Watching the replay .. what a joke. They must be deliberately churning up that pitch thinking it is a home advantage?
Is there only football played there?
What excuse do they have?
blackpool's is worse
Blackpool aren't anywhere near as big a club as sheff wed are. With the size of their ground they should really be providing better facilities than that. Its unacceptable, not sure what the weather has been like but there aren't many pitches that bad around.
If it is a deliberate tactic to unease the opposition then in my eyes that is cheating. You can do many things to gain home advantage but deliberately producing a mediocre pitch is crossing the line. I doubt thats what they did though, surely no club would stoop that low?
And to be fair their home form is poor compared to their form on the road which makes me think they dont like the pitch either.
At least we dug in and came away with a valuable point, it doesnt matter how ugly anymore, we just need points
I was astonished when I got to the ground to see what a poor state the pitch was in. It reminded of what pitches were like in the eighties and before.
This is why we should have astroturf plastic pitches. Everyone is the same, nobody has an advantage
Quote from: David Allen Crankshaw on March 15, 2015, 08:33:19 PM
I was astonished when I got to the ground to see what a poor state the pitch was in. It reminded of what pitches were like in the eighties and before.
But didn't the whole place feel like the 80's? The ramshackle stands where terraces used to be, the old stands on four sides, cobwebs holding the place together. The pitch fitted it really.
Also for a partly sunny day it was bloody freezing in the away end and the pitch on the main stand side hasn't seen sunshine since it was built.
Quote from: Riether Lightning 63 on March 15, 2015, 08:38:00 PM
This is why we should have astroturf plastic pitches. Everyone is the same, nobody has an advantage
I wouldn't go that far, but no excuse that a championship pitch was like that yesterday.
Quote from: Riether Lightning 63 on March 15, 2015, 08:38:00 PM
This is why we should have astroturf plastic pitches. Everyone is the same, nobody has an advantage
God no, that's the end of football, there is no excuse for a championship side having a pitch like that, but to bring in plastic Is surely not the way to go. Would ruin football for me
Quote from: Riether Lightning 63 on March 15, 2015, 08:38:00 PM
This is why we should have astroturf plastic pitches. Everyone is the same, nobody has an advantage
It was tried 30 years ago and binned for a reason.
Talking to a Wednesday pal of mine (I have a couple of them living in Yorkshire!) and they are as embarrassed about the pitch as anyone. Apparently the chairman has made it a priority in the summer to get a decent pitch installed but like us, they await the actions to back up the words!
To be fair, it didn't seem to be an advantage to them - they were as dreadful as us for the most part.
Quote from: The Equalizer on March 15, 2015, 09:39:36 PM
Quote from: Riether Lightning 63 on March 15, 2015, 08:38:00 PM
This is why we should have astroturf plastic pitches. Everyone is the same, nobody has an advantage
It was tried 30 years ago and binned for a reason.
Not that I'm in favor of artificial turf (although it probably could help some lower division teams if they could afford it in the first place), but there have been vast improvements over the green painted cement that was the AstroTurf/artificial turf of thirty years ago.
Most top-flight pitches are now a hybrid of grass and synthetic grass. Craven Cottage uses Fibrelastic.
Quote from: rweller86 on March 16, 2015, 11:35:29 AM
Most top-flight pitches are now a hybrid of grass and synthetic grass. Craven Cottage uses Fibrelastic.
But looking at the company who installed our Fibrelastic have Sheffield Wednesday on their client list...
No to plastic pitches from me. it becomes like a five-a-side game.
I would have hoped that the FA could assess the pitches via the referee assessor and require clubs that fall below a decent standard (taking into account extreme weather conditions) to upgrade their pitches or face a ban on paying transfer fees to bring in new players.
Also, and to help improve the standard of English football at lower levels, some of the PL TV money could be used to help lower division clubs improve their pitches and training grounds.
