THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

IIRC it was fully relaid for the women’s Euros and was then knackered by a series of severe frosts
Which degraded the matting that knitted it altogether (or something). I thought someone at the club
Had said it would be duly relaid after this season but I Might be making that up

Check the LONG post on "Supporters Board" - the last few lines give you your answer.

Be interested in an interview with John Cove or whoever manages the pitch about why it’s in this state - an honest one too, not one full of excuses and lies

Overall responsibility rests with Simon Crampton and his explanation and the details of the clubs plans are detailed in the Supporters Board minutes 7/2/23 Item 4E:
https://www.mkdons.com/siteassets/image/fans/supporters-board/meeting-minutes_supporters-board_7feb2023web.pdf

We’ve played three games in a week on the pitch, it’s got two weeks to recover with some help from the grounds staff.

It’s looked better, but it’s also looked a lot worse than now.

Wrong type of grass, Reported

Yeah, I said an honest one and not one full of excuses and lies.

What is wrong with what Simon has said? Bit harsh to be accusing him of lying. He has said we will be reverting back to a Desso pitch at the end of this season.

State of pitch
Our original pitch was a Desso pitch. This is normal scarified and reseeded
but due to the events that were taking place at the stadium a different
system was used. The grass was grown off site in the form of a “carpet”
with only small lengths of black fibre shard anchoring the roots.

We will be reverting back to a Desso pitch but this will be after next season.
The issues with the current pitch started with the deep frost which made
the shard liable to snapping which then makes the grass less stable. As the
weather improves the pitch will improve.

The pitch is laid on sand and is therefore extremely free draining which is
why watering is required to give it a slick playing surface. At times it may
appear to be flooded from the stands but this is just the reflection of the
floodlights off the black fibre shard within the pitch.

This does have an air of bullshit baffles brains.

What deep frost are they referring to? we havent really had any so far this winter or is it referring to last winter?

If the shard support structures have been damaged, then surely they remain damaged? How will the pitch materially improve with a design principle no longer functioning as intended?

Pitches inside large stadia are always very difficult to maintain but whatever the reason for this solution being selected, it seems a bit of a failure.

We also have one of the most modern stadiums in the EFL, but have the worst pitch. How do we have all the infrastructure but an awful pitch. It probably doesnt help we have no training ground so probably end up on the pitch.

The minutes are from Feb last year.