Pitch Watering

We know the pitch has historical drainage issues, but it’s not beyond the wit of man to excavate the car park at the back of the main stand and collect rainwater under there and get this, let it flow by gravity to pitch height to irrigate the grass. No electricity needed?. Anyone remember the redundant reservoir at the other side of Midland Rd ( which used to collect the spring water running underneath the pitch ( approx by the halfway line) . It’s clearly seen on old maps. It was pretty big as we used to play in it in the 50/60’s . No use now but there certainly was one.

 

Wow!

 

I think the reservoir was built by the railway company and was there to serve the many steam locomotives that operated in the area. It obviously became redundant after steam was fazed out in the 1960's

 

A reasonable idea, but it was for the old Gas works on Valley Road. Locos were serviced at Manningham shed off Bolton Lane/ Queens Rd.

 

That’s PL clubs who all have Desso pitches which are part plastic and need water to help ball movement and stop burns.
EFL grass pitches like ours won’t need as much water but the point is still valid.

 

Do't remember that at all, anyone have any photos.

@Bronco is usually good for stuff like this.

 

@SelbyFan, @Kevin1954 This is the best I could get, but it looks like there was a pond the other side of Midland Road just to the right of the stadium, bottom end of Hollywell Ash Lane

 

Ill try and find it. It wasn’t a pond though Dave. It was an actual “ Mill Dam”. There is a photo somewhere. I’ll see if I can find it where the remnants can be seen.

 

That was just me calling it a pond mate I was not aware there was any sort of reservoir/dam at the back of the Midland Road Stand, when you look at the picture its well over a third of the stand in length.
This is a great little app with regards the Bradford Area.
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=18&lat=53.80060&lon=-1.75420&layers=168&right=BingHyb

 

That’s it Dave.
I found a photo of it when empty.. We used to play in it as my mate’s Dad converted it into an allotment, late 50’s. Outline of it can be seen bottom right corner in this photo. I bet it held a boatload of water . It must have been 10-12ft deep.

 

Here is possibly the best aerial picture of that area where you can clearly see what I'm believe is the old mill dam.
Picture courtesy of John Dewhirst from his excellent book "Wool City Rivals".

 

Anyone who believes this drought nonsense when we're surrounded by sea and we are one of the rainiest countries in Europe is a fool.

It's the summer. Hot days occur. It'll rain again for about 100 out of the next 101 days once this is over. Jeez.

 

Looks well watered here.

Did it ever look like this or is this pure photoshop?

 

Great minds eh, Dave? I've spent hours looking at that app. A fantastic resource for looking back at the past over the whole country.

 

Enjoy

 

It gives the media something to jerk off over. Wait till we get rain, it'll be yellow warnings for flooding and told we're all gonna die or summat.

 

No it was like that. If you look carefully you can see the stream that runs underneath the pitch and originally filled the dam. It bisects the dam roughly in half and emerges in the middle of the three Dam side trees.we used to get tons of frog spawn from it.

 

If the club could somehow redirect the overflowing urine from the toilets in F Block it might help.

 

Its so the water companies have a reason to increase prices and most of the reasons are bollocks.

Under this government we are now all snookered! Businesses just finding reasons to increase costs.

 

Its a shame when they cleared the area on @SelbyFan picture they didn't continue right down to the very bottom 10 or so houses, apparently Richmond offered the owners more than market value but they held out for more and the club could not follow the Kop around to meet with the Midland Road Stand