There no way that pitch is an advantage to them, did you not see how many injuries they got on Saturday and subs they had to do. A bad pitch = more injuries not worth it for a club
Quote from: westcliff white on March 15, 2015, 09:20:35 PM
Quote from: Riether Lightning 63 on March 15, 2015, 08:38:00 PM
This is why we should have astroturf plastic pitches. Everyone is the same, nobody has an advantage
God no, that's the end of football, there is no excuse for a championship side having a pitch like that, but to bring in plastic Is surely not the way to go. Would ruin football for me
Remember plastic has been tried and it failed dismally.
Most grass pitches are magnificent these days, Sheffield Wednesday need to explain why theirs is so bad.
A dreadful pitch should have suited us fine.
No to full artificial turfs thank you very much. Have you seen the layers of skin it can remove when a player goes in for a good tackle? Picture below of Sydney LeRoux after playing a game in the states on synthetic artificial turf.
Keep it real man, keep it real :048:
(http://ll-media.tmz.com/2014/08/14/0814-leroux-reveal-twitter-4.jpg)
When we were kids in the 50s/60s we used to play on 'cinder' pitches - of ashes. These were still used right into the 80s - maybe there are still some today.
This was essentially like playing on a layer of rough gravel over a concrete base, and a sliding tackle could mean a bloody leg, and being a keeper left you bruised and cut all over.
Compared to the pitches on the current Big Match Revisited matches the Hillsborough pitch was in fantastic condition!
As a fan of a certain age, I loved the muddy winter pitches, particularly those covered in sand with snow piled up along the touchlines. Happy days!
Newcastle Falcons, Cardiff Blues and Saracens amongst others now have 4G pitches where the "grass" is long and covered in millions of tiny black rubber balls. It seems to work for Rugby as the "grass" is a lot longer than it would need to be for football and doesn't seem to cause burns although the bounce of the ball is totally different to that of grass.
Quote from: Riether Lightning 63 on March 15, 2015, 08:38:00 PM
This is why we should have astroturf plastic pitches. Everyone is the same, nobody has an advantage
Please no. The Ha Ha's had that put in 30 years back and everybody hated it, nothing good to say about it, and it was a relief when the FA decided that it should be removed. Far from 'nobody has an advantage' everyone would be at a disadvantage, including the fans watching crap footie on it.
The issue would be in that what regulations can you make for this? Given some of the winters, and also some of the ground-sharing that needs to happen for clubs to survive, where do you draw the line at the what state the pitch has to been in? I recall seeing Bradfords from the cup game recently, and that was worse than the one this weekend from the view.
Top-level teams, as public entertainers, deserve to have the best possible surface that modern techniques can provide. This was certainly not the case at Hillsborough and they should be required to do something about it.
Today it is possible to provide excellent, and consistent, playing conditions throughout the season almost irrespective of any but the most extreme weather conditions. It is unnecessary to turn to totally artificial surfaces. The kind of hybrid surface as used a at CC (real grass grown on a sand/someotherstuff substrate on top of a rapid draining base, provides for a decent surface all year round - although some of the enclosed stadia seem to have to replace the surface very frequently.
To say that football cannot be played on such inferior surfaces as at Sheffield is , I would say, something of an exaggeration. In the past grass featured on pitches on a less than regular basis and some sublime football was often played on mudheaps. In many ways these poor surfaces gave the very best players an advantage as their superior skills could be even more clearly defined against lesser mortals. George Best playing for us on some atrocious apologies for playing surfaces springs to mind.
Top-class players are simply not used to playing on anything other than perfect surfaces. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the billions of non-millionaire footballers, presumably still have to contend with the kind of mud baths that I used to enjoy (I think).
Quote from: cmg on March 17, 2015, 07:23:03 PM
Top-level teams, as public entertainers, deserve to have the best possible surface that modern techniques can provide. This was certainly not the case at Hillsborough and they should be required to do something about it.
Today it is possible to provide excellent, and consistent, playing conditions throughout the season almost irrespective of any but the most extreme weather conditions. It is unnecessary to turn to totally artificial surfaces. The kind of hybrid surface as used a at CC (real grass grown on a sand/someotherstuff substrate on top of a rapid draining base, provides for a decent surface all year round - although some of the enclosed stadia seem to have to replace the surface very frequently.
