Matchday Thread Saturday 27/08/16

[Shotsfan1993]

Furby at home for us, so we would be able to extend our 100% home record and put a couple of dodgy results behind us. Bellamy, Fenelon and Cole should all be back so nothing more than convincing win will do.

Especially as we're away to Dover on Monday and always seem to get hammered down there!

 

[fifaking]

The way we've been playing his year I don't expect anything at Dagenham. Maybe a public embarrassment on tv? Then again they got thumped by Chester so how good can they be really?

Luckily I'm away so won't have to watch, brilliant stuff.

0-0.

 

[Bluandwite]

Chuckled at this, one of Lincoln, Macc or Torquay must be responsible!

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/...ED__Doswell_loving_the_digs_____justapubteam/

 

[Luke Imp]

We've not been to their place so it can't be us he's referring to.

 

[Chris FGR]

Both our manager and a few players have expressed their dislike for plastic pitches during the week, but we have to get on with it so have been training on 3G in Bristol. Hopefully Maidstone at least water it so the ball actually rolls.

Football should be played on grass at National levels, and all clubs playing in primarily professional leagues should be able to maintain a decent grass surface.

Anything else is tinpot imo.

 

[Bendubz]

Both our manager and a few players have expressed their dislike for plastic pitches during the week, but we have to get on with it so have been training on 3G in Bristol. Hopefully Maidstone at least water it so the ball actually rolls.

Football should be played on grass at National levels, and all clubs playing in primarily professional leagues should be able to maintain a decent grass surface.

Anything else is tinpot imo.

I'm sure you'll be fine with me bringing this back when the bad weather inevitably rolls in and causes postponements then. I mean, since you make such a point of having a decent grass surface the postponements surely won't hit little old Forest Green's ground, will they?

 

[Silver Stone]

Getting the excuses in nice and early there.

 

[Greenacres]

I'm sure you'll be fine with me bringing this back when the bad weather inevitably rolls in and causes postponements then. I mean, since you make such a point of having a decent grass surface the postponements surely won't hit little old Forest Green's ground, will they?

In ten years at our current ground I can only remember a couple of games not taking place at the appointed time, I think that one was due to either a frozen pitch or waterlogging and the other because our opponents folded and failed to turn up. We also had a game abandoned after half an hour because, don't you love irony, of a power cut.

 

[Murphy]

Would take a draw but I actually think we'll win - expect we'll make some changes for either this one or Sutton on Monday.

 

[JaredSUFC]

Chuckled at this, one of Lincoln, Macc or Torquay must be responsible!

http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/...ED__Doswell_loving_the_digs_____justapubteam/

Mix of all 3 to be fair, in one shape or another. Some Torquay fan spent a large part of last Tuesday tweeting SUFC's twitter account crying about floodlights. I know some Macc fans were crying about the 3G pitch over the weekend (not the guys on here obviously) and judging by some Twitter comments in reply to today's article, there are some Lincoln fans who still can't accept the fact we didn't roll over and die for them the other week. TBH I love this kind of article, why shouldn't we have an us v them attitude, because whilst we're riding high at the moment, the majority of us Sutton-ites know this won't last, and we'll be happy to avoid the drop come April, but anything to foster team spirit and togetherness across the whole club is only a good thing IMO.

As for Saturday, it's going to be hard to tell how we'll do, as per normal. On paper we can win this, but Football isn't played on paper. However play to our strengths, and we could be fine. As always with away games, I'm happy with a draw.

Heads up for Daggers fans, due to engineering works in the Sutton area on Monday, both West Sutton and Sutton stations will be closed. Your best bet for public transport (given that parking at the ground is permit holders only and difficult in the surrounding streets) is to Tube it to Morden and catch the 413 (stops outside the main entrance on Gander Green Lane more or less) or the 80 which stops on Collingwood Road, or to catch a train to Worcester Park from Waterloo, and then catch the 213 or 151 buses to the top of Gander Green Lane. No segregation on Monday, and also NO DRUMS (according to some Torquay fans this may have violated their human rights, tough titties)

 

[LeWhites]

Both our manager and a few players have expressed their dislike for plastic pitches during the week, but we have to get on with it so have been training on 3G in Bristol. Hopefully Maidstone at least water it so the ball actually rolls.

Football should be played on grass at National levels, and all clubs playing in primarily professional leagues should be able to maintain a decent grass surface.

