SB and EPC Pitches | Page 5 | Vital Football

SB and EPC Pitches

Shouldn’t the sand go on top of the grass ?

From memory a traditional winter pitch has sand in the goal mouths and a strip down the middle, with the centre circle completely sand. However, the wings must be fully grassed.

There is a often a problem in spring though when you can get grass growing through the sand. Which I imagine is why we are spending so much to stop this issue.
 
From memory a traditional winter pitch has sand in the goal mouths and a strip down the middle, with the centre circle completely sand. However, the wings must be fully grassed.

There is a often a problem in spring though when you can get grass growing through the sand. Which I imagine is why we are spending so much to stop this issue.

A traditional winter pitch surely has the sand mixed in with mud giving it the consistency of a melted chocolate caramel ice cream with sprinkles. As you say though all of that is in a wide strip down the middle with the wings pristine green still showing the stripes from the mower.
 
Looking at the photo's are we replacing the advertising hoardings or are they being moved slightly to increase pitch size or something?
 
A traditional winter pitch surely has the sand mixed in with mud giving it the consistency of a melted chocolate caramel ice cream with sprinkles. As you say though all of that is in a wide strip down the middle with the wings pristine green still showing the stripes from the mower.

As you move down the leagues there is also the ever deepening depression under both penalty spots and the centre spot. At North Hykeham it was so bad that as an eleven year-old I had to take a penalty out of a puddle because the Ref insisted on the ball being placed in the correct position. The ball didn't quite float, but needless to say, I missed the penalty; the ball barely reaching the goal line.

The other Sunday League speciality is to replace the white lines with creosote so the grass dies and over time the pitch is marked out by rain eroded trenches, rather than the traditional white lines. This reduces the need for painting them during the season and is an ideal place to store sharp objects like broken glass, bottle tops, stones and assorted bits of metal.
 
I see the Willie Bell sprint track is still there after all these years, not used for its intended purpose though. I don’t think it ever was tbf.
 
As you move down the leagues there is also the ever deepening depression under both penalty spots and the centre spot. At North Hykeham it was so bad that as an eleven year-old I had to take a penalty out of a puddle because the Ref insisted on the ball being placed in the correct position. The ball didn't quite float, but needless to say, I missed the penalty; the ball barely reaching the goal line.

The other Sunday League speciality is to replace the white lines with creosote so the grass dies and over time the pitch is marked out by rain eroded trenches, rather than the traditional white lines. This reduces the need for painting them during the season and is an ideal place to store sharp objects like broken glass, bottle tops, stones and assorted bits of metal.
In the olden days there used to be a bit of a mound at the south park stand goalmouth. It got flattened in the late 70's or so.
 
As you move down the leagues there is also the ever deepening depression under both penalty spots and the centre spot. At North Hykeham it was so bad that as an eleven year-old I had to take a penalty out of a puddle because the Ref insisted on the ball being placed in the correct position. The ball didn't quite float, but needless to say, I missed the penalty; the ball barely reaching the goal line.

The other Sunday League speciality is to replace the white lines with creosote so the grass dies and over time the pitch is marked out by rain eroded trenches, rather than the traditional white lines. This reduces the need for painting them during the season and is an ideal place to store sharp objects like broken glass, bottle tops, stones and assorted bits of metal.

If that was at St Aiden's sports ground, one of the 6 yard boxes was worn away so much that the cross bar was actually a couple of inches higher than at the other end...
 
The geek in me enjoyed that article, although having a family member as an agronomist probably played a part!

I always bang on about Arsenal's set-up but that's 15 years old now. I dread to think how further advanced everything's got.
 
A fascinating read. Now I understand why MA wants the pitch the way he does. From an Aussie perspective, it was interesting that when Simon Yeo played in Perth for New Zealand Knights he got injured towards the end of the game (a shame as I was hoping to meet him and have a quick chat after pre-arranging it by e-mail) when he caught his studs in the grass and did his ankle - at least that was how it was reported. The grass here in Perth is very different to English grass and I had always thought it was more ‘grippy’ and ‘slower’ in terms of the ball movement, which doesn’t really help the development of the game here. The article could go a long way to explain why.