Winter Sports - Football
“When I was younger, I did quite a lot of fancy cutting patterns and always made sure it was looking perfect in case the Chief Executive would walk down the stairs or what have you.” “But then I realised: why? They only care if it works on matchday, because that is what the business is. So, we do the maintenance on the other days, and just make sure it’s in its best condition on Saturday. That’s all they want.” The main training pitch is of Fibresand construction from the 1992‐93 season, and had drainage installed for the first time around three years ago.
Were the club to reach the Premier League within the next few years, they have indicated they would be likely to upgrade this to Desso also.
This would be part of an announced development project, which aims to have Hillsborough safely increase its capacity to nearly 45,000. This would make it the second largest‐capacity English football stadium outside of the Premier League, after only Sunderland’s Stadium of Light. This is quite conceivable, as the club has reached the play‐offs in two consecutive seasons, and are
[at time of writing] hovering within a few wins of the top six again.
The club has a strong following, perhaps due to being one of the oldest professional association football clubs in the world, and their attendance varies between 25,000 and 35,000.
Their local rivalry with city‐ sharing and also‐ancient Sheffield United was contested recently for the first time in five years. The pitch provided a quick passing game and six goals were scored. Secondary training pitches are more difficult as the profile contains some unwanted materials one might expect in a city environment.
The club also has a Tiger Turf synthetic surface under a dome, which is used up to seven days per week by the club’s academy, so cannot be hired out due to time constraints.
However, this pitch is occasionally used by those organising major and regular fixtures important to the area, such as charity matches and the university varsity match. Along with the Desso, the club has further shown willingness to invest in quality by purchasing
PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 I 49
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