Anything else is tinpot imo.

Couldn't agree more. Any club at this level should be able to get a game on unless the weather is exceptionally bad. And exceptionally bad weather can cause postponements even on 3g pitches.

Barring Braintree and Eastleigh there weren't too many awful pitches last season. Eastleigh was understandable as they sacrificed their pitch in order to get their FA Cup game on

 

[Bigluke]

Must admit, we had one cancelled half way through the match last year, Bromley I think it was, but my God, the rain that came down in that game, I don't think any pitch could have stood up to it. But generally, don't like 3G at all.
Of course I appreciate the greater benefits, but even after looking at the problems at Eastleigh and Braintree have had with their playing surface, still not right really is it?

 

[Bigluke]

Long trip down to sunny Torquay, but hopefully one where we can extend our winning run. It appears they have been playing a lot of long ball football, so it might not be the prettiest games to watch, but am really hopeful for collecting all the points, but we thought that last season when we lost after being 2-0 up!

In fairness though the fixtures have with hindsight, turned out to be very kind to us so far, as surely Wrexham, Eastleigh and especially Barrow as the season goes on can not continue being as poor as they all were against us, and NF were just dire, I mean really dire.

With Aldershot (H) and Southport (A) to follow in the week after we should, certainly could be seven points better off, and as these games are then followed by four real tough'uns we will certainly need them if we are to enjoy another battle for the play off's.

 

[Mark kavanagh]

We are unbeaten away since nov 24th i have a funny feeling southport will end this despite it being a virtual home game for us

 

[JaredSUFC]

Couldn't agree more. Any club at this level should be able to get a game on unless the weather is exceptionally bad. And exceptionally bad weather can cause postponements even on 3g pitches.

Barring Braintree and Eastleigh there weren't too many awful pitches last season. Eastleigh was understandable as they sacrificed their pitch in order to get their FA Cup game on

There were matches we were able to play last year on our pitch, that I know we would never have played on our old grass surface. Our old pitch was notoriously bad, a combination of mud and sand with a little grass thrown on from about October onwards. In the 2012-13 season we didn't play a home game for over 2 months due to the pitch. Going for 3G wasn't our first solution, the club has spent lots of money over the years trying to sort the pitch out but to no avail.

I'm of the opinion that installing a 3G pitch may have been the wisest decision Sutton United have made for a good number of years. We no longer spend money on offsite training facilities, or other grounds for our youth and reserve teams, everything is done on the one pitch. Every Sutton United team from the under 8 girls team, to the disabled teams, to the youth, academy and first teams now play on the same pitch. The community makes good use of the facilities making us a community hub, which is one of the few ways we can grow as a Football club. TBH I'm a romantic who prefers grass, the old school muddy pitches etc, but I'm pragmatic enough to know that 3G is a good thing for our club.

BTW since installing their 3G pitch in time for the 2012-13 season, Maidstone have had one postponement, due to issues off the pitch. All weather conditions have been dealt with there, and they've been able to get home games on

 

[LeWhites]

There were matches we were able to play last year on our pitch, that I know we would never have played on our old grass surface. Our old pitch was notoriously bad, a combination of mud and sand with a little grass thrown on from about October onwards. In the 2012-13 season we didn't play a home game for over 2 months due to the pitch. Going for 3G wasn't our first solution, the club has spent lots of money over the years trying to sort the pitch out but to no avail.

I'm of the opinion that installing a 3G pitch may have been the wisest decision Sutton United have made for a good number of years. We no longer spend money on offsite training facilities, or other grounds for our youth and reserve teams, everything is done on the one pitch. Every Sutton United team from the under 8 girls team, to the disabled teams, to the youth, academy and first teams now play on the same pitch. The community makes good use of the facilities making us a community hub, which is one of the few ways we can grow as a Football club. TBH I'm a romantic who prefers grass, the old school muddy pitches etc, but I'm pragmatic enough to know that 3G is a good thing for our club.

BTW since installing their 3G pitch in time for the 2012-13 season, Maidstone have had one postponement, due to issues off the pitch. All weather conditions have been dealt with there, and they've been able to get home games on

Or you could have spent some more money and effort growing a decent grass surface like everybody else manages to.

As bigluke said, we had one game postponed and that was called off after an hour as there was about 2 inches of water resting on the surface which all came down in a 30 minute downpour. (It was Welling not Bromley).


