Winter Sports - Football


GR SSCUTTER The number of the beast


Our anonymous, and somewhat grumpy groundsman, Mr AKA Grasscutter, battles through beasts 1 and 2 and awaits the arrival of beast 3


I recall mentioning Storm Georgina passing close by in my last article, which she did without too much disruption. Well I should have kept my big mouth shut, because Mother Nature certainly decided that we’d all had it far too easy in recent winters.


I refer, of course, to ‘the beast from the east’. We got dumped on big time and no army of volunteers was going to save us. Even if we had managed to clear the pitch, the conditions outside the ground were deemed dangerous, whilst the biting wind chill would have made both playing and spectating a thoroughly miserable experience had we been able to perform a miracle.


Even getting to the ground proved difficult for a couple of days and it was agreed by management that we would all just have to wait it out.


So I sat at home with an equally frustrated Mrs Grasscutter, who kept moaning that it was “March for God’s sake. I should be playing tennis now”, and similar chunterings.


Once we had got on each others nerves for the requisite amount of time, I decided it was time to catch up with industry goings on. My first port of call is usually the Pitchcare website, and actually having some time to view the content was very informative.


I was particularly taken with Dave Saltman’s suggestion for rearranged games to be played later in the season rather than piling them up in the winter months. That makes common sense to me and would certainly help us groundies... and the travelling fans. I wonder what others think of this suggestion?


Worms, leatherjackets and product withdrawals appears to be the order of the day on their forum. It always amazes me how decorous everyone is on there. A pleasant change from some of the acerbic rants on social media, and some sound advice to boot.


Once back at the ground, we were able to clear the snow, aided by considerably higher temperatures (they could hardly have been


52 I PC APRIL/MAY 2018 “


Once again, I must thank the volunteers who turned up to help. You really are a godsend. Haven’t you got homes to go to, or is that your motivation?


much lower) and managed to get a couple of games played before the ‘mini beast’ turned up. This time, however, it was a more straightforward affair to clear the pitch and the stadium approaches.


Once again, I must thank the volunteers who turned up to help. You really are a godsend. Haven’t you got homes to go to, or is that your motivation?


The fixture list shows a couple of away games in a row which, under normal circumstances, would have allowed me to give the pitch some much needed rest and tlc, but it seems that we’ll have a rearranged game to slot in, so that will be out of the question.


It’s been some years since we’ve had a backlog of games and I’d forgotten just how frustrating it can be for all concerned.


Meteorologically, hard winters are often followed by hot summers, so I guess, come July, I’ll be bemoaning the lack of water, scorched grass and working in the heat. Bring on the renovations!


As I write this, more snow is forecast for the Easter weekend. That might just tip Mrs Grasscutter, and me, over the edge!


Keep the faith, and keep cutting the grass. After all, that’s all we do!


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