‘Truly testing’ winter at Plymouth: Plymouth Argyle’s head of grounds Chris Ralph has described the ‘truly testing’ winter that has taken its toll on the Home Park pitch.
February has seen record rainfall levels across the country and Plymouth has not escaped the deluges.
‘Truly testing’ winter at Plymouth
The combination of that very wet weather, plus a busy programme of games in the month, has inevitably had a detrimental effect on the usually immaculate playing surface.
Ralph explained the situation in a post on social media on Saturday morning as groundsmen up and down the country battled to get games played.
Argyle’s League Two game against Bradford City was played in a mudbath at Valley Parade after referee Carl Boyeson carried out two pitch inspections.
Ralph tweeted: “Good luck to everyone today trying to get games on! This winter, and in particular this last month, have been truly testing!
“We’ve gone from a fantastic coverage to very patchy with seven uses in February and pretty much all in wet weather. All good fun!”
Ralph will be relieved there has been some drier weather over the past couple of days.
He and his staff have two games to prepare for this week, with Argyle playing Ian Holloway’s Grimsby Town tomorrow night.
Relegation-threatened Macclesfield Town will then be the visitors to Home Park on Saturday.
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