Rovers are the raining champions

FGR groundsman Stewart Ward showing the amount of rain which fell on The New Lawn playing surface in 2012 Buy this photo » FGR groundsman Stewart Ward showing the amount of rain which fell on The New Lawn playing surface in 2012

THE New Lawn lays claim to being the third highest ground in English football - and it is also one of the wettest - with 1716.9mm of water falling on the playing surface last year.

Only last week the Met Office reported that 2012 was the second wettest year on record in the United Kingdom (and the wettest for England) with an average of 1,330.7mm of rain falling last year, just 6.6mm short of the wettest UK year recorded in 2000 (1337.3mm).

Rainfall at The New Lawn over the last 12 months was 29% above the UK average and despite this only one game had to be rescheduled due to a waterlogged pitch.

In the 10 days leading up to the Kidderminster fixture on December 29, rain gauges at The New Lawn show the ground was inundated with 145mm or almost 6 inches of water.

Forest Green groundsman Stewart Ward said: "The amount of rain we received was massively unhelpful - almost six inches over that Christmas period. The ground is built on solid clay and even though we've got 200mm of soil on top, in those few areas where the soil is a bit shallower it would have just turned it into mud."

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