Artificial pitch would be a great idea. The club could rent it out to the local community for school, street league, amateur/welfare, youth teams and of course us the fans for 5 a side. To good an oportunity to miss imo and with our current pitch being so pump, now would be the time to do it. It may also give us a slight advantage over other sides ;)

Was speaking to Robbo about this a couple of weeks back and he was telling me of a study done in regards the physical impact to players playing on artificial surfaces.

 

From what I understood, teams who play regularly on them pick up fewer injuries than they do on grass and they quickly overcome initial problems...mostly lower back aches resulting from a firmer surface.

 

In regards to what players prefer....they all want to be playing on a good consistent surface and there doesn't seem to be such polar views on whether that must be grass or an artificial surface these days.

 

Advancement has not only been made in regards to the playing surface.  In-fill has also evolved and causes no more problems (in terms of burns/grazes) than a sand based pitch.  The underlying structure on which the surface is laid is also a lot different than it once was and it's no longer just a carpet/underlay type setup.

 

IMO, with artificial alternatives being what they are now then it should be a no-brainer.  The biggest obstacle in balancing the books for a lot of clubs is the cost of having a pitch/stadium which is only generating any significant revenue on 30 or so days a year (at best).  Additional revenue from rentals, plus money saved from renting training facilities and facilities for use by youth teams etc would be a healthy 6-figure sum.  You also open up options like having other sports using it (ICT Hockey Club, ICT Rugby Club, ICT Shinty Club etc)....then factor in the possibility of having a sports bar/cafe that could (potentially) be open 7 days a week...and from a business perspective it would be crazy not to seriously consider it.

Last year I played an 11s game at airdries stadium that we hired out. 22 of us paid something like a tenner each to play in a professional stadium with a ref. the quality of the artificial pitch was very decent I thought and if we were to rent out the stadium very much like what airdrie do then it would be a good bit of business. With them having so many clubs around them it is always in use. We tried booking it last month and it was constantly booked with teams like Motherwell and st mirren training on it.

Seemingly County spent nigh on £700k getting their grass pitch sorted.

Seemingly County spent nigh on £700k getting their grass pitch sorted.

 

Keep in mind that they had to do it twice because they screwed it up the first time.

Garry O'Conner is blaming him still being a fatty on synthetic pitches at Morton.

Last year I played an 11s game at airdries stadium that we hired out. 22 of us paid something like a tenner each to play in a professional stadium with a ref. the quality of the artificial pitch was very decent I thought and if we were to rent out the stadium very much like what airdrie do then it would be a good bit of business. With them having so many clubs around them it is always in use. We tried booking it last month and it was constantly booked with teams like Motherwell and st mirren training on it.

I've also played on that pitch at the Excelsior and must admit it is great quality, as has been mentioned pitches like that can be rented out and used constantly, and in the long term will recoup the money spent on it

 

Seemingly County spent nigh on £700k getting their grass pitch sorted.

 

Keep in mind that they had to do it twice because they screwed it up the first time.

 

 

According to Tommy, ours needs a lot of money spent on it so we should seriously consider the longer term when making any decisions. I hope the men in black seats give this due consideration.