GLF 67: Christopher on the Fir Park pitch....
Turf Luck, Life's a Pitch...
In retrospect, the decision to allow Gretna to groundshare with us could turn out to be a major influence on how this already unforgettable season pans out.
When we agreed to accept Mileson's money to let the'fairytale club' of Scottish football lodge with us, we were already entrenched in the 'win ugly' mindset of Maurice Malpas (which sadly morphed into 'lose ugly and blame everyone bar myself' as his sorry season in charge staggered on).To put it mildly, our style of football wasn't dictated by the quality underfoot and with fans voting with their feet, an alternative income source seemed too good to ignore.
Yet with a change of gaffer we are now obviously playing a style of football not enjoyed by Fir Park patrons for many a long year, and therefore our sodden surface has left us with a few headaches fixture-wise.
When the rain refused to stop, it was all too obvious that we were going to struggle to provide an adequate quality of pitch to allow two top-league sides to play on week in week out.As my dad never, ever tires of reminding me, Fir Park was one of the best parks back in those hazy black and white days.Sadly over the past decade or two it has now gained an unfortunately unarguable reputation as being susceptible to any unwelcome overhead conditions.With Gretna ensuring it got little respite between competitive matches (well, as competitive as a Gretna match can be classed......) the recent precipitation has meant several matches falling foul of the weather.
Taking into account both the size of our first-team squad and the 'ball on the deck' style that has served us so well since August, the poor state of our home ground is surely of some concern to all connected with the club.We fans have rightly revelled in the fast-flowing one-touch stuff we have consistently produced, but on the evidence of the Kilmarnock game recently the players' skills are going to be further tested if they are to maintain some of the moves and goals they have already treated us too.With Ports out of action currently, when any of the back five look up to try and pick out a pass they are obviously struggling as our current front six fail to stand any taller than 5ft 11in, and in all honesty for all the qualities you would list for Messrs Hughes, Lasley, Fitzpatrick, McGarry, Clarkson and McCormack, aerial ability wouldn't be tripping off the tongue.
Marrying this with our constant struggle to deal with more combative teams that like to fire high balls at our back-line, Mark McGhee doesn't have his concerns to seek as he looks to secure some tangible success from a season that has promised so much.As a club we obviously don't have too many pennies stashed away for a rainy day (boom, boom!!). So shelling out an initial forty grand for the patch-up job with more needing to be spent before season 2008/2009 kicks off, is going to present a financial strain to a company that struggled to post a four-figure profit on it's recently published balance sheet.
At the time of writing, the Killie win is the only game witnessed since stage one of the resurfacing work has begun and whilst it wasn't pleasing on the eye it seemed to stand up to the rigours of a frantic ninety minutes.Also with it being our first competitive game for a wee while it would be assumptive to say that our own patchy performance was purely down to the somewhat uneven surface.Having said all that though, I take it Stevie Hammell wasn't shown the quality of surface he was to be asked to charge up and down on before he agreed to pack his bags and return back home ?!?!?!
With everything the club has dealt with in recent months, it would be churlish to run up the white flag because we're unable to produce a bowling green for the rest of the season.If the players have to balance an electrifying first half of the season with a more determined, gritty run-in I'm sure we'd all be more than pleased
With plenty of games still to play, the odds of us managing to finish third, win the Scottish Cup or, whisper it, but even both, are still pretty long, but it would be a sore one to take if the main reason we missed out was our home ground became not a benefit but a hindrance to our results.
Christopher Hutton
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