To say that football cannot be played on such inferior surfaces as at Sheffield is , I would say, something of an exaggeration. In the past grass featured on pitches on a less than regular basis and some sublime football was often played on mudheaps. In many ways these poor surfaces gave the very best players an advantage as their superior skills could be even more clearly defined against lesser mortals. George Best playing for us on some atrocious apologies for playing surfaces springs to mind.
Top-class players are simply not used to playing on anything other than perfect surfaces. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the billions of non-millionaire footballers, presumably still have to contend with the kind of mud baths that I used to enjoy (I think).
.. ahh, memories, and don't forget the leather balls and the laces when you nutted them!! :033:
Quote from: Logicalman on March 17, 2015, 07:25:40 PM
.. ahh, memories, and don't forget the leather balls and the laces when you nutted them!! :033:
Ah yes. But then you'd use your superior skills, laser-like (although that hadn't been invented yet) eyesight and exquisite timing to ensure that the laces were facing away from you when your head met the ball. The heavily Brylcreemed quiff helped to cushion the blow, too. 082.gif
Those balls also weighed a ton when they were wet.
Well, they wouldn't be allowed today with the concern with head injury from heading the ball, on-going after Jeff Astle's death-though I don't think that heading a modern ball compares to heading those old leather ones when wet.
But football was a tough game compared to today - a forward such as Best would come off the pitch after a game legs covered in bruises, but I miss the blood and thunder aspect of the game in those days.
The mud heaps made for a bit of a lottery - and the skilful players like Haynes, Matthews or Best really were skilful to play so well in those conditions, while the tackle was still an important part of the game, with players like Jim Langley perfecting the sliding tackle in the mud.
Wingers, like Leggatt , Chamberlain, O'Connell or Key sped down the wing, past the lunging full back, hopefully, crossing the heavy ball to a big centre forward, such as Maurice Cook, who would have an aerial duel with the opposing centre -half, and the keeper - who didn't have the privileged protection of today, as we saw with the winning goal in that famous Cup tie with Newcastle.
I remember playing on the plastic pitch at Preston North End in the late eighties shortly before it was replaced and got some terrible burns on the knees when I hit the deck. Absolutely horrible.
Quote from: cmg on March 17, 2015, 08:12:30 PM
Quote from: Logicalman on March 17, 2015, 07:25:40 PM
.. ahh, memories, and don't forget the leather balls and the laces when you nutted them!! :033:
Ah yes. But then you'd use your superior skills, laser-like (although that hadn't been invented yet) eyesight and exquisite timing to ensure that the laces were facing away from you when your head met the ball. The heavily Brylcreemed quiff helped to cushion the blow, too. 082.gif
I was a keeper in those days, so I got 'lucky' not having to head the thing, but I can tell you it was like catching a medicine ball (remember them?) when it came to shot-stopping. Many sprained wrists and broken fingers later and finally the lighter balls were introduced.
Anyone recall playing five-a-side at the Fulham baths?
Quote from: Logicalman on March 18, 2015, 11:05:58 AM
Quote from: cmg on March 17, 2015, 08:12:30 PM
Quote from: Logicalman on March 17, 2015, 07:25:40 PM
.. ahh, memories, and don't forget the leather balls and the laces when you nutted them!! :033:
Ah yes. But then you'd use your superior skills, laser-like (although that hadn't been invented yet) eyesight and exquisite timing to ensure that the laces were facing away from you when your head met the ball. The heavily Brylcreemed quiff helped to cushion the blow, too. 082.gif
I was a keeper in those days, so I got 'lucky' not having to head the thing, but I can tell you it was like catching a medicine ball (remember them?) when it came to shot-stopping. Many sprained wrists and broken fingers later and finally the lighter balls were introduced.
Anyone recall playing five-a-side at the Fulham baths?
Yes, I played at the indoor 5-a-side for Queens Manor, we won our age group one year. I still have a photo of Steve Perryman presenting the trophies.
Walsall at home in the 1970s, peeing with rain, pitch a mud-bath - Les Barrett sliding the ball in at the Putney end through about 6" of mud.
Happy days. Today's prima donnas don't know they're born.
