Solar Panels at VP

Payback time is about 6-8 years from memory however it’s a great asset. Store excess power in batteries to be utilised within the club, floodlights(?) , grass or export to the grid, run club vehicles for free. It’s a no brainer. If we weren’t downsizing I’d install the lot . It suggests the club ain’t going anywhere soon.
Note
Such an install would need approving by the landlord

 

I think that the Stockport game initially ruined the pitch Dave. The weather was atrocious before the game and the pitch was so wet it affected the roll of the ball quite a lot.
On top of that the freeze came which postponed the Doncaster game, as the video by Mick Doyle showed, his pitch fork wouldn't even go into the ground in places as it was frozen solid.
Even that wouldn't have thawed out in the 24 hours until kick-off.
Mick Doyle hasn't a cat in hells chance of doing anything with that pitch until the close season.

 

Totally agree mate unfortunately they were situations out of the clubs and its employees control, maybe we could look into better covers, are the ones we use the same as the ones we used 10/15 years ago if so then as a club we are not giving Mick Doyle the tools he needs to give him the chance to produce a playing surface the players can play football on IMO.
Personally I'm not in favour of fans getting involved with financing projects at the club (new scoreboard) but I would be willing to chip in for some new covers or something that gives us a better chance of keeping games on at Valley Parade, you right the rain we have seen recently added to the freezing weather and all the other conditions of a ground being built on poor foundations any wonder the grass on the pitch is nothing near the condition it was in this time last season.

 

But again I think that’s short term thinking, better pitch better football more effective football which would strongly improve our chances of getting results at home. Let’s face it we can’t get any worse at home .

It even may open the possibilities of attracting better loan players because we can actually play football on the deck from November onwards.

I would rather use the wages of your Taylor’s, Ridehalgh, Derbyshires towards a better structure.

Shit or bust approach has led us absolutely no where, the pitch is a list of problems that we think the silver bullet is promotion. The club don’t understand this is one of the reasons why we are not progressing( not the only one).

 

We don't win many games at home even when the pitch is in tiptop condition.

 

You seem not to want to address the situation with regards the owner paying for improvements doing no matter what ever it costs to the sort the problem out, now you could argue once done that gives the players a better chance to play football on a good pitch which enables our club to climb the leagues THEN it would be in Rupps best interests to get the work done, but not sure even you'd be that optimistic that by making the pitch surface better it would automatically mean we play better football and climb the leagues, I'd argue our best times of getting into a higher league were when our pitch was similar to what is is at the moment and we adapted to those conditions.
You say above "better pitch better football more effective football which would strongly improve our chances of getting results at home" if that was the case why was our home record so bad last season when the pitch was in great nick and commented upon many times how it has weathered the winter, if it had not been for our very good away record we wouldn't have been near a play off place.
I think the club do understand and are very much aware with regards the pitch, but once again who is going to pay for it doing when there is little benefit to the sale of the club to our owner.
Your correct with hindsight money could possibly have been used better, unfortunately at the time the manager thought those players he'd brought to the club would help us achieve our goal.

 

You beat me too it, our home record for years has been pretty poor you have to go back to Stuarts second time at the club where we continued that great run which Phil Parkinson finished his last season at the club and Stuart continued going the full season unbeaten I believe 30+ games without defeat at home.

 

Pitch is not important when the ball is constantly in the air......

 

I think we played on it twice within 5 days when it was very wet, never recovered....

 

I assume you do realise that the ground is built on the side of a valley on foundations of ex quarry rubble, held in place by a massive retaining wall on the Midland Road side, which stops the whole ground sliding down the hill. Or do you?

The only way to get a top quality pitch that lasts the season, however wet or cold the weather, is to put in top quality modern under soil heating and drainage systems. To do this we’d have to excavate the whole lot in order to get pipes etc out through the wall, and build it all up again with better sub soil. This would involve demolishing part of a stand to get excavation equipment in.

To do all of this would cost gazillions of pounds. Who on earth do you think is going to pay for it? There is absolutely zero chance of this happening while Stephan Rupp owns the club. And even if he sells up, the new owners would need to be seriously minted to countenance that sort of expenditure on a ground that we don’t even own.

 

Totally agree. On Boxing Day I called Mick Doyle as given the torrential rain I thought game off. Revelation as the pitch played well, well grassed and no undulations. Then torrential rain up to the Stockport game which was the final nail. In hindsight the Stockport game should have been off and we wouldn’t be having all this debate. Indeed it was only on 90 minutes before kick off. Feel sorry for Mick, as I said in another post we have got some superb marks from match officials for the pitch up to Christmas and had the third best mark for L2 last season, just caught by the weather.

 

Mick said it was the Liverpool U21's game that hurt the pitch. A freeze got into the pitch prior to kick off and that affected the grass coverage.

 

You’re right it did freeze, I was there, real brass monkeys BUT it was fine for Morecambe and got the top kicked off it against Stockport which wouldn’t have happened if the game had been off. That’s my simple point.

 

I'm thinking ahead after several more managers we could get one who wants to play football then the pitch cant be criticised.

 

Is that really our only option? Feels very nuclear to me and I imagine given the rise in technology and particularly in the green space they're will be equipment out there that boots the quality of the grass and soil.

I am no expert but there has to be alternatives, just because it stood up well last year and in the autumn months doesn’t mean we can keep trying to improve it.

 

And as yet you fail to respond to who will pay for it, why would Rupp fork out what will run into millions when he personally gets no return on his expenditure as it's not an asset he owns so he cant use it as leverage to any potential new owner..

 

104 mm of rain fell in December and it wasn't much lower in November.

 

We've had 2 games that have been either on the day of or the day after a storm which will do damage to any pitch. With the amount of storms and heavy rain we've had this season I'd imagine the vast majority of pitches will be worse than they were last year. If you look back through the highlights of home games this season the pitch was fine for the Morecambe game then after that game the pitch has got worse so the likelihood is that if we didn't have the Stockport game the pitch wouldn't look to dissimilar to the Morecambe game

 

Well said.

 

Decision has come through that they don't need prior approval under permitted development rules so they can proceed