is what we've got.

"A club needs to spend a little bit of money on it, which we're prepared to do. So going forward if all of those things get put in place we might have a pitch that we can be proud of - not that we haven't been proud of it because we've had a lot of issues with it.

"That's nobody's fault in particular but obviously the less the pitch is used, the easier it is to maintain."