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Artificial Pitch At Firpark?


makaveli
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  1. 1. Should Fir Park be converted to artificial turf

    • Yes.
      16
    • No.
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Was listening to a program on the radio tonight and they were talking about the progress Norway have made with football. They reckon that this is a good bit down to the fact they mostly use artificial turf and it encourages more of a faster more direct pass to feet game. They also happened to mention Hamilton how the same thing is happening there now that they train and play at Douglas park on theirs and how it seems the way to go. Reckon financially it would be good as we could not only train at Firpark, saving costs of training grounds etc. Firpark could be hired out and bring money in. Surely this would be allowed now as all Scottish leagues are SPFL and the same rules apply to all member teams, if the smaller teams have it why shouldn't the bigger teams?

 

Would you have one at Firpark?

 

What's your thoughts?

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And their national team finished fourth in (IMHO) the easiest World Cup qualifying group behind Switzerland, Iceland and Slovenia.

 

Norwegian football is going through a fallow period at the moment, not really surprising that this will happen from time to time with countries with small populations. Even so they are miles ahead of us in the FIFA rankings and have outperformed Scotland hugely at international level over, say, the last 20 years.

 

Their league structure is much better than ours and their game is much better financed, receiving much more sponsorship and distributing it much more fairly. The league is much more competitive than ours and local clubs are much better supported. Teams like Aalesund have a regular home support twice as big as ours from a town roughly the same size.

 

We could learn a lot from Scandinavian football.

 

However I think clubs should play on grass if possible, so no artificial turf at Fir Park for me, although I think it makes a lot of sense for lower league clubs who don't have the finances available for pitch upkeep.

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Norwegian football is going through a fallow period at the moment, not really surprising that this will happen from time to time with countries with small populations. Even so they are miles ahead of us in the FIFA rankings and have outperformed Scotland hugely at international level over, say, the last 20 years.

 

Their league structure is much better than ours and their game is much better financed, receiving much more sponsorship and distributing it much more fairly. The league is much more competitive than ours and local clubs are much better supported. Teams like Aalesund have a regular home support twice as big as ours from a town roughly the same size.

 

We could learn a lot from Scandinavian football.

 

However I think clubs should play on grass if possible, so no artificial turf at Fir Park for me, although I think it makes a lot of sense for lower league clubs who don't have the finances available for pitch upkeep.

 

We're 35th, they're 47th.

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Their league structure is much better than ours and their game is much better financed, receiving much more sponsorship and distributing it much more fairly. The league is much more competitive than ours and local clubs are much better supported. Teams like Aalesund have a regular home support twice as big as ours from a town roughly the same size.

 

Their league might be more competitive but the overall standard of football is absolutely howling in comparison to Scotland. I don't know why they can't attract a higher standard of player considering the money they pay out but it really is shite. Haugesund are a good example, I watched them a couple of times at the start of the Norwegian season which overlaps with our campaign from last year. Dundee would've beaten them in my opinion and they managed to finish 4th. St Johnstones result against Rosenborg was no fluke either, they're just shite. AAFK have 3 players that i'd take over players in our own starting 11 at the minute; Michael Barrantes, Fredrik Ulvestad and Abderazzak Hamdallah. Barrantes is only still there because he's reaching an age where it isnt worthwhile for someone to take a punt on him, Ulvestad is a hot prospect and will no doubt leave fairly soon and Hamdallah cost them 1M.

 

 

We could learn a lot from Scandinavian football.

 

 

Namely how to treat fans and stir up a local interest in the game. Aalesund is a brilliant place to be on a match day, there are AAFK flags up on poles all over the city and theres much more sense of community to the day out.

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The community thing will never happen here, with the West coast attitude of sectarianism, etc.

 

I maintain that if the Old Firm didn't exist, Scottish football would be right up there with the most entertaining on the planet, with relative competition for titles, promotion, relegation, etc and bigger, passionate crowds.

 

Sadly, they do exist so it's a crock of predictable, corrupt shite.

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Scandinavian journalist on 5live last night described Norwegian football as 'not very good'

 

And their national team finished fourth in (IMHO) the easiest World Cup qualifying group behind Switzerland, Iceland and Slovenia.

 

We're 35th, they're 47th.

 

Should be a dawdle tonight it’s just a matter of how many Scotland will score. Make sure you have a calculator handy to help tally up all the goals. ph34r.gif

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From a financial point of view an artificial pitch makes sense no need for expensive undersoil heating, play more games for less spent on upkeep and no postponements in the winter. For a club like Motherwell it would make sense

 

I agree that it would reduce costs but not as much as you would think.

Having previously been involved with a Junior club who was thinking about going down the 4g route, I had many quotes from installers and companies looking to maintain the pitch once installed.

A straight forward installation (which Fir park is not because of the slope) would cost in the region of 400k so Fir park could quite easily be double that or even more.

It's not just a case of once its laid you just give it a brush now and again. It has to go through a process of chemicals being applied to keep bacteria under control and prevent build up of mildew etc.

They are only playable to about -7 then they freeze, only way to combat that is applying an expensive anti freeze solution. Heavy snow has to be cleared which is ok if you have the means to lift it and the transport to dump it somewhere safe, again quite expensive.

Plus its pish to watch and play football on.

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Bit unfair to neg makaveli for raising a debate topic regardless of your views of his track record on here and in the general public sphere. It was valid to ask the question.

 

For me, a country lying approx 54-57 deg of latitude it seems mental with predicted colder winters on the way not to move to summer football. Its a product readily sellable to Sky to fill up airtime down south as they have 4 channels that broadcast some amount of crap in the summer, why not our crap?

 

That would negate the need for and use of artifical turf. However if we stick with the status quo, lot to be said for hosting all our senior and U20 games at Fir Park, being able to train in the stadium and the potential of a slight advantage over visiting teams. Some of the latest pitches sanctioned by UEFA are fantastic and improvements are increasing all the time.

 

I'd also advocate Motherwell moving to Ravenscraig into a purpose built stadium using Tynecastle and Aalesund's ground as a datum, however, so couldn't really be put in the traditionalist camp.

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The community thing will never happen here, with the West coast attitude of sectarianism, etc.

 

I maintain that if the Old Firm didn't exist, Scottish football would be right up there with the most entertaining on the planet, with relative competition for titles, promotion, relegation, etc and bigger, passionate crowds.

 

Sadly, they do exist so it's a crock of predictable, corrupt shite.

 

Oh so fucking depressingly true....

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