On a different note, I have LUMPED ON us to beat Torquay at 13/10

 

[Greenacres]

Or you could have spent some more money and effort growing a decent grass surface like everybody else manages to.

However, despite the fact that I prefer to see football played on grass, there are positives of having a synthetic surface. There is no need for the pitch to recover between games, no replacing divots or re-marking the lines, as soon as one game finishes another can start. Additionally it allows pitches to be located in areas with really bad drainage, not everyone will be lucky enough to have their ground in a place where rainwater disappears almost as soon as it falls. For many clubs this will also allow them to have a revenue stream that those with a grass surface largely miss out on, which in many cases may be vital to survival.

 

[The_Boss]

I'm sure you'll be fine with me bringing this back when the bad weather inevitably rolls in and causes postponements then. I mean, since you make such a point of having a decent grass surface the postponements surely won't hit little old Forest Green's ground, will they?

I hadn't realised 3G pitches were impossible to get covered in snow. Seeing as you must have all public approaches to the ground safe and passable as well to get games on in periods of freezing temperatures, do you have 3G all around the outside of the ground as well?

There's no denying the advantages of 3G but to ignore the vast differences to playing on real grass, like 99% of other clubs do, it undoubtedly gives you a big advantage for home games. (And yes i do appreciate the reverse of that for away games). Personally I played to a fairly decent amateur/semi-pro level and never enjoyed going away to teams on artificial turf.

 

[Woodworm]

Is there any stats on the advantages of having a home artificial pitch?

 

[Silver Stone]

I'm still waiting for someone to describe this magical home advantage the 3G gives us, given I've yet to see it.

As Jared says, of course I'd love to have a normal grass pitch, but the massive benefits of the artificial one are impossible to ignore for a small club like ourselves.

 

[LeWhites]

However, despite the fact that I prefer to see football played on grass, there are positives of having a synthetic surface. There is no need for the pitch to recover between games, no replacing divots or re-marking the lines, as soon as one game finishes another can start. Additionally it allows pitches to be located in areas with really bad drainage, not everyone will be lucky enough to have their ground in a place where rainwater disappears almost as soon as it falls. For many clubs this will also allow them to have a revenue stream that those with a grass surface largely miss out on, which in many cases may be vital to survival.

We have a camber on our pitch so the water runs off and the grounds staff put endless work into the pitch - especially over the summer months, in order to prepare for the winter. Eastleigh appear to have enough cash to pay League 1 wages but not enough to sort out their pitch, same as Braintree to a lesser extent. It's a matter of priorities. I think I'm right in saying that the only official full time member of staff at Dover is the grounds man.

You should not be able to just lay an artificial surface that definitely has an impact on the way the game is played as an easy cop out solution then use the revenue stream it creates as justification for it. If a club can't afford to maintain it's pitch then it should drop down to a level that allows it to afford the basic costs of running a football club. Quite frankly it's not the problem of other clubs or the league and the fact that certain clubs benefit from being able to rent out their pitch is of no benefit to everybody else and therefore shouldn't be considered.

Hopefully the Football League refuse to allow such nonsense

 

[Greenacres]

The_Boss does raise a valid point, which applies to clubs with all types of pitch. Games may be postponed due to the state of roads around grounds, safety of supporters getting to and from games will always be a concern and most clubs will err on the side of caution usually following advice from the Police. I know that fans will be grumbling about having to play games at Sutton and Maidstone this season but the smarter clubs will turn this to their advantage. Before the season started everyone knew that they would have to play two games on artificial pitches, if your club isn't smart enough to train on this type of pitch in advance then all fool you. At least you know what the conditions will be like, the same for everyone, regardless of when you have to play there. This certainly can't be said for every grass pitch, especially in the depths of winter.

 

[Bendubz]

I hadn't realised 3G pitches were impossible to get covered in snow. Seeing as you must have all public approaches to the ground safe and passable as well to get games on in periods of freezing temperatures, do you have 3G all around the outside of the ground as well?

There's no denying the advantages of 3G but to ignore the vast differences to playing on real grass, like 99% of other clubs do, it undoubtedly gives you a big advantage for home games. (And yes i do appreciate the reverse of that for away games). Personally I played to a fairly decent amateur/semi-pro level and never enjoyed going away to teams on artificial turf.

I believe I'm right in saying both us and Sutton had better away records than home records last season, I think of the top clubs the only team we beat at home last year was Truro, Sutton, Ebbsfleet and Whitehawk all won at our place at the very least.

We've had a couple of games where snow would have affected a normal pitch, but any large bits could just be swept to the side of the pitch and the little bits that remained on the pitch (you know like when it's still falling and it just looks like powder) didn't really affect the game much, there was no real change to the surface, maybe the ball ran a tiny bit slower but that's it. And one match I remember vividly was a NYD game against Margate that went ahead despite being really close to the river, which had flooded, whilst it was still raining. There was a quarter of an hour delay to kickoff because the Margate lot were delayed by the weather, but the match went ahead fine.

 

[Luke Imp]

I'm still waiting for someone to describe this magical home advantage the 3G gives us, given I've yet to see it.

As Jared says, of course I'd love to have a normal grass pitch, but the massive benefits of the artificial one are impossible to ignore for a small club like ourselves.

It's not magical, but 3G/4G plays differently to grass. As a post above, it's obviously the other way round for away games.

 

[LeWhites]

I believe I'm right in saying both us and Sutton had better away records than home records last season, I think of the top clubs the only team we beat at home last year was Truro, Sutton, Ebbsfleet and Whitehawk all won at our place at the very least.

We've had a couple of games where snow would have affected a normal pitch, but any large bits could just be swept to the side of the pitch and the little bits that remained on the pitch (you know like when it's still falling and it just looks like powder) didn't really affect the game much, there was no real change to the surface, maybe the ball ran a tiny bit slower but that's it. And one match I remember vividly was a NYD game against Margate that went ahead despite being really close to the river, which had flooded, whilst it was still raining. There was a quarter of an hour delay to kickoff because the Margate lot were delayed by the weather, but the match went ahead fine.

Not really relevant how well you do on it. I don't understand why you or any other club need it when 99% of clubs manage just fine without it, and pretty much every player and supporter around would rather play/watch football on proper grass. If you can't survive financially without it then that's your own problem.

 

[Bendubz]

Not really relevant how well you do on it. I don't understand why you or any other club need it when 99% of clubs manage just fine without it, and pretty much every player and supporter around would rather play/watch football on proper grass. If you can't survive financially without it then that's your own problem.

No one said anything about finance though, and The Boss specifically said "it undoubtedly gives you an advantage for home games", so how well we do at home compared to away is highly relevant to the topic, no matter how much you protest

 

[The_Boss]

I believe I'm right in saying both us and Sutton had better away records than home records last season, I think of the top clubs the only team we beat at home last year was Truro, Sutton, Ebbsfleet and Whitehawk all won at our place at the very least.

We've had a couple of games where snow would have affected a normal pitch, but any large bits could just be swept to the side of the pitch and the little bits that remained on the pitch (you know like when it's still falling and it just looks like powder) didn't really affect the game much, there was no real change to the surface, maybe the ball ran a tiny bit slower but that's it. And one match I remember vividly was a NYD game against Margate that went ahead despite being really close to the river, which had flooded, whilst it was still raining. There was a quarter of an hour delay to kickoff because the Margate lot were delayed by the weather, but the match went ahead fine.

I should have made it a little more clear I guess, I was thinking more about if northern clubs had 3G pitches, it wouldn't make a jot of difference when a foot of snow is dumped down in 12 hours on a Wednesday afternoon followed by a week of -5 temps.

To be honest I'm not overly against clubs having them, it's allowed so everyone has to get on with it. Most clubs will train on it, but it's hard to recreate match tempo and scenario ahead of a competitive match.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

I don't really get the big deal here. A lot of grounds will have differences that the home team can use to their advantage. Take Underhill for example, the slope was massive. You're not telling me there was no advantage from being used to it?

Move on I say.

 

[Mark kavanagh]

I agree cheese and biscuits you cannot say that playing in front of 26000 on the kop or holte end did not give the home team an advantage

 

[Minstermen central]

Surprise surprise massive debate about 3G pitches because FGR are playing on them,who gives a shit every club has to play 2 games on them so all playing the same,yes don't like it but all in same boat,saw the Maidstone game and don't think it gave them an advantage,the main advantage Maidstone had was a very narrow pitch for long throws and you can do that on a grass